Business 18 July 2026

Apple is worth more than Nvidia again — and the 5-trillion mark is in sight

Apple overtook Nvidia to become the world's most valuable company at 4.88 trillion dollars, reclaiming the top spot for the first time since April 2025.

Apple closed out Friday as the world’s most valuable company, with a market capitalisation of 4.88 trillion dollars — just ahead of Nvidia’s roughly 4.86 trillion after the chipmaker slid 3.5% on the day. It’s the first time since April 2025 that the iPhone maker has held the crown, and the next symbolic bar is already visible from here: 5 trillion.

Why did Apple overtake Nvidia?

Less through its own fireworks, more through a rotation working its way across Wall Street. After years of rewarding whoever sells the shovels of the gold rush — the chips and the data centres — investors are starting to ask who will actually turn AI into durable revenue. That’s where Apple’s thesis gets stronger: billions of devices already in customers’ hands, growing services, and comparatively modest infrastructure spending. The stock is up 22% in 2026, in a year when Wall Street came off a record first half.

Nvidia’s drop wasn’t an isolated accident: semiconductors fell as a block, with the market digesting doubts about the pace of AI infrastructure spending. Across the street, Alphabet dropped more than 4% after news that Gemini 3.5 Pro has been delayed for missing internal targets — more wood on the same bonfire of expectations.

So who gets to 5 trillion first?

The race is wide open and the gap is a fingernail — any single session could swap the podium again. The tasty detail is what changed in the argument: Nvidia still sells everything it makes, but the market now prices control of distribution — the iPhone in the pocket, the app store, the services — as highly as it prices the engines themselves. The official numbers live on Apple’s investor relations page and Nvidia’s; the rest gets settled session by session. For now, the apple sleeps at the top — even if only by pocket change, at trillion scale.

By Beatriz Mota

Image: European Commission - Photographer: Lukasz Kobus / Wikimedia Commons (CC BY 4.0)

Business 18 July 2026

Markets tracker: gold, the Fed, oil and stocks

Our running tracker of the markets that move savings in Portugal — gold, Fed and ECB decisions, oil and stocks. Updated whenever there is news.

This is our running tracker of the markets that move savings in Portugal. Instead of a fresh article for every swing, we update this page whenever something matters: gold, Federal Reserve and European Central Bank decisions, oil and the main stock indices. For the background on the Portuguese economy, see our mid-year review. Official data is at the Bank of Portugal.

Business 17 July 2026

The IMF gave Portugal's banks a pass — and SMEs may feel the squeeze

The IMF's FSAP review of Portugal's financial system finds solid banks but flags exposure to housing and sovereign debt. Consultants warn SME lending is about to get stricter.

Good news first: the toughest exam Portugal's financial system faces came back positive. The FSAP report — the IMF's financial sector assessment, published on Friday by the Banco de Portugal — concludes that Portuguese banks weathered the last few years well, through the pandemic, the interest-rate climb and geopolitical turbulence, with adequate capital, liquidity and profitability. Two vulnerabilities, neither a shock to anyone who follows the…

Business 17 July 2026

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Business 16 July 2026

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Business 16 July 2026

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Business 16 July 2026

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Business 16 July 2026

Glovo Portugal is getting a new owner — sold to a US fund as part of the Uber-Delivery Hero deal

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Business 15 July 2026

Portugal's airports handled 7.1 million passengers in May and broke the record again

Portuguese airports handled 7.1 million passengers in May 2026, up 2.9% year-on-year and an all-time high, according to INE. Lisbon alone accounts for half the country's traffic.

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Business 15 July 2026

Portugal's economy sped up in the second quarter, says the finance minister. The recovery-fund bill is what slows everything else

Miranda Sarmento told parliament that consumption, investment and exports all accelerated in Portugal's second quarter of 2026. The catch: recovery-plan loans are eating the budget headroom.

If you were braced for bad economic news, Wednesday did not deliver any. Miranda Sarmento went to parliament and said the second-quarter data is frankly positive, with consumption, investment and exports all picking up speed. The statistics office's flash estimate only lands at the end of the month, so this is still a promise rather than a fact — but it is the Government's own read, and those tend to be cautious when they can afford to be. The picture the…

Business 15 July 2026

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Portugal has just won €162.2 million of room to put money straight into farmers' pockets. It isn't new money falling from the sky — it's permission to move what already exists, and in Brussels that is usually worth nearly as much. The Council of the European Union approved a regulation letting member states pull funds from other parts of their CAP strategic plan, such as rural development, and redirect them into the direct payments that land in producers'…

Business 12 July 2026

Meta plans to double computing capacity to 14 gigawatts by 2027

An internal memo reveals Meta plans to double its AI computing power by 2027, with record spending and a new gigawatt-scale data centre in Canada.

Meta is preparing the biggest infrastructure expansion in its history: according to an internal memo that surfaced this week, the company plans to double its total computing capacity to 14 gigawatts by 2027, with 7 gigawatts coming online this year alone. For perspective, one gigawatt is roughly the output of a nuclear power plant — and Meta wants fourteen of them just to train and serve AI models. This year's outlay is running at the very top of the…

Business 12 July 2026

Banking jobs in Portugal hit highest level since BES collapse: 782 new posts in a year

Employment in Portuguese banking reached its highest level since the 2014 BES collapse, with 782 net jobs added in a year — even as branches keep closing.

After a decade of shrinking, Portuguese banking is hiring again in earnest: over the past year the sector added 782 jobs in net terms, lifting employment to its highest level since the collapse of BES in 2014. It is a remarkable turn of the cycle for an industry that spent years as a byword for restructuring and redundancy packages. Not for the counters — for the technology. Banks are beefing up digital, data and cybersecurity teams, and responding to the…

Business 11 July 2026

SK Hynix jumps 13% in Nasdaq debut after biggest foreign IPO in US history

SK Hynix closed up 13% on its Nasdaq debut after raising $26.5 billion — the largest US listing ever by a foreign company, beating Alibaba's 2014 record.

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Business 11 July 2026

Portugal exports up 5.1% in May, but the year's trade deficit keeps widening

Portuguese goods exports rose 5.1% in May, says the INE, while imports fell 1.6%. Year to date, though, the trade deficit widened by 1.732 billion euros to 14.383 billion.

Portuguese goods exports grew 5.1% in May compared with the same month of 2025 — the best reading in almost two years — while imports fell 1.6%, according to international trade data released by the INE statistics office. A month to frame on the wall, then. The trouble is the full-year picture, which tells a less cheerful story. In the January-to-May period, exports slipped 0.2% while imports rose 3.5% year on year. The result: the goods trade deficit…