Vanguard Total Stock Market ETF Sees Robust Inflows

Vanguard Total Stock Market ETF ( $VTI ) has risen by 0.38% in the past week. It has experienced a 5-day net inflow of $1.12 billion.
This is due, in part, to market sentiment on some of the ETF’s largest holdings. For example:

• Apple Inc remained a core market talking point as Wall Street weighed strong iPhone momentum against a stretched valuation and looming leadership change. Analysts highlighted better‑than‑expected demand for the new iPhone 17 line, helped by deeper on‑device and cloud‑based GenAI features, with Evercore ISI lifting its price target and forecasting revenue and earnings ahead of consensus. Services, now over a quarter of projected FY25 sales, continue to provide higher‑margin, recurring growth, but several commentators stressed that the stock is still fundamentally a hardware and iPhone‑cycle story, with Apple’s near‑$4 trillion size limiting the scope for “explosive” expansion. Against this backdrop, the Street’s view is constructive but not euphoric: the shares carry a Moderate Buy rating and roughly mid‑teens percentage upside, even as some high‑profile investors call it “a great company at a not‑so‑great price.” Separately, succession speculation intensified as long‑time hardware engineering chief John Ternus emerged as the leading internal candidate to replace CEO Tim Cook by 2026, reinforcing expectations of continuity but adding a new variable for long‑term holders to monitor.
• Nvidia Corporation stayed firmly at the center of the AI trade, using CES 2026 and a key leadership hire to underline its ambitions well beyond chips. On the product side, the company showcased Alpamayo, a vision‑language‑action model designed to handle the “long tail” of rare driving scenarios, alongside the AlpaSim simulation platform and large open driving datasets to help automakers accelerate autonomous‑vehicle development. Nvidia also pushed further into “physical AI” with its Isaac GR00T N1 humanoid‑robot model, positioning its software and computing stack as a turnkey path for carmakers and robot builders looking to catch up. In parallel, Nomura and others flagged that Nvidia’s new Inference Context Memory Storage Platform and VR NVL144 racks could consume enormous volumes of high‑capacity NAND, tightening memory markets and reinforcing Nvidia’s influence across the semiconductor supply chain. Strategically, the firm hired former Google Cloud marketing leader Alison Wagonfeld as its first chief marketing officer, signaling a shift toward more aggressive enterprise and platform‑level branding as it approaches a $5 trillion market value and retains dominant AI GPU share. Analysts remain strongly bullish, with a Strong Buy consensus and expectations of substantial upside, reflecting belief that Nvidia will continue to set the pace in AI infrastructure and emerging robotics applications.
• Microsoft faced short‑term skepticism around its AI‑PC strategy even as it doubled down on gaming and broader AI infrastructure, with Wall Street still largely unfazed. At CES, major partner Dell warned that the much‑touted AI PC upgrade cycle has so far disappointed, noting that consumers do not yet buy laptops based on AI branding and can run most mainstream AI tasks on older Windows 10 machines; this has contributed to modest share‑price softness and raised questions about how quickly Microsoft can turn its heavy AI investment in Windows into a hardware‑driven refresh boom. The company moved quickly to reassure investors on operations, forcefully denying reports of 11,000–22,000 planned layoffs linked to AI spending and labeling the rumors “100 percent made up.” Looking ahead, Microsoft is preparing “major updates” to the Windows 11 full‑screen experience and rolling out new WiFi‑enabled Xbox controllers aimed at improving cloud‑gaming performance, part of a broader strategy to make PCs feel more console‑like and to cement Xbox as the backbone of streaming‑based gaming. Despite the mixed near‑term news, analysts remain firmly positive: MSFT holds a Strong Buy consensus and an average target implying more than 30% upside, underscoring its status as a core long‑term holding for investors seeking exposure to both enterprise AI and the evolving gaming ecosystem.