Nvidia opens up $1 trillion valuation gap over Apple

Nvidia jumped to a new record high after its boss said the semiconductor giant had gained approval from the Trump administration to sell its AI chips to China.

The chip maker is now worth more than $1 trillion (£746bn) more than Apple less than a week after it became the first publicly traded company worth more than $4 trillion.

Nvidia surged by 4.2pc to nearly $171 in early trading in New York after chief executive Jensen Huang said it would restart sales of its advanced H20 devices to the world’s second largest economy.

The chips had been the subject of US export controls designed to keep the most advanced chips out of Chinese hands amid national security concerns.

Nvidia’s surge also boosted rivals, with fellow chip manufacturer AMD up 6.3pc and Broadcom up 2.2pc.

Its clear lead over Apple, once the world’s most valuable company, is symbolic of how stock markets have been driven higher by the mania surrounding artificial intelligence stocks.

The chip makers surged as part of a wider rally on Wall Street despite US inflation figures that were slightly stronger than analysts had forecast.

The US consumer prices index increased by 2.7pc in June, according to official figures, which was faster than 2.4pc in May and the 2.6pc predicted by analysts.

Atakan Bakiskan of Berenberg said the rise in US inflation last month “revealed early signs of tariff-led price increases”.

JP Morgan Chase boss Jamie Dimon warned there remain “significant risks” to the US economy from tariffs and trade uncertainty as the bank revealed quarterly profits of $15bn (£11.2bn).

Meanwhile, US treasury secretary Scott Bessent said Donald Trump has started a “formal process” to replace the chairman of the Federal Reserve.

Mr Bessent said potential successors to Jerome Powell were already being identified, adding it was “President Trump’s decision, and it will move at his speed”.

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That’s all for today on this blog.

Two of Wall Street’s three main indexes remain in negative territory, with the Dow down 0.9pc and the S&P 500 down 0.3pc. However, the Nasdaq is up 0.4pc.

You can read all the latest from The Telegraph on business and the markets here.

Donald Trump has said that he expects to meet Sir Keir Starmer in Scotland to refine the trade deal between the countries.

“We are going to have a meeting with him, probably in Aberdeen. And we’re going to do a lot of different things, also refine the trade deal that we’ve made,” Mr Trump said.

The US president’s agreement with the UK was his first deal since unsettling markets with his announced - and then paused - “liberation day” tariffs.