Vanguard S&P 500 ETF Sees Inflows Amid AI Surge

Vanguard S&P 500 ETF ( $VOO ) has fallen by 0.68% in the past week. It has experienced a 5-day net inflow of $8.65 billion.
This is due, in part, to market sentiment on some of the ETF’s largest holdings. For example:

• Nvidia Corporation heads into 2026 as the market’s prime AI-infrastructure play, with fresh signals that demand for its GPUs remains robust rather than peaking. TikTok parent ByteDance is reportedly preparing to spend about $14 billion on Nvidia AI chips in 2026, while Chinese tech firms have placed large orders for H200 data‑center processors after U.S. authorities cleared exports, prompting Nvidia to ask TSMC to ramp up H200 production by mid‑2026. At the same time, Nvidia is bolstering its technology edge with a planned $20 billion acquisition of AI‑chip startup Groq, aimed at complementing its GPUs with Groq’s ultra‑fast inference LPUs, and CEO Jensen Huang is expected to showcase data‑center, robotics, and “physical AI” advances at CES 2026. Despite export‑control and competition risks, the stock has climbed roughly 35% in 2025 and still carries a Strong Buy rating on Wall Street, with an average price target implying about 41% upside and reinforcing Nvidia’s status as a core holding for investors seeking direct exposure to multi‑year AI data‑center spending.
• Apple Inc remains a central but increasingly contested gateway to the digital world, as it pushes deeper into AI‑enhanced hardware while facing new forms of platform risk. OpenAI CEO Sam Altman is openly positioning ChatGPT as a long‑term rival to Apple’s iOS ecosystem, testing an “app‑less” model where users complete tasks inside the chatbot instead of traditional iPhone apps—an experience that is still clunky today but underscores a challenge to Apple’s App Store fees and control over services. Apple is responding by leaning into its devices‑plus‑services strategy, with strong iPhone 17 demand, growing high‑margin Services revenue, and rumors of a premium AirPods Pro 3 variant featuring infrared cameras and “Visual Intelligence” to enable AI‑driven environmental awareness and gesture controls. The stock is up more than 32% in six months and trades at a rich multiple of around 31x expected FY 2027 earnings, leading some analysts, such as Raymond James’ Srini Pajjuri, to stay cautious on valuation even as the broader Street maintains a Moderate Buy rating and an average target near $299 per share—pointing to roughly 9%–11% upside and suggesting Apple is seen as a solid, if no longer cheap, AI‑era staple.
• Microsoft enters 2026 with financial fundamentals that look stronger than its recent 15% share‑price gain might imply, creating what many analysts view as an attractive setup for long‑term investors. After years of AI‑driven enthusiasm, the stock’s valuation has quietly compressed to roughly 30x forward earnings and about 11x forward sales—toward the low end of its three‑year range—even as revenue continues to grow in the high teens and earnings climb more than 20%. The main overhang is a historic spending surge: Microsoft has poured around $69 billion, or nearly a quarter of revenue, into AI and cloud infrastructure, but a $392 billion commercial cloud backlog growing 51% year‑on‑year suggests much of this capacity is already backed by contracted demand. With Azure sustaining high‑30% to 40% growth, margins still in the mid‑to‑high 40% range, and capital intensity expected to normalize as AI projects move from build‑out to monetization, Wall Street is overwhelmingly bullish: 32 of 34 analysts rate the stock a Buy with an average price target around $631, implying roughly 30%–33% upside. Broad ownership by major funds and hedge‑fund backing reinforces the view that Microsoft is shifting into a “harvest phase” of its AI investments, positioning the stock to potentially outperform the broader market in 2026 and beyond.