Editorial companion

What stands out

Broadcom announced a new multi-year agreement to deliver custom application-specific integrated circuit (ASIC) chips to Apple through 2031, a move that landed in premarket trading and reorients part of the iPhone supply chain. The deal matters because it converts what used to be a vendor relationship into years of engineered dependency, giving Broadcom visible, recurring design wins and giving Apple a tightly coupled supplier for key components. That trade-off creates an odd reality for investors: Apple shows only modest revenue and profit growth while Broadcom’s fundamentals look materially stronger, even as markets price them differently.