Vanguard S&P 500 ETF Sees Gains Amid Strong AI Leaders

Vanguard S&P 500 ETF ( $VOO ) has risen by 0.54% in the past week. It has experienced a 5-day net inflow of $2.68 billion.
This is due, in part, to market sentiment on some of the ETF’s largest holdings. For example:

• Nvidia Corporation had a volatile week: despite record Q4 revenue of $68.1 billion and a strong earnings beat, the stock slid about 5% as investors questioned how long hyperscalers will keep spending aggressively on AI and worried about competition and export curbs. Yet Wall Street stays firmly bullish, pointing to new inference chips, strong data-center demand from Microsoft and Amazon, and price targets that imply roughly 45%–60% upside.
• Apple Inc is being cast as a potential comeback story in AI just as the smartphone market faces what IDC calls a “structural reset,” with low-end Android makers squeezed by surging memory prices and premium players expected to gain share. Analysts see Apple’s ecosystem and privacy focus supporting new AI Companion devices and a more personal Siri from 2026 onward, with forecasts of about $25 billion in extra hardware revenue by 2030 and low‑teens percentage upside in the stock.
• Microsoft moved to reassure investors that its AI partnership with OpenAI remains central even after OpenAI signed a major cloud and funding deal with Amazon, stressing that Azure is still the core platform and Microsoft keeps its exclusive tech license and revenue-sharing rights. While the company put the last phase of its Sammamish Village campus on hold and faces uncertainty around the next Xbox, analysts still rate the shares a Strong Buy, with average targets near $600 implying roughly 50% upside as Microsoft doubles down on AI data centers, in-house Maia chips, and autonomous AI agents.