Vanguard Total Stock Market ETF Sees Robust Inflows

Vanguard Total Stock Market ETF ( $VTI ) has risen by 0.61% in the past week. It has experienced a 5-day net inflow of $424.21 million.
This is due, in part, to market sentiment on some of the ETF’s largest holdings. For example:

• Apple Inc spent the week balancing legal and regulatory headwinds with signs of solid demand. In the U.S., a federal judge refused Masimo’s request to block imports of the Apple Watch Series 9 and Ultra 2, allowing Apple to keep selling these high‑margin devices while their blood‑oxygen patent fight continues; Apple has tweaked the software so more processing happens on the iPhone, though Masimo says this doesn’t solve the issue. In Brazil, Apple agreed to open up iOS by allowing third‑party app stores and alternative payment methods after an antitrust case from MercadoLibre, a move that could pressure App Store fees but only in that market and under a three‑year settlement. Meanwhile, new data from China show foreign smartphone shipments jumping over 120% in November, driven mainly by strong iPhone 17 demand and record pre‑orders, suggesting Apple’s position in its key overseas market remains resilient despite competition from Huawei and Xiaomi. Across Wall Street, AAPL continues to carry a Moderate Buy rating with an average price target near $299, implying high‑single‑digit percentage upside as investors look past regulatory noise toward steady hardware and services growth.
• Nvidia Corporation remained firmly in the AI spotlight, with fresh deals and regulatory wins reinforcing its status as a core way to play the boom. The company struck a non‑exclusive licensing agreement with AI‑chip startup Groq that could be worth up to $20 billion, gaining access to Groq’s ultra‑fast inference “LPU” technology while hiring founder Jonathan Ross and other key leaders, a move analysts say strengthens Nvidia’s position in the next phase of AI where running models (inference) becomes more important than just training them. At the same time, the U.S. has approved exports of Nvidia’s powerful H200 AI chips to China, reopening a vital growth market and adding to expectations of robust data‑center demand through 2026. Top Wall Street voices such as Wedbush’s Dan Ives see NVDA reaching around $250 by the end of 2026, while some firms have Street‑high targets near $350, reflecting confidence that Nvidia’s GPU and software stack will remain central to global AI infrastructure even after a big share‑price run. Consensus remains a Strong Buy, with an average target around $263.58 that implies close to 40% upside from current levels, though analysts caution that any slowdown in AI spending or new competitive threats could bring sharp volatility.
• Microsoft continued to cement its role at the heart of the enterprise AI cycle, even as some investors warn about the risks of heavy spending. The company reported fiscal Q1 2026 revenue up 18% year‑on‑year to $77.7 billion, fueled by 17% growth in Productivity and Business Processes and a 28% jump in Intelligent Cloud, with Azure and related cloud services rising about 40%; commercial remaining performance obligations climbed past $400 billion, highlighting strong, long‑term demand for Azure and AI tools like Copilot. To support this, Microsoft ramped capex to $34.9 billion in the quarter, plans to boost AI capacity by more than 80% this year, and aims to more than double its data‑center footprint in two years, underpinned by a deep partnership with OpenAI that includes a roughly 27% stake and a $250 billion Azure commitment. Some market voices, such as investor David Desjardins, argue this could lead to overbuilt capacity and question whether OpenAI can fully honor its huge cloud contracts, drawing parallels with past infrastructure bubbles. Even so, most analysts remain upbeat: Wall Street rates MSFT a Strong Buy with an average 12‑month price target around $631—roughly 30% upside—on the view that Microsoft’s unique integration of cloud, productivity software and AI positions it as one of the main long‑term winners of the AI investment wave.