So far this year, Nvidia (NVDA 0.08%) stock has exhibited an unusually muted performance. As of this writing (July 7), Nvidia stock has gained just 5% in 2026 -- a result that stands in sharp contrast to the parabolic surges that have defined the company's trajectory in recent years.
This pause is prompting investors to reassess both the near-term price action of a company that has spent the last few years at the center of the artificial intelligence (AI) boom, and their longer-term expectations for it.
Image source: Nvidia.
What's wrong with Nvidia stock? After reaching a series of all-time highs between 2023 and 2025, Nvidia stock has traded within a relatively narrow range in 2026.
That consolidation in Nvidia stock has coincided with a period of broader weakness across large-cap technology names, where frothy valuations have increasingly been met with questions about the pace of spending on generative AI infrastructure. As investors' capital rotates out of big tech, attention is shifting toward other semiconductor companies that are perceived to offer more immediate upside or to possess underappreciated exposure to AI supply chains.
Memory specialist Micron Technology, storage and flash-memory players such as Sandisk, and connectivity-focused names including Marvell Technology have all drawn incremental interest during this rotation. The net effect has been a redistribution of inflows, leaving Nvidia stock without the concentrated buying pressure seen in earlier phases of the AI supercycle.
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Is Nvidia's business maturing? Some may see Nvidia as a company transitioning from hypergrowth to a more measured, mature phase. This characterization, however, doesn't mesh with several concrete developments inside the business.
Revenues from Nvidia's data center segment -- the primary engine of the business -- set a record in the first quarter. Moreover, management guided for further revenue growth acceleration for the second quarter. This is particularly meaningful because the company's data center segment sales had previously shown signs of plateauing.
Management has also articulated roughly $1 trillion in revenue visibility for its Blackwell and Vera Rubin processors across 2026 and 2027, anchored by multiyear commitments from hyperscalers and large enterprise customers.
At the same time, the company is quietly pursuing a deliberate strategy of extending its reach across the full AI infrastructure stack. Strategic investments and partnerships involving Nokia in networking, Coherent and Lumentum in optical components, and Marvell in complementary silicon have positioned Nvidia to participate in every major layer of the AI value chain -- from training and inference chips to high-speed interconnects and power delivery.
Nvidia stock is set up for explosive gains In the chart below, investors can see trends in Nvidia's forward price-to-earnings (P/E) multiple over the past four years. Nvidia's current valuation profile illustrates a clear compression from elevated levels that accompanied the company's most rapid growth phases.
NVDA PE Ratio (Forward) data by YCharts.
This suggests that premiums that once reflected investors' expectations of sustained revenue and earnings acceleration have normalized to levels more typical of a maturing business. In effect, the market appears to be pricing Nvidia as though its best growth opportunities are behind it.
This is not the first time such a rerating has occurred with Nvidia. In earlier instances when Nvidia's forward P/E contracted amid consolidation or shifting sentiment, subsequent evidence of accelerating revenue and profitability triggered multiple expansions. This pattern is consistent: Once operational results confirm that the company's AI-driven growth is continuing, investors eventually reengage, and the valuation rerates higher.
With Nvidia now showing renewed momentum in its data center business and laying the foundation for added gains across adjacent layers of the AI chip stack, I think that sequence is likely to repeat. Patient investors who recognize that Nvidia's recent price action reflects investor caution rather than a fundamental deterioration of its thesis can position themselves to benefit from meaningful share price appreciation as the chip giant continues to execute.
Nvidia stock (NVDA) slipped on Thursday, giving back some of the previous session's gains even as semiconductor stocks broadly rallied, underscoring investors' continued preference for other parts of the artificial intelligence supply chain. Shares were down 1.1% at $201.76 in midday trading after jumping 3.7% on Wednesday.
The Number SemiAnalysis, the semiconductor research firm that AI hardware investors track obsessively, pegs NVIDIA’s (NASDAQ:NVDA | NVDA Price Prediction) Data Center compute revenue at roughly $203 billion for the back half of Fiscal 2027, about 20% above Wall Street consensus of about $169 billion.
That gap is the anchor of this story. If SemiAnalysis is right, the sell-side model that currently underwrites Nvidia valuation math is materially low on the company’s largest business unit.
What It Means Data Center is the engine. Last quarter, Data Center revenue hit $75.246 billion, up 92% year over year, split between Data Center Compute at $60.4 billion (up 77% YoY) and Data Center Networking at $14.8 billion (up 199% YoY). Roughly 50% of Data Center revenue comes from hyperscale customers, and NVIDIA has already locked in $119 billion of total supply-related commitments and $30 billion of multi-year cloud service commitments.
SemiAnalysis carries weight because its estimates are stitched together from the full supply chain: wafer starts, HBM availability, server integrator shipments, hyperscaler build plans. That is grittier input than the sell-side models that lean on company guidance. The firm attributes the upside to a large Rubin ramp after earlier HBM4 issues that are now resolved and front-end wafer supply that has been built up.
There is a wrinkle. SemiAnalysis also flagged that NVIDIA’s Kyber NVL144 rack-scale system may slip from 2027 to 2028 due to a PCB midplane manufacturing challenge, a claim NVIDIA disputed by saying its roadmap is intact. That debate concerns a 2028 product. The bullish revenue call is about the 2H FY2027 ramp already in flight, so the two threads do not collide.
Market Reaction Shares closed at $204.12 on July 8, 2026, up 3.65% on the day. Year to date the stock is up 9.58%, and it is up 27.74% over the past year. Prediction markets on Polymarket assign an 83% probability NVDA closes July above $208, with the crowd showing a 75.5% historical accuracy on NVDA markets.
Bull Case The valuation math is the point. NVDA trades near $204, with a forward P/E around 35. If the largest business unit earns 20% more than consensus expects in the back half of FY2027, forward EPS moves higher and the multiple compresses on its own. The stock becomes cheaper without doing anything.
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The trailing evidence supports the direction. Q1 FY2027 delivered non-GAAP diluted EPS of $1.87 versus a $1.77 estimate, a 5.42% beat, on revenue of $81.615 billion, up 85.23% YoY and 3.16% ahead of consensus.
That was the twelfth consecutive quarterly EPS beat. Margins told the same story: non-GAAP gross margin expanded to 75% from 60.8% a year ago, while net income rose 210.63% and operating income rose 147.42% year over year.
Cash generation is doing the work in the background. Free cash flow reached $48.554 billion in Q1, up 85.41% YoY. Management responded by raising the quarterly dividend from $0.01 to $0.25 and authorizing an additional $80 billion share repurchase with no expiration. Wall Street’s read is aligned: an analyst target price of $301.62 with 10 strong buy, 48 buy, 2 hold, and 1 sell ratings.
Q2 guidance from the company itself calls for $91 billion in revenue plus or minus 2%, gross margin of 75.0% plus or minus 50 bps, and excludes any China Data Center compute revenue. SemiAnalysis is layering a higher ramp on top of an already high bar.
Bottom Line For a retirement-focused investor, the real question is whether the denominator in that P/E is right, not the sticker multiple. SemiAnalysis says it is too low by roughly 20% in the biggest revenue line, driven by a Rubin ramp that is already staged.
The risks are real: the estimate is a research firm’s, not company guidance, consensus expectations are already elevated, and any execution or demand hiccup pressures a mega-cap at scale. The next hard data point is the Q3 FY2027 earnings report on August 26, 2026, after the close. Until then, the anchor number is $203 billion.
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AI chip startup Positron is seeking about $750 million in financing as investor demand continues to build around companies trying to challenge Nvidia (NVDA), th
NVIDIA (NASDAQ:NVDA | NVDA Price Prediction) has maintained its status as the world’s most valuable company for most of the past two years. Now trading at a valuation of a little more than $4.7 trillion, Nvidia has seen roughly $4 billion of market capitalization added over the past five years, as this chip giant has seen its market capitalization soar on the back of the AI revolution.
What It Means A four-plus trillion dollar valuation would be a curiosity if the underlying business did not keep pace. It does. In the most recent quarter (Q1 FY27, reported May 20, 2026), NVIDIA posted revenue of $81.61 billion, up 85.2% year over year, beating the consensus estimate of $79.12 billion by 3.16%. Net income landed at $58.32 billion, up 210.63% from a year earlier. Non-GAAP EPS came in at $1.87 against a $1.77 estimate.
The company’s Data Center segment did the heavy lifting, generating $75.25 billion in the quarter, up 92% year over year. Data Center Networking alone climbed to $14.8 billion, a 199% jump. Non-GAAP gross margin sat at 75.0%, up from 60.8% a year prior. Free cash flow totaled $48.55 billion. Companies at this scale are not supposed to grow this fast at this margin.
Market Reaction Shares closed at $221.54 on the day of the Q1 FY27 8-K filing (May 20, 2026). Since then the stock has drifted lower, ending July 2 at $194.83, down 12.46% over the past month while remaining up 24.06% over the past year and 854.24% over five years. Over the past decade, NVIDIA shares are up 16,930.86%. Again, over the past five years, that gain for investors is around 850%.
Bull Case The rules of tech investing used to say that companies could not compound at hypergrowth rates once they crossed a few hundred billion in market value. NVIDIA is testing that assumption in real time. Q2 FY27 revenue guidance is $91.0 billion, plus or minus 2%, and that figure excludes China Data Center compute revenue entirely. Nvidia’s management team has committed to $119.0 billion in supply-related purchases, a signal about how deep the order book actually runs.
Capital return has scaled with the business. The board approved an additional $80.0 billion in buyback authorization in May 2026, on top of the $38.5 billion that remained under the prior program. NVIDIA returned about $20 billion to shareholders in Q1 through repurchases and dividends, and raised the quarterly dividend from $0.01 to $0.25 per share, declared May 18, 2026 and paid June 26, 2026.
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CEO Jensen Huang framed the setup in the quarter: “The buildout of AI factories, the largest infrastructure expansion in human history, is accelerating at extraordinary speed.” He added that “Agentic AI has arrived, doing productive work, generating real value and scaling rapidly across companies and industries.” Roughly 50% of Data Center revenue comes from hyperscalers, with sovereign AI demand adding another leg. Blackwell 300 is ramping. The Vera Rubin platform has been announced.
Right now, I think Nvidia’s valuation supports a bull case, rather than stretches it. Currently, this stock trades at an otherwise reasonable (given its long-term run rate) multiple of 30x trailing earnings and a 23x forward PE, with an operating margin of 65.6% and return on equity of 114.3%. Of 61 covering analysts, 58 rate the stock a Buy, with an average target price of $301.62.
Bottom Line The reason Nvidia’s $4.72 trillion market cap is rewriting the rules is that the company’s growth arithmetic behind it still works. Revenue almost doubled year over year at a 75.0% gross margin, and the forward guide of $91.0 billion raises the bar again while explicitly leaving China out of the number.
For long-term holders, the next test is the Q2 FY27 earnings report, where investors will see whether the Blackwell 300 ramp and sovereign AI demand can carry the model past the size where every prior tech leader stalled. On the current numbers, NVIDIA keeps compounding at a rate that bends the historical pattern for companies of its size.
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The State Street SPDR Portfolio MSCI Global Stock Market ETF (SPGM +0.79%) offers broader geographic exposure and a lower expense ratio than the iShares MSCI World ETF (URTH +0.66%).
Both funds serve as core global equity holdings, but they define global differently. While URTH tracks developed markets, SPGM includes emerging markets and a wider range of market capitalizations, providing a more comprehensive slice of international stocks for a fraction of the cost.
Snapshot (cost & size)MetricURTHSPGMIssueriSharesSPDRShare price (as of July 6, 2026)$204.44$86.02Expense ratio0.24%0.09%1-yr return (as of July 6, 2026)21.4%25.6%Dividend yield1.4%1.8%Beta0.950.92AUM$8.1 billion$1.9 billionBeta measures price volatility relative to the S&P 500; beta is calculated from five-year monthly returns. The 1-yr return represents total return over the trailing 12 months. Dividend yield is the trailing-12-month distribution yield.
SPGM is more affordable, with a 0.09% expense ratio compared to 0.24% for its iShares peer. Additionally, the State Street fund currently provides a higher payout, with a yield gap of 0.40 percentage points.
Performance & risk comparisonMetricURTHSPGMMax drawdown (5 yr)(26.1%)(25.9%)Growth of $1,000 over 5 years (total return)$1,729$1,718What's insideState Street’s ETF provides broad exposure to established and developing markets, covering sectors like technology at 31%, financial services at 16%, and industrials at 12%. Its largest positions among 2,933 holdings include Nvidia (NVDA 0.88%) at 3.99%, Apple (AAPL +0.49%) at 3.98%, and Microsoft (MSFT 0.96%) at 2.39%. The fund was launched in 2012. SPGM has paid $1.54 per share over the trailing 12 months, which on its recent ~$86.02 share price works out to a 1.8% yield.
The iShares fund focuses exclusively on developed economies, with a portfolio leaning into technology at 31%, financial services at 16%, and industrials at 11%. Top holdings among its 1,287 positions include Apple at 5.1%, Nvidia at 5.01%, and Microsoft at 3.03%. URTH was launched in 2012. The iShares ETF has paid $2.84 per share over the trailing 12 months, which on its recent ~$204.44 share price works out to a 1.4% yield.
For more guidance on ETF investing, check out the full guide at this link.
What this means for investorsURTH and SPGM share several commonalities. Their five-year returns and max drawdowns are about the same. Both have low betas. Their top 10 holdings even include the same eight stocks among them! However, the iShares ETF has a higher expense ratio and lower dividend yield, which may be unattractive to some investors.
One significant difference between URTH and SPGM is their size. The iShares fund has over $8 billion in assets under management, while its counterpart has just under $2 billion. Accordingly, URTH has a much higher average trading volume, and the increased liquidity that accompanies that may be more attractive than SGPM's lower cost and higher dividend yield.
Erin Kennedy has positions in Apple. The Motley Fool has positions in and recommends Apple, Microsoft, and Nvidia. The Motley Fool has a disclosure policy.
The artificial intelligence (AI) bellwether has had its bell rung lately. Is the ding a dinner bell for opportunistic investors? Nvidia (NVDA 0.88%) may have kicked off the AI revolution a couple of years ago, but the market has been rotating out of the global leader lately.
Nvidia stock has fallen 14% since hitting an all-time high in May. Despite inching higher through the first three trading days of this week, the shares are lower over the past month. It's a stunning contrast to the overall market, which is clawing toward fresh highs.
Image source: Getty Images.
Rotation out of the leading AI chipmaker while business is still booming is surprising, but it's not without precedent. More importantly, it's not likely to be permanent. Bullish market sentiment turning its buy order attention to the next step of AI beneficiaries, including memory and data storage manufacturers, earlier this year, isn't outlandish, even if that segment has come under selling pressure in recent weeks.
You can go up and down the pick-and-shovel ecosystem in the near term. It just seems as if you can't ignore the lead horse over the long run.
Nvidia stock is facing plenty of challenges right now, but they seem small compared to the opportunity. Let's take a closer look at the company that continues to be the largest player by market cap, but one that is now the cheapest that it's been in years, according to one popular valuation metric.
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You can buy Nvidia for just 16 times next year's earnings You read that subhead correctly. Nvidia is now trading for 23 times this fiscal year's earnings, but an even more jaw-dropping 16 times next year's analyst profit target. There are some potential headwinds out there, and I don't want to dismiss them.
China's DeepSeek is making waves again. Its latest DSpark inference module reportedly improves AI rendering speed by up to 85% without requiring new hardware. If you can do more with existing hardware, there is no need to upgrade to Nvidia's shiniest new chips. That's not something you just sweep under the rug, but do you remember when Nvidia tumbled in early 2025, when DeepSeek made headlines? Nvidia's growing client base needs reliability more than it craves the gamble of cutting corners.
Nvidia's revenue has accelerated for three consecutive quarters. The 85% top-line jump it posted in its fiscal first quarter is the strongest increase in a year and a half. The growth rate isn't sustainable, but it shows that the initial DeepSeek headlines didn't slow Nvidia's skyrocketing trajectory.
Bears can point to growing competition in AI chips and Chinese trade restrictions. Nvidia just had its first major debt offering in five years. Demand is outpacing the uptick in competitors and trade restrictions. Betting against Nvidia could be a mistake here, especially with Nvidia shares at their cheapest level in years.
It all adds up The chart is interesting. The purple line is Nvidia's stock, which has had a stellar run as a market leader, more than tripling over the past three years. The blue line is Nvidia's earnings multiple for the current fiscal year. You see it drop come late January, when the baton is passed to the next fiscal year, but notice how hype exceeded reality in 2024 (Nvidia's fiscal 2025) before normalizing a year later and outright reversing this year. The orange line -- looking out to bottom-line forecasts for the following fiscal year -- is understandably a year ahead of that swing in valuation momentum.
Saying that Nvidia is trading for just 16 times next year's Wall Street profit target means that it's cheaper than the S&P 500 itself. Should Nvidia really be trading at a discount to the market when it's growing considerably faster? Nvidia's growth will decelerate at this point, and margins may contract as rivals improve their hardware alternatives.
The problem -- and your opportunity -- is that this is the same bear case that has been debunked in recent quarters. Nvidia keeps getting stronger, and analyst profit estimates keep rising. In short, by the end of the next fiscal year, there's a fair chance that Nvidia stock's snapshot today was trading for a lot less than 16 times next year's earnings.
The AI trade has been built on a powerful assumption: AI won’t just supercharge Big Tech earnings — it will eventually lift profitability across the entire economy.
The problem, according to Apollo chief economist Torsten Slok, is that the second half of that equation isn’t showing up yet.
NVDA stock is moving. See the chart and price action here. "So far there are no signs of profit margins rising outside the tech sector. This is ultimately what we are waiting for, because the value of AI companies today rests entirely on the promise that margins in the S&P 493 will eventually climb," Slok said.
S&P 493 Is the Real TestThe "S&P 493" — the index excluding the Magnificent Seven — is where the real test lies.
This gap is a valuation risk.
AI leaders are being priced as if broad-based productivity gains are imminent, with markets effectively pulling forward years of expected earnings growth. But if adoption cycles and ROI timelines stretch longer than expected, those assumptions could prove premature.
"This creates a dangerous divergence between aggressive, front-loaded valuations today and a much slower cash flow reality, since equity markets priced for instant earnings growth will face a painful repricing if the productivity hockey-stick takes five years rather than five months," Slok warned.
In other words, the market is betting on speed — and the economy may be moving at a different pace.
ROI Delays Are the RiskThe mismatch is critical. Enterprise AI adoption requires major upfront investment, workflow redesign and time before efficiency gains begin to show up in margins.
If those gains take years to materialize, rather than quarters, the current premium baked into AI-exposed names could come under pressure.
"The bottom line is that a mismatch between current earnings expectations and the actual time firms need to generate ROI on AI investments could have significant implications for many AI company valuations today," Slok said.
Investors know AI works for enterprise — they are asking about when it pays. And right now, the broader market is not confirming the timeline priced into high-flying AI stocks.
Photo: M-SUR / Shutterstock
This content was partially produced with the help of AI tools and was reviewed and published by Benzinga editors.
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Two stocks, one question: should a retirement-focused investor own NVIDIA (NASDAQ:NVDA | NVDA Price Prediction) or Sherwin-Williams (NYSE:SHW) right now? The setup is genuinely strange. NVIDIA, the company sitting at the center of the AI capital-spending supercycle, trades at a lower price-to-earnings multiple than the company that sells the paint on your neighbor’s siding. It is a genuine valuation quirk worth dissecting, because the answer for retirees requires looking beyond the headline P/E ratios.
Dimension 1: Valuation, Where the Paradox Lives On the numbers, NVIDIA is objectively cheaper. Shares trade at a trailing P/E of 30 and a forward P/E of 22, against TTM EPS of $6.53. Sherwin-Williams, by contrast, trades at a trailing P/E of 34 and a forward P/E of 30, on TTM EPS of $10.20. Both trailing and forward, the semiconductor giant is priced below the paint maker.
The compression came despite a rising share price. Shares are up 27.74% over the past year. The multiple compressed because earnings ran faster than the share price. Sherwin-Williams shares, meanwhile, are down 3.56% over the same year, and yet the multiple has not budged much because investors keep paying up for defensive earnings. Winner: NVDA. On pure valuation math, you are paying less per dollar of profit for the faster-growing business.
Dimension 2: Growth Trajectory The gap here is not close. NVIDIA posted quarterly earnings growth of roughly 214% year over year and revenue growth of roughly 85%, powered by Data Center revenue of $75.246 billion, up 92% YoY. CEO Jensen Huang described it as “the buildout of AI factories, the largest infrastructure expansion in human history.”
Sherwin-Williams grew quarterly earnings 7.5% and revenue 6.8%, and management guided full-year 2026 adjusted EPS to $11.50 to $11.90, a midpoint growth rate of 2.4%. CEO Heidi Petz has repeatedly described the environment as “softer-for-longer”. Winner: NVDA, decisively. This is triple-digit growth against low-single-digit growth. It is not a fair fight.
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Dimension 3: Income and Stability Now the picture inverts. Sherwin-Williams yields 0.91% on a forward annualized dividend of $3.20, and it just extended a streak of 47 consecutive years of dividend increases. Its beta is 1.1, roughly in line with the market. NVIDIA, after raising its quarterly payout from $0.01 to $0.25, yields .50%, with a beta of 2.211, meaning shares tend to swing more than twice as violently as the index. (For income-first readers, our Paycheck Portfolio report on 10 Dividend Kings is a useful companion to this discussion.)
Sherwin-Williams also sells into thousands of small contractors and repaint jobs, a demand base that softens but rarely evaporates. NVIDIA’s fortunes are tied to a hyperscaler capex cycle and $119.0 billion in supply commitments that assume the buildout keeps compounding. Winner: SHW, decisively.
The Verdict For a retirement-focused investor, Sherwin-Williams probably still wins, but the race is tightening. The paint maker is more expensive per dollar of earnings for a reason: a 47-year dividend increase streak, a beta near the market, and end markets that muddle through recessions rather than crater. Analysts carry a price target of $378.90 on SHW versus a current quote of $330.57, and the income compounds whether AI capex accelerates or not.
NVIDIA is the better business and, remarkably, the cheaper stock on both trailing and forward earnings, with an analyst target of $301.62. But retirees draw income from dividends and from capital they cannot afford to see cut in half, rather than from earnings growth. A beta above 2 and a sub-1% yield disqualify NVIDIA as a core retirement holding, however cheap the multiple looks. Put NVIDIA in a growth sleeve. Put Sherwin-Williams in the anchor position.
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Apple, a global technology giant, now trades just 1% off its record high. (Spencer Platt/Getty Images)
With the Nasdaq trading just 5% below its recent 52-week high, the Roundhill Magnificent Seven ETF remains a relative laggard, sitting roughly 8% beneath the record high it reached on May 14.
Punters on Polymarket are wagering on what it will cost to rent Nvidia's H100 chip by the end of July, and the market says more about the AI economy than almost any equity index.
Traders currently assign a 43% probability that the benchmark rental rate lands between $2.30 and $2.60 per hour, with a 26% chance of $2.60 to $2.90.
Only 2% expect prices below $2.00, the level that would signal genuine oversupply.
The contract resolves against the Ornn H100 Index, a benchmark tracking hourly rental rates across cloud providers.
That such an index exists at all may be the real story: compute is becoming a tradeable commodity, like oil or wheat.
The Ornn index has been available on the Bloomberg Terminal since April, and Intercontinental Exchange, one of the world's largest exchange operators, has announced plans to launch GPU futures contracts tied to a compute price benchmark.
That would give hedge funds and commodity traders a direct way to bet on AI demand without buying shares in Nvidia Corp (NASDAQ:NVDA, XETRA:NVD) or Microsoft Corp (NASDAQ:MSFT).
The price itself is a live macro signal. One-year H100 rental contracts surged roughly 40% between October 2025 and March 2026, from $1.70 to $2.35 per hour, as an unexpected compute crunch took hold.
Most analysts had assumed the opposite: that older Hopper chips would tumble in price as Nvidia's newer Blackwell generation ramped up.
Instead, surging inference demand from AI agents and coding tools absorbed capacity faster than it could be built, with clusters reportedly booked out until autumn.
Prices have since cooled from a May spike, which is why the Polymarket consensus clusters in the middle of the range.
If rates hold above $2.30, it suggests AI demand is still outrunning supply; a slide below $2.00 would be the first hard evidence the compute boom is easing.
It’s been an unforgiving past week for the iShares Semiconductor ETF (NASDAQ:SOXX), down just over 8%, even with the 3.6% bounce on Wednesday. Meanwhile, shares of Nvidia (NASDAQ:NVDA | NVDA Price Prediction) are up close to 6%, a stark contrast to the action we’ve seen in the semis of late.
In many ways, it feels like Nvidia trades more like a member of the Magnificent Seven than like just another semiconductor firm. Given its wide economic moat and opportunities that go far beyond chips, perhaps Nvidia deserves to rally on the up days for the semis while being mostly spared from the pain when the semis implode.
Since the start of the year, Nvidia hasn’t really traded closely with the hotter iShares Semiconductor ETF. With the GPU giant missing the boat on the way up, perhaps it should come as no surprise to see the firm being spared from the latest wave of selling that hit the semiconductor scene so suddenly.
Nvidia’s been surprisingly resilient amid the latest round of semi volatility While it’s far too soon to tell if Nvidia is immune to the semiconductor sell-off, something I mentioned in passing in a prior piece covering the AI chip giant, I do think that the company is behaving more like a defensive play on the chip scene.
And once momentum does reverse course, I do view Nvidia as a firm that could outperform by losing less ground than its more cyclical peers that lack that software moat. Whether we’re talking about the CUDA lock-in or other profoundly powerful tools that enable new technological trends (think NVQLink), it’s clear that Nvidia is just a cut above many of the far-hotter DRAM or NAND makers.
Beyond its more magnificent attributes that go above the hardware layer, and its many partnerships with some of the best forces across the AI scene, Nvidia has arguably already paid its dues in the past six months, with shares dragging their feet not only relative to the red-hot semis, but the Nasdaq 100, the S&P 500, and even Coca-Cola (NYSE:KO), which posted is up 20% year to date.
Will Nvidia’s resilience continue if the semi sell-off gets really bad? Just because Nvidia shares have been incredibly resilient thus far doesn’t mean they can’t suddenly fall in sympathy with the rest of the semi scene. But, unlike most other pricier semi plays, Nvidia has that lower valuation that it can fall back on.
The stock trades at just north of 31.0 times trailing price-to-earnings (P/E) while the iShares Semiconductor ETF goes for a closer to 40.0 times trailing P/E.
I don’t think it makes a lot of sense for Nvidia to go for a discount when it’s arguably the most dominant company in the semi waters, with a visionary leader in Jensen Huang whose leadership deserves to go for a big, fat premium to the industry, at least in my view.
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With that lower valuation cushion and lots of earnings-growth fuel as the “Vera Rubin boom” arrives, I do think Nvidia might be the only semi stock to “safely” reach for at a time like this, when investors fear higher rates and a peaking out of the hyper-cylical chip plays.
The bear case is still quite scary for Nvidia shareholders Where Nvidia’s relative resilience could collapse, though, is if hyperscalers hint at tying future CapEx to the ROIs that flow in.
Indeed, you don’t even need a hyperscaler to step up to the podium to announce that CapEx is coming down or staying at a ceiling for the semis, including Nvidia, to enter a vicious, panic-driven sell-off. I have no idea when or if the hyperscalers will start getting serious about monetization.
When the Fed started raising rates back in 2022, much of big tech looked to layoffs in what was a year of efficiency after overhiring in the years prior. Could the same happen to AI, especially now that they’ve cut costs elsewhere to keep their AI CapEx in a competitive spot? Time will tell.
Either way, a CapEx freeze from one hyperscaler, I think, might be enough to cause a panic and perhaps a violent rotation away from AI and towards less-CapEx-intensive businesses outside of tech. Over the long run, I expect CapEx to shoot higher.
But does that mean one “freeze” year is off the table? In my view, one AI winter might be the healthiest thing for the AI revolution from a long-term perspective.
The bottom line So, in short, Nvidia looks immune this past week, and while it could continue to be a better chip stock to own amid volatility, I think all bets are off should a hyperscaler stop raising the bar on CapEx.
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Punters on Polymarket are wagering on what it will cost to rent Nvidia's H100 chip by the end of July, and the market says more about the AI economy than almost any equity index.
Traders currently assign a 43% probability that the benchmark rental rate lands between $2.30 and $2.60 per hour, with a 26% chance of $2.60 to $2.90.
Only 2% expect prices below $2.00, the level that would signal genuine oversupply.
The contract resolves against the Ornn H100 Index, a benchmark tracking hourly rental rates across cloud providers.
That such an index exists at all may be the real story: compute is becoming a tradeable commodity, like oil or wheat.
The Ornn index has been available on the Bloomberg Terminal since April, and Intercontinental Exchange, one of the world's largest exchange operators, has announced plans to launch GPU futures contracts tied to a compute price benchmark.
That would give hedge funds and commodity traders a direct way to bet on AI demand without buying shares in Nvidia Corp (NASDAQ:NVDA, XETRA:NVD) or Microsoft Corp (NASDAQ:MSFT).
The price itself is a live macro signal. One-year H100 rental contracts surged roughly 40% between October 2025 and March 2026, from $1.70 to $2.35 per hour, as an unexpected compute crunch took hold.
Most analysts had assumed the opposite: that older Hopper chips would tumble in price as Nvidia's newer Blackwell generation ramped up.
Instead, surging inference demand from AI agents and coding tools absorbed capacity faster than it could be built, with clusters reportedly booked out until autumn.
Prices have since cooled from a May spike, which is why the Polymarket consensus clusters in the middle of the range.
If rates hold above $2.30, it suggests AI demand is still outrunning supply; a slide below $2.00 would be the first hard evidence the compute boom is easing.
Magnificent 7 stocks that previously dominated equity markets are currently trading at their lowest valuation premiums in a decade.
Following a challenging period where capital rapidly rotated toward hardware and semiconductor companies, the Magnificent 7 cohort presents an “increasingly attractive entry point” for targeted capital deployment.
This stark valuation compression stems directly from rising debt issuance and mounting investor skepticism regarding immediate returns on artificial intelligence investments.
Morgan Stanley Wealth Management sees these tech giants as significantly “underpriced” relative to their underlying financial metrics.
Consequently, the firm’s strategists advocate fading semiconductor exposure to execute a strategic rotation back into specific hyperscalers.
While the benchmark S&P 500 index has delivered a 9.0% return year-to-date, the Roundhill Mag 7 ETF has experienced a slight decline.
Conversely, the iShares Semiconductor ETF has soared roughly 85% during the identical period – reflecting an aggressive capital rotation toward the direct beneficiaries of the artificial intelligence buildout, rather than the corporate entities funding the infrastructure.
As these megacap tech names issued substantial debt to finance their computational hardware build-outs, equity markets discounted their shares due to yet-to-be-proven returns on investment.
According to Morgan Stanley, this compressed the “valuation premium” of the Magnificent 7 over the remaining S&P 500 stocks to just 10%, marking the lowest divergence in more than ten years.
Amidst this structural market divergence, Morgan Stanley notes the broader Magnificent 7 cohort continues to boast a 45% annual earnings growth advantage over benchmark stocks.
Lisa Shalett, head of the global investment office at Morgan Stanley Wealth Management, asserts that hyperscalers currently appear deeply undervalued.
This bullish posture is anchored by an expected enterprise transition away from “tokenmaxxing”, a resource-heavy model measuring AI adoption strictly through corporate token consumption.
But aggressive energy requirements and steep financial costs have rendered the model increasingly undesirable for businesses.
The resulting shift toward hybrid designs for AI workflows stands to “disproportionately benefit” major cloud infrastructure operators, specifically Alphabet, Amazon, and Microsoft.
Rather than advocating for passive index exposure, experts at Morgan Stanley recommend hand-picking tech mega-caps in the back half of 2026.
“We are stock-pickers within the group, focusing on those with dynamic design approaches and custom ASIC racks linked to dominant cloud service businesses.”
Historical valuation comparisons reinforce the narrative that Magnificent 7 stocks are trading at an unusual discount at the time of writing.
Nvidia, for example, is going for about 18x forward earnings currently, versus its historical average of about 36x.
This is why Morgan Stanley’s Wall Street peers also remain constructive on the Mag 7 names for the next 12 months.
Last month, Alphabet (GOOG 1.35%) (GOOGL 1.32%) announced an $80 billion equity capital raise. The company made it clear that it was doing so to fund its aggressive spending on artificial intelligence (AI). While we can debate whether that's good for the company -- with some investors arguing that the massive spending won't pay off and will only squeeze its profits and margins -- there is one corporation for which this is a clear bullish sign: Nvidia (NVDA +3.74%). Read on to find out why.
Image source: The Motley Fool.
The hyperscalers keep battling it out Alphabet's massive $80 billion AI infrastructure build-out will flow into several areas, probably including Nvidia's GPUs (Graphics Processing Units), which remain the workhorse of AI training. While it is true that Alphabet has sought to reduce its reliance on Nvidia's hardware, notably by doubling down on internally developed custom AI chips, management has been explicit that Nvidia's GPUs remain central to the company's business. As Alphabet's CEO, Sundar Pichai, said: "Nvidia GPUs are a core part of our AI accelerator portfolio." That should remain the case for the foreseeable future. So, Alphabet's increased AI spending is excellent news for Nvidia.
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But we could go even further. The fact that Alphabet is spending even more to capitalize on growing AI-related opportunities strongly suggests that its biggest cloud competitors -- Microsoft (MSFT 1.41%) and Amazon (AMZN 0.80%) -- will likely do the same. Even beyond the hyperscalers, several other companies are doubling down on AI investments. That includes Tesla (TSLA 2.18%), whose long-term outlook is becoming increasingly tied to the technology. Tesla is also a major Nvidia customer. And for that matter, so is Space Exploration Technologies (SPCX 1.02%), the other public corporation headed by Elon Musk. The message that these (and other) CEOs are sending is crystal clear, and it is a bullish signal for Nvidia.
It's a great time to buy the stock Nvidia's CFO, Colette Kress, said that AI infrastructure spending could reach between $3 trillion and $4 trillion by the end of the decade -- according to some estimates, it was only $318 billion last year. If Kress is correct, we could be looking at an enormous remaining opportunity. Even with a more modest projection of $1 trillion by the end of the decade, Nvidia's addressable market looks massive.
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Yet the stock has been sliding over the past month, losing about 6% of its value. Meanwhile, Nvidia's shares are trading at just 22.2x forward earnings, which is precisely the average for information technology stocks as of this writing. Given Nvidia's solid lead in the GPU market, the vast remaining runway for growth, the company's wide moat from high switching costs, and its current valuation, the stock looks like a no-brainer buy. Nvidia may not repeat the amazing performance it has had over the past five years, but it can still deliver solid results to long-term investors.
Prosper Junior Bakiny has positions in Alphabet, Amazon, and Nvidia. The Motley Fool has positions in and recommends Alphabet, Amazon, Microsoft, Nvidia, and Tesla. The Motley Fool has a disclosure policy.
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NVIDIA (NASDAQ:NVDA | NVDA Price Prediction) CEO Jensen Huang has a way of turning things to gold. He has spent much of 2026 explaining that the AI buildout needs hands, not just chips. On a recent The Shawn Ryan Show podcast, the host put trade guru Mike Rowe on the spot: “Jensen Huang keeps saying the tradesman is going to be the next millionaire class … Do you think there’s truth to that?” Rowe’s answer cut to the point: “I know there’s truth to it … I have a thousand success stories to back it up.”
The NVIDIA CEO’s thesis is that AI factories, semiconductor fabs, and the grid to power them require electricians, pipefitters, and HVAC crews at a scale the U.S. has not seen in a generation. Earl Duke Austin, CEO of specialty contractor Quanta, already attached a number on the opportunity: a $2.4 trillion total addressable market through 2030 from converging utility, generation, and large-load demand.
The five contractors below are the publicly traded on-ramp to that trade, and they are already printing.
1. IES Holdings: Diamond in the Rough IES Holdings (NASDAQ:IESC) is the name most portfolios do not own yet. At a market cap of roughly $12.3 billion, this Houston-based electrical and technology systems installer sits directly in the path of hyperscaler capex. Its Communications segment builds the guts of data centers, and management is not shy about where the money is coming from.
The March quarter revealed a lot in three data points. Communications revenue rose 35% year over year to $367.7 million, which the company attributed to “continued strong demand in the data center market,” adding that “the recent capital investments we have made have positioned us well to respond to that demand and deliver solutions to our customers.”
Infrastructure Solutions revenue jumped 64% to $192.4 million, and total backlog exploded to $3.86 billion, a 62% increase since the end of fiscal 2025, fueled by customer demand and expansion capacity. CEO Matt Simmes tied it all to one end market: “Strong growth in our Communications and Infrastructure Solutions businesses has continued, driven by strong demand, particularly in the data center end market.” Shares are up 59.19% year to date.
IESC is the smallest name on this list. The next one is the largest, and it just told Wall Street it plans to double earnings by 2030.
2. Quanta Services: The Heavyweight Quanta Services (NYSE:PWR) is the electrical grid contractor America cannot build data centers without. If a hyperscaler wants 500 megawatts in West Texas, the transmission lines, substations, and interconnects run through Quanta. With a market cap near $99.9 billion alongside Wall Street’s 22 buy or strong-buy ratings against zero sells, this is the institutional core of the trade.
Q1 2026 was a blowout. Revenue hit $7.87 billion, up 26.3% year over year, adjusted EPS of $2.68 beat the $2.03 consensus by 31.88%, and backlog rocketed to a record $48.5 billion. Management raised full-year 2026 guidance to a range of $34.70 billion to $35.20 billion in revenue and $13.55 to $14.25 in adjusted EPS. CEO Duke Austin laid out the long game: a path to “more than doubling our adjusted EPS by 2030,” the same horizon many AI infrastructure forecasts point to. Shares have already added 57.87% year to date.
3. Comfort Systems USA: The HVAC Kingmaker Comfort Systems USA (NYSE:FIX) is the mechanical contractor that keeps AI chips from melting. Data center and technology infrastructure now accounts for roughly 45% of company revenue, and management says demand still exceeds supply.
On the Q1 call, finance chief Bill George shared a change in dynamic: “In the 30 years I’ve been watching this industry, almost the whole time, whenever you saw deceleration or whenever you saw limitations until the last couple of years in sort of the ability to convert revenue or book work, it was a demand issue. Today, I think it’s really important for people to understand that it’s a supply issue. There is plenty more work we could take if we could possibly do it.”
The numbers back him up. Q1 2026 revenue reached $2.87 billion, up 56.5% year over year, with organic growth of 51%. Diluted EPS of $10.51 obliterated the $6.81 consensus by 54.44%, and backlog climbed to $12.45 billion, nearly double the $6.89 billion of a year earlier. Shares are up 80.5% year to date.
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FIX rides the mechanical side. The next name owns the electrical build, and its record performance obligations tell a story analysts are still catching up to.
4. EMCOR Group: The Workhorse EMCOR Group (NYSE:EME) is the diversified specialty contractor with a $34.2 billion market cap and an army of electricians, pipefitters, and mechanical trades attacking every mission-critical sector at once: Network and Communications, Water and Wastewater, Healthcare, and Institutional. Its U.S. Electrical Construction segment posted 33.1% revenue growth in Q1 2026 while Mechanical Construction added 28.8%. This is the diversified way to own the trade.
Three data points from Q1 2026 do the work. Diluted EPS of $6.84 beat the $5.90 consensus by 15.85%, Remaining Performance Obligations hit a record $15.62 billion, up 32.9% year over year, and management raised full-year 2026 guidance to $18.50 billion to $19.25 billion in revenue with EPS of $28.25 to $29.75.
CEO Tony Guzzi called out “record quarterly revenues and strong operating performance … sustained momentum across several key market sectors and geographies.” He flagged that remaining performance obligations (RPOs) have revisited record levels. The stock has returned 40.4% over the past year, per MarketWatch data, and the trade-labor supercycle is arguably just beginning. For investors looking for the picks-and-shovels layer of the AI trade beyond the chip designers, EMCOR is a textbook example of the theme explored in the 7 Stocks Powering the AI Boom (That Aren’t Chipmakers) report.
EMCOR is the diversified play. The final name is the concentrated one, and it just landed a project that could compound for a decade.
5. Sterling Infrastructure: The Payoff Sterling Infrastructure (NASDAQ:STRL) is what happens when a mid-cap engineering firm bets the house on mission-critical work and gets the timing right. Over 90% of its E-Infrastructure signed backlog is now mission-critical work: data centers, semiconductor fabrication, and next-generation manufacturing. In April, the company disclosed it had been selected as the site development partner for a mega-fab semiconductor campus, with CEO Joe Cutillo stating: “This first phase, which will be executed under a joint venture, totals over $500 million and is expected to be completed in late 2027 or early 2028. The campus build is expected to span a multi-decade period and presents opportunities for additional scopes of work through 2027 and beyond.”
Then came the math. Q1 2026 EPS of $3.59 crushed the consensus by a double-digit percentage, revenue jumped 91.59% to $825.7 million, and E-Infrastructure Solutions revenue rocketed 174% year over year to $597.7 million at a 23.5% adjusted operating margin. Management raised the full-year guidance to adjusted diluted EPS of $18.40 to $19.05, implying 72% growth at the midpoint.
Cutillo’s tell about the labor squeeze that sits at the center of the entire blue-collar millionaire thesis: “I just wish I had 2,000 or 3,000 more electricians, we would grow it even faster.”
The Bottom Line Every name on this list is monetizing the same physical build: the electricians, HVAC techs, and site crews turning Jensen Huang’s AI factories into concrete, copper, and cooling. Backlogs are at record highs, guidance is being raised across the board, and management teams are telling analysts the constraint is labor, not demand.
Cyclicality and execution risk are real, but the capex cycle behind this trade runs through 2030 on the calendars of every hyperscaler and utility in the country. The trade-labor economy is repricing, and the contractors who employ it are already showing investors what that looks like. Just ask Jensen.
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Despite rising earnings forecasts, investors rotate into other semiconductor stocks while Nvidia's valuation falls below the S&P 500. Summary
Analysts still see over 50% upside despite the valuation reset.
Nvidia NVDA, a major chipmaker whose graphics processing units dominate artificial intelligence data centers, has seen its stock valuation fall to its cheapest level since early 2019 after losing roughly $1 trillion in market value in less than two months. Nvidia shares have declined 16% since reaching an all-time high on May 14, even as the company's GPUs continue to hold a leading position in the AI data center market. The stock is now trading at about 18 times projected earnings over the next 12 months, below the S&P 500 Index at more than 20 times and the Nasdaq 100 Index at almost 23 times, suggesting investors may be reassessing one of the market's most crowded AI trades.
The decline appears less connected to weakening fundamentals and more tied to a rotation within the semiconductor sector. Wall Street analysts have continued raising Nvidia's profit estimates, while investors have shifted attention toward Micron Technology MU, a memory-chip maker benefiting from stronger high-bandwidth memory pricing, as well as Advanced Micro Devices AMD and Intel INTC, competing chipmakers whose shares have doubled or even tripled this year. Nvidia is still expected to deliver the fourth-fastest revenue growth in the S&P 500 SPY this year, but its shares are up only 5.6% in 2026, trailing the S&P 500's 9.6% gain, the Nasdaq 100's 16% rise, and the Philadelphia Stock Exchange Semiconductor Index's 74% jump.
Nvidia's market position still appears strong, with the company holding 97% of the server GPU market at the end of 2025, up from 95% at the end of 2024, according to Bloomberg Intelligence data cited in the source. The company is projected to generate $228 billion in profit on $393 billion in sales in fiscal 2027, which ends Jan. 31, representing expected growth of 90% and 82%, respectively, while its profit estimate has risen 13% over the past three months. Of the 82 analysts tracked by Bloomberg, only three rate the stock a hold and one recommends selling, while the average price target of $302 implies more than 50% potential upside over the next 12 months, leaving investors to weigh whether Nvidia's valuation reset could mark a temporary pause or a deeper shift in AI market leadership.
Disclosures I/we have no positions in any stocks mentioned, and have no plans to buy any new positions in the stocks mentioned within the next 72 hours.
Bank of America Securities analyst Vivek Arya reiterated a Buy rating on Nvidia stock with a price target of $350.
The Analyst TakeawaysArya says Nvidia has "durable high-quality growth" in a new investor note.
One of the key points from Arya is the forward price-to-earnings ratio of Nvidia, which now stands at a seven-year low.
"We strongly disagree with the EPS discount and see as an enhanced buy opportunity for a unique, durable growth franchise," Arya said.
The analyst said investors may be overstating high bandwidth memory (HBM) and underestimating Nvidia’s pricing power and scale. Arya expects Nvidia’s gross margins to remain in the mid-70% range going forward.
Arya said Nvidia’s current stock valuation already bakes in a 30% to 35% headwind for earnings per share.
Here are the price-to-earnings ratios for 2026, 2027 and 2028 based on estimates from the analyst.
Nvidia is in the middle of the pack for 2026 estimates on a price-to-earnings ratio valuation. The stock jumps to being the cheapest using this valuation method for both 2027 and 2028 based on the estimates.
"We expect upcoming NVDA earnings to reinforce its moats in products, pricing and supply chain."
The analyst said Nvidia should maintain its dominant market share of AI capex over the long term.
"We expect upcoming earnings call to be a positive catalyst, clarifying NVDA’s durable moats across its products, pricing and supply chain."
Nvidia Stock Price ActionNvidia shares were up 0.43% at $197.77 on Wednesday versus a 52-week trading range of $161.16 to $236.54. Nvidia stock is up 4.5% year-to-date in 2026.
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Hedge funds have net-sold U.S. technology stocks for four straight weeks, with semiconductor and hardware names at the center of the unwind, according to Goldman Sachs prime brokerage data cited by Reuters. The AI signal is cautious, not abandonment: sophisticated traders appear to be trimming crowded chip winners after a major run, even as semiconductor exposure remains historically elevated.
The Selling: Four Straight Weeks Out of Tech According to Goldman Sachs prime brokerage data circulated the week ending July 3, hedge funds net-sold U.S. information technology for a fourth consecutive week, with semiconductors leading the outflows. The writing was on the wall. The Philadelphia Semiconductor Index (SOX) fell 4.2% over that stretch, and info tech was the single most net-sold sector across the book. Positioning flows moved into commercial services, consumer staples, real estate, and energy, alongside broad index and ETF products, per Reuters reporting on the Goldman note. On the surface, that pattern looks like leadership giving up.
But Not Everyone Is Selling The counterweight comes from Whale Rock Capital, the roughly $19 billion tech-focused hedge fund that Bloomberg reports gained 72.5% year-to-date through mid-year, with its long-only fund up 82%. The returns did not come from NVIDIA. They came from a concentrated bet on the layer beneath it: SanDisk (NASDAQ:SNDK | SNDK Price Prediction), up more than 850% in H1 2026; SK Hynix, up more than 300% (foreign-listed currently); and printed-circuit-board maker TTM Technologies (NASDAQ:TTMI), up roughly 170% in H1 2026, per Bloomberg data. Whale Rock also holds a stake in private AI lab Anthropic at a reported valuation near $965 billion.
Verified year-to-date price moves through July 7 line up with that thesis. TTM Technologies is up 108.81%, Micron Technology (NASDAQ:MU) is up 229.2%, and Western Digital (NASDAQ:WDC) is up 211.7%, versus the S&P 500 at 9.25%.
Rotation, Not Exit Despite what it seems, the two threads are not in conflict with each other. Broad hedge-fund selling of mega-cap semiconductors reads as profit-taking after a historic run, while Whale Rock’s performance is precisely why there is profit to ring. The smart money is rotating within the artificial intelligence trade, toward memory (SanDisk, Micron), storage (Western Digital), components (TTM), and private AI, and away from the most-owned mega-cap leader.
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Analyst books support the rotation: SanDisk carries 15 Buy and 3 Strong Buy ratings with a $1,930.50 target, Micron shows 31 Buy and 9 Strong Buy ratings with a $1,486 target, and Western Digital carries 18 Buy and 4 Strong Buy ratings with a $600.29 target.
NVIDIA as the Anchor NVIDIA (NASDAQ:NVDA) illustrates the compressed leadership premium. Year-to-date through July 8, the stock is up 8.6%, trailing the S&P 500’s 9.2%, and is down nearly 7% over the past month, according to TradingView data. That price action sits against fundamentals that remain intact. Q1 FY27, reported May 20, delivered revenue of $81.615 billion, up 85.23% year over year, non-GAAP EPS of $1.87 versus $1.7738 consensus, and Q2 guidance of $91.0 billion in revenue. CEO Jensen Huang described the moment as “the buildout of AI factories, the largest infrastructure expansion in human history.”
The disconnect between beat-and-raise fundamentals and range-bound, distribution-like share price action is the definition of a crowded position getting trimmed.
The Signal for Retail Investors The rotation is a message about repositioning. AI capital expenditure remains the load-bearing wall of this market, but leadership at the top has narrowed and crowded. Hedge funds are moving where the incremental dollar of margin sits: memory, storage, and the physical infrastructure below the GPU layer. For context on where analysts see the next wave of AI beneficiaries, see 24/7 Wall St.’s Next Nvidia Playbook. The takeaway for retail is patience over chasing, diversification within the AI theme rather than out of it, and a clear-eyed read that the smart money is repositioning. The melt-up is changing hands.
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The three most valuable companies in the world, NVIDIA (NASDAQ:NVDA | NVDA Price Prediction), Apple (NASDAQ:AAPL), and Google parent Alphabet (NASDAQ:GOOG), collectively command a combined market cap north of $13 trillion and sit at the center of the AI capex boom.
It’s been brutal to be a semiconductor investor lately, with the iShares Semiconductor ETF (NASDAQ:SOXX) tanking 11% in the past week and around 16% from all-time highs seen at the end of June. At this pace, it feels like a bear market is unavoidable, but before you hit the panic button, I’d argue that the latest correction is nothing all too out of the ordinary, especially when you consider the magnitude of the year-to-date run.
Despite the latest sell-off, the iShares Semiconductor ETF is still up over 75%. And while Dr. Michael Burry is looking very wise with his latest short positions against the group as well as individual bearish bets against Nvidia (NASDAQ:NVDA | NVDA Price Prediction), I certainly wouldn’t want to single out Nvidia, especially as the GPU titan becomes one of the value plays of the batch. As to whether it will be (mostly) immune to the pain to come for the semiconductors remains the big question.
In my view, Nvidia didn’t really participate in the year-to-date boom, so it might not need to face as vicious a correction. With the shares holding their own on a turbulent Tuesday, gaining a fraction of a percent, perhaps Nvidia is the relative safety play as some of the hotter semiconductor names (think DRAM and NAND makers) come crashing back to Earth.
With Nvidia stock up just 4% on the year, Jensen Huang’s empire is now trailing the market by quite a bit. But it’s this period of underperformance that I think makes the shares tempting to growth investors looking for relative value in an industry where some may think there’s no value to be had. So, rather than going short Nvidia and the broader basket of chip plays, I think it makes more sense to go long Nvidia and short the semis.
Shares just keep getting cheaper With shares trading at 22.2 times forward price-to-earnings (P/E) and no signs that AI demand is slowing, ahead of what I believe could be a Vera Rubin boom (one of the timeliest catalysts of the year, in my books), value and growth investors alike might have something to love from the stock after a 16% drop from peak levels.
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So, whichever AI trend you’re looking for next (whether it’s agents, robotics, orchestration, or something else), Nvidia seems to be a way to cover all bases. Of course, there’s a good chance Nvidia stock gets dragged down in sympathy with the rest of the semi trade, especially as the fear of a cyclical top in DRAM and NAND intensifies well before any evidence of a slowdown surfaces.
Even if algorithmic efficiencies reduce demand for DRAM, I still think demand for Nvidia GPUs is more structural, especially as the Vera Rubin era brings forth 10x throughput-per-watt. And while Nvidia could take a hit if hyperscalers scale back a bit or announce some sort of CapEx ceiling, I certainly wouldn’t count Nvidia out of the game because there’s so much more to love than just GPUs as AI becomes more useful and, with that, monetizable.
Could higher rates, lower CapEx, and other uncertainties weigh? Perhaps it’s the optionality that AI spenders have (if one reduces spending, others may follow) that makes the semiconductors such an uneasy trade to be in at these heights. Add Fed chair Kevin Warsh’s inflation comments into the equation, and it’s not hard to imagine a rate hike spoiling the semi party.
Even if hyperscalers do start showing some restraint, Nvidia is still going to be there when robots hit the factory floors, and 24/7 agentic coders develop the impregnable, hyper-customized software of the future. And that makes the firm a long-term hold. In my view, Nvidia isn’t just the most magnificent semiconductor stock to own, it’s also the cheapest.
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An NVIDIA logo and a computer motherboard appear in this illustration taken August 25, 2025. REUTERS/Dado Ruvic/Illustration/File Photo Purchase Licensing Rights, opens new tab
July 8 (Reuters) - China is planning to allow the country's top AI companies to buy a limited number of Nvidia's (NVDA.O), opens new tab H200 chips, the Information reported on Wednesday, citing two people with direct knowledge of the matter.
Chinese officials have told Alibaba (9988.HK), opens new tab, ByteDance and DeepSeek in recent weeks that they may soon receive permission to buy some H200 chips, the report said.
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Shares of Nvidia rose 1% after the report.
The chip giant did not immediately respond to a Reuters request for comment, nor did the U.S. commerce department, which oversees exports of advanced AI chips overseas.
China's commerce ministry also did not immediately respond to a request for comment, while Alibaba, ByteDance and DeepSeek did not respond outside of regular business hours.
The U.S. government has allowed Nvidia to sell its advanced H200 chips to China, and licensed about 10 Chinese firms to buy the chips. However, Chinese officials, keen to nurture domestic suppliers, have withheld approval so far.
Reuters reported in March that Nvidia had won Beijing's approval to sell the chips to China, citing sources, and around the same time, Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang also told CNBC that the company had clearance from China.
Beijing is still determining the exact number of Nvidia chips to approve, and it could amount to fewer than 200,000 in total, the Information said, adding that was less than half of what the companies requested earlier this year.
Last month, Reuters exclusively reported that Nvidia told Chinese clients its new "Vera" central processors for AI data centres could be available as soon as August and that they can begin placing orders.
Nvidia's market share in China has effectively fallen to zero, Huang said in October, hurt by U.S. export controls and Beijing's push for self-reliance in key technologies.
The potential shift in China's stance underscores the growing computing capacity crunch that the country's tech companies are facing.
Reporting by Deborah Sophia in Bengaluru; Editing by Shinjini Ganguli
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If you're a smart investor, you've likely been paying attention to the recent sell-off in artificial intelligence (AI) stocks. Wall Street appears to have gotten spooked by the massive amounts that tech sector players are spending to build out AI data centers. The hyperscalers have repeatedly told investors that they view the risk of underspending to be far greater than that of overspending, and the momentum of data center builds is likely to persist for some time. This makes the current market sentiment a short-term trend, which is why I think now is the perfect time to load up on some of the AI stalwarts that will lead the way for the next few years.
At the top of my buying list are Alphabet (GOOG 1.50%) (GOOGL 1.59%), Microsoft (MSFT 1.70%), and Nvidia (NVDA +1.46%), and I'm confident that these three will crush the market over the next few years.
Image source: Getty Images.
Alphabet Just a few years ago, the view of Alphabet was that it would inevitably be a loser from the AI megatrend, suffering as the use of chatbots cut into demand for Google Search. But Alphabet flipped that script and quickly became an AI leader. Its leadership in this field has also helped make its Google Cloud platform one of the top places for developers to build AI applications, and its rapid revenue growth rate -- 63% year over year in its most recent fiscal quarter -- backs this up. Alphabet is also seeing strength in its legacy Google Search business, where AI summaries have become a widely used feature.
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Overall, Alphabet is becoming a force to be reckoned with in the AI realm, and this makes it a top investment option in the space. The market has been bullish on Alphabet's stock, as it has risen around 15% this year, although that figure was as high as nearly 30% in May before the sell-off began. With Alphabet trading for 25 times expected forward earnings, it isn't the cheapest stock on my list, but it's about where most investors would expect a big tech stock to be.
GOOGL PE Ratio (Forward) data by YCharts.
With Wall Street expecting 21% revenue growth this year and 19% next year, I think this is a great price to pay for the stock, making it a smart buy now.
Microsoft Microsoft is currently trading at just 20 times forward expected earnings -- notably cheaper than Alphabet.
MSFT PE Ratio (Forward) data by YCharts.
For reference, the S&P 500 (^GSPC 0.62%) trades for 21.7 times forward earnings, so Microsoft is changing hands at a discount to the overall market. What potential investors need to determine is whether that discount is appropriate or a buying opportunity.
Microsoft Azure is another top platform to build AI applications on, and many AI companies, including OpenAI, choose to train their AI models on it. The Azure segment's revenues grew at a 40% rate during Microsoft's last quarter. Microsoft has also integrated its Copilot AI tool into its business productivity software, which has contributed to another booming AI division. The annual revenue run rate of its AI business rose by 123% year over year last quarter to $37 billion.
Microsoft is in a similar boat to Alphabet, yet trades at a 20% valuation discount to it. This doesn't make a whole lot of sense, so I could see Microsoft's stock rapidly rising in the near future to close that gap.
Nvidia Chipmaker Nvidia (NVDA +1.46%) has led the AI build-out over the past few years, and looks to be doing it again in 2026. Demand for its GPUs and the ecosystem that supports them has never been higher, and with more data center build-outs expected throughout 2030, its revenues should keep growing over the next few years.
For 2026, Wall Street analysts project a strong 82% revenue growth rate, but for 2027, that rate is expected to fall to 41%. However, so far, only 2026's anticipated growth is priced into the stock.
NVDA PE Ratio (Forward) data by YCharts.
This means the market expects Nvidia to revert to a market-average growth rate next year, despite projections that contradict that sentiment. As a result, I think Nvidia is an excellent stock to buy now, as the next year and a half could deliver strong gains for investors.
NVIDIA Corp (NASDAQ:NVDA) stock gained less than half a percent on Wednesday as dip-buyers lean into large-cap tech leadership, even as risk appetite remains mixed across the tape.
The Nasdaq is down 0.05%, while the S&P 500 has shed 0.45% and Technology is still up 0.5%.
The stock drew fresh attention after a report said China plans to allow leading AI companies to buy a limited number of H200 chips.
• NVIDIA stock is taking a breather. What’s next for NVDA stock?
China May Ease Access For Top AI FirmsTech strategist Dan Ives maintained a bullish view of AI semiconductor stocks, telling CNBC that investors still underestimate the long-term earnings power of major chipmakers such as NVIDIA.
Ives Sees AI Chip Demand ContinuingIves said the AI revolution remains in its "third inning" and expects upcoming earnings to confirm continued AI monetization and demand. He also said strong memory-chip trends in Asia support the broader AI infrastructure buildout.
Technical AnalysisNvidia is trading 1.8% below its 20-day SMA ($201.37) and 5.6% below its 50-day SMA ($209.39), which keeps the near-term trend under pressure even as the longer-term structure holds up above the 200-day SMA ($191.37). The 20-day SMA, which is below the 50-day SMA, reinforces that the recent rebound attempts have been losing traction.
Earnings & Analyst OutlookLooking further out, the next major catalyst for the stock arrives with the Aug. 26 (estimated) earnings report.
EPS Estimate: $2.07 (Up from $1.04 year-over-year) Revenue Estimate: $91.70 billion (Up from $46.74 billion YoY) Valuation: P/E of 30.2x (Indicates premium valuation relative to peers) Analyst Consensus & Recent Actions: The stock carries a Buy rating with a consensus price forecast of $309.13. Recent analyst moves include:
China Renaissance: Initiated with Buy (Target $319 on June 5) Needham: Buy (Maintains target $270 on June 2) DA Davidson: Buy (Maintains target $300 on June 1) Top ETF ExposureSignificance: Because Nvidia carries such a heavy weight in these funds, any significant inflows or outflows will likely trigger automatic buying or selling of the stock.
Price ActionNVDA Stock Price Activity: Nvidia shares were up 0.076% at $196.99 at the time of publication on Wednesday, according to Benzinga Pro data.
Photo Courtesy: Shutterstock.com
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Nvidia stock remains under pressure this week as the recent sell-off continues. It dropped to $189, down by 18% from its highest point this year, with its valuation falling by nearly $1 trillion. Still, the stock has formed a highly bullish pattern and has landed at a core support, suggesting a rebound is possible.
Technicals suggest that the NVDA stock price may bounce back in the near future. For one, it has landed at the 200-day Exponential Moving Average (EMA), which has provided it with substantial support over time. It has barely remained solidly below this MA in years.
At the same time, the stock has slowly formed a falling wedge pattern, which is made up of two descending and converging trendlines. These two lines are now nearing their confluence, which may lead to a bullish reversal.
Technically, a key risk is that the Relative Strength Index (RSI) is falling and is yet to hit the oversold level. As such, the stock may continue to drift lower for a while before it eventually bounces back.
NVDA stock chart | Source: TradingView
Nvidia is being valued like a value stock despite being one of the fastest-growing companies in the United States. Its latest earnings showed that first-quarter revenue surged to $81.6 billion, representing an 85% year-over-year increase.
Most notably, analysts believe that the growth path remains intact. Its second-quarter revenue is expected to be $91.7 billion, up by 96% YoY. This growth is being driven by soaring data center spending, with the top hyperscalers planning to spend over $700 billion in capital expenditure this year.
Yahoo Finance data shows that its annual revenue is expected to grow by 81% to $392 billion. Unless things change, Nvidia has a long history of beating analyst estimates, meaning that its revenue may hit $400 billion for the first time ever. It is then expected to hit $554 billion next year.
Despite these developments, the company’s valuation has plunged. SeekingAlpha data shows that the company has a forward price-to-earnings ratio of 20, much lower than the five-year average of 53. It has dropped to the lowest level in years.
This valuation multiple makes it cheaper than other slow-growing and lower-margin companies. For example, Walmart has a forward PE ratio of 38, while Tesla’s multiple is 189.
Other valuation multiples suggest that the company is a bargain considering that its growth is accelerating. For example, the company has a rule of 40 metric of 132%, based on its forward revenue growth of 70% and a profit margin of 62%.
Nvidia has some notable catalysts that may help to supercharge its growth. The US has allowed it to sell its H200 chips to some Chinese companies, and most recently, it launched a new line of CPUs.
The undervaluation is likely because investors are concerned about the AI industry and whether companies will continue spending. Also, there are concerns about competition, with its biggest customers like Microsoft, OpenAI, Amazon, and Google are launching their GPUs. More competition is coming from smaller companies like Cerebras and SambaNova.
Analysts remain upbeat about Nvidia, with the consensus target being $309, representing a 60% gain from the current level.
The race to challenge Nvidia's dominance in artificial intelligence chips is entering a new chapter, with startups attracting billions of dollars in funding, Big Tech accelerating in-house chip development, and investors betting that the next phase of AI computing may not belong exclusively to graphics processing units.
While Nvidia continues to dominate the market for AI hardware, attention is increasingly shifting from training massive AI models to running them efficiently in real-world applications, known as AI inference.
That transition has opened the door for a new generation of chipmakers promising faster performance, lower power consumption, and significantly lower operating costs.
The latest reminder came on Wednesday when AI chip startup SambaNova raised $1 billion in fresh financing, highlighting investors' willingness to back companies seeking to carve out a share of one of the world's fastest-growing technology markets.
The funding round values SambaNova at $11 billion and was led by General Atlantic, with participation from Seligman Ventures, T. Rowe Price, and Capital Group.
The latest investment follows a separate funding round earlier this year in which the company raised more than $350 million from investors including Intel, alongside a strategic partnership.
According to a CNBC report published in April, AI chip startups raised $8.3 billion globally in 2026.
Unless funding markets experience a sharp downturn, investment in the sector is expected to reach record levels this year.
Source: CNBC
Nvidia built its dominance on graphics processing units originally designed for gaming but later adapted for AI model training.
Those chips remain the industry standard for building large language models.
However, as enterprises increasingly deploy AI applications rather than train new foundation models, the industry is paying greater attention to inference, the process through which trained AI models respond to user queries.
Many startups argue that GPUs, while exceptionally powerful, were never purpose-built for AI workloads.
Instead, they believe specialized processors designed specifically for inference can dramatically reduce costs while consuming less electricity.
SambaNova is far from the only company trying to loosen Nvidia's grip on AI infrastructure.
Cerebras, which recently debuted on public markets after raising $5.5 billion, has long positioned itself as one of Nvidia's strongest competitors.
Morgan Stanley has argued that the company enjoys a first-mover advantage in certain AI computing segments.
Another closely watched player is Groq, whose inference-focused architecture attracted so much attention that Nvidia agreed to license some of its chip technology and hired away its chief executive last December.
CNBC later reported that Nvidia had agreed to acquire Groq for $20 billion in cash, although neither company confirmed the report.
Groq has said it would continue operating independently under chief executive Simon Edwards.
Interestingly, Nvidia later introduced its own language processing unit at its annual GTC conference in March, suggesting that it is incorporating ideas emerging from newer competitors rather than ignoring them.
Another startup attracting attention is D-Matrix, founded in 2019.
The company says its processors can execute inference workloads up to 10 times faster while consuming five times less energy than standalone Nvidia GPUs, provided workloads remain relatively small.
D-Matrix has raised around $500 million to date, reaching an estimated valuation of roughly $2 billion.
Microsoft participated in its funding through its venture arm M12.
The competitive pressure is not coming solely from startups.
Many of Nvidia's largest customers are simultaneously becoming rivals as they invest heavily in designing proprietary AI chips.
The rationale is straightforward. Developing custom silicon reduces dependence on Nvidia, lowers long-term infrastructure costs, and enables tighter integration between hardware and software.
Reuters reported this week that Chinese AI startup DeepSeek is developing its own AI chip in an effort to reduce reliance on Nvidia and Huawei processors used to train and deploy its models.
Earlier this month, The Information reported that Anthropic had held discussions with Samsung about collaborating on a future chip, although key decisions regarding its specifications and intended use remain unresolved.
OpenAI, last month, unveiled its first custom AI processor, named Jalapeño, developed alongside Broadcom.
Broadcom chief executive Hock Tan told Reuters that the processor performs on par with Nvidia's Blackwell chips and Google's tensor processing units.
Google itself is moving aggressively to reduce its reliance on Nvidia.
Rather than using the same processors for both AI training and inference, the company is separating those workloads into dedicated chips under the eighth generation of its tensor processing unit family.
Its TPU 8t and TPU 8i processors are expected to become available later this year.
Amazon is following a similar strategy.
Its AI chief, Peter DeSantis, recently told Bloomberg that Amazon Web Services is discussing the possibility of selling its Trainium AI chips to external customers, potentially creating one of the strongest alternatives to Nvidia in data centre infrastructure.
Such discussions remain at an early stage, but they follow Amazon chief executive Andy Jassy's comments that demand for the company's internally developed AI chips has been so strong that commercializing them is now under consideration.
Meta is also investing aggressively in custom AI hardware through an expanded partnership with Broadcom.
The company's Meta Training and Inference Accelerator (MTIA) programme has already produced its first chip, the MTIA 300, which powers ranking and recommendation systems across Meta's platforms.
Three additional generations are expected through 2027, with the later versions designed specifically for inference workloads that power AI assistants and respond to user queries.
Like Google and Amazon, Meta's objective is to reduce dependence on Nvidia while tailoring chips to its own software stack and AI infrastructure.
The shift illustrates a broader trend across hyperscalers.
Rather than relying entirely on off-the-shelf GPUs, technology giants are increasingly building application-specific integrated circuits (ASICs) optimized for their own workloads.
Unlike many startups, AMD and Broadcom have already established themselves as meaningful competitors in AI infrastructure.
AMD's transformation has mirrored Nvidia's in several ways.
Originally known for gaming graphics cards and PC processors, the company shifted its focus toward data centre accelerators and AI chips, allowing it to emerge as the second-largest public player in the AI accelerator market.
The strategy has paid off handsomely for investors.
AMD shares have surged more than 460% over the past five years, giving the company a market value exceeding $840 billion.
Broadcom, meanwhile, has become one of the most strategically important companies in custom AI silicon.
Rather than competing directly with Nvidia through merchant chips, Broadcom designs custom processors for some of the world's biggest AI developers.
Melius Research analysts recently said Broadcom has visibility into about 10 gigawatts of AI demand by 2027 from customers including Anthropic and Meta Platforms.
The company's influence expanded further on Wednesday after it signed a semiconductor agreement worth more than $30 billion with Apple.
Under the deal, Broadcom will design and manufacture "custom silicon components and cutting-edge wireless connectivity technologies" for Apple's products.
Despite the growing number of competitors, most analysts believe Nvidia's leadership remains overwhelming.
"Nvidia is definitely going to see more competition compared to a year ago," said KinNgai Chan, a managing director at Summit Insights Group, in comments to Reuters in March.
"Nvidia still has over 90% market share in both training and inference markets today."
However, Chan expects that dominance to gradually erode over the coming years.
"We think Nvidia will begin to see share loss starting in 2027, once in-house ASIC programs gain some scale, especially in the inference market," he said, referring to application-specific integrated circuits that are designed for dedicated workloads and offer higher efficiency than general-purpose GPUs.
Morningstar shares a similar long-term outlook.
"In the long term, we think it's inevitable that Google and AWS will push to bring more chips and AI gear in-house, to Nvidia's detriment," Morningstar analyst Brian Colello wrote.
"We expect Nvidia to lose market share to Google's TPUs and Amazon's Trainium (especially if Anthropic and/or Google Gemini emerge as dominant frontier models), but we think Nvidia's share should level out at 68% in 2030 (versus 80% today) within a much larger pie of AI spending," he added.
However, all said and done, Nvidia is not standing still.
The company spent more than $18 billion on research and development during the financial year ended January 2026 as it accelerated work on next-generation AI processors, networking products and photonics technology.
During the latest conference call in May, Huang said Nvidia's new "Vera" central processors give it access to a new $200 billion market.
Nvidia expects its Vera chips to generate $20 billion in revenue by the end of the current fiscal year.
Huang said those sales were not included in the company's earlier projection of $1 trillion in revenue from its Blackwell and Rubin AI chip platforms between 2025 and 2027.
Perhaps more significantly, Nvidia is increasingly choosing collaboration over confrontation.
Instead of competing head-on with every emerging AI chip startup, Nvidia is increasingly choosing to collaborate with companies developing specialized inference processors.
Acquiring assets from AI inference startup Groq in December for $20 billion and announcing investments worth $4 billion in two photonics companies earlier this year were part of this strategy.
Also, by integrating some rival chips alongside its own GPUs in AI server racks, Nvidia is broadening its ecosystem while ensuring it continues to benefit from AI infrastructure spending regardless of which inference technologies gain the most traction.
That strategy allows Nvidia to participate in multiple AI hardware ecosystems while continuing to generate revenue even if customers adopt specialized inference chips alongside its GPUs.
On Wednesday, inference cloud provider Parasail announced it would deploy D-Matrix's Corsair inference accelerators alongside Nvidia Hopper and Blackwell systems to deliver "up to 10x faster, more cost-efficient inference services" for customers.
Further, SambaNova's products are designed to complement Nvidia hardware rather than replace it outright.
Rodrigo Liang, SambaNova's chief executive officer, said its SN40 and SN50 chips can run the so-called decode portion of inference, unpacking the query from the model five to 10 times faster, which helps free up the same number of Nvidia chips for other tasks such as training.
Nvidia's latest financial results suggest competition has yet to meaningfully dent its business.
Its data centre division, which remains the company's primary growth engine, reported revenue of a record $75.2 billion, up 92% year over year.
Chief executive Jensen Huang sought to reassure investors that demand remains broad-based and that new products would help the company surpass the $1 trillion revenue opportunity it has projected for its flagship AI platforms.
Even so, NVDA shares fell 1.6% following the earnings release despite stronger-than-expected revenue guidance and the announcement of an $80 billion share repurchase programme.
The market reaction suggested investors are increasingly looking beyond current earnings and focusing on whether Nvidia can defend its dominant position as competitors multiply.
The stock has gained a relatively modest 4% this year and just over 23% over the past 12 months, a sharp moderation compared with its extraordinary gains during the early stages of the AI boom.
After paying a $6.1 billion dividend on June 26 for the first quarter of fiscal 2027, as Finbold reported, Nvidia Corp. (NASDAQ: NVDA) is likely to repeat a similar move during the next payout for the second quarter, potentially in early October 2026.
The Q2 fiscal 2027 Nvidia dividend could be paid on October 1, 2026, based on Nvidia dividend history, as analyzed by Finbold on July 8. Officially, the date for the company’s dividend payout for the second quarter of fiscal year 2027 is expected to be announced on August 26, 2026, when the company releases its earnings report.
As such, as per Nvidia dividend history, the ex-dividend date, the cutoff day on which investors must already own a stock to receive the next dividend payment, could be on September 10, 2026, as per forecast from dividendmax.
What is the expected amount to be paid in the next Nvidia dividend? For the first time in Nvidia’s dividend history, the company paid $0.25 per share last month. The company increased its dividend payout by 25-fold from the prior quarter, fueled by the ongoing AI (Artificial Intelligence) boom.
With Nvidia forecasting $91 billion in revenue for the second quarter, following a record $81.6 billion in the first quarter of fiscal 2027, the company is well positioned to pay at least $0.25 again on October 1, 2026.
Is NVDA stock a good buy? NVDA stock is worth considering, as it has maintained a parabolic bull rally over the past few years and has significantly increased its dividend. Furthermore, the Nvidia stock dividend makes the company more competitive.
NVDA stock price performance. Source: Finbold Year-to-date (YTD), NVDA stock has gained over 5% and is trading at about $196.93 at press time. Nonetheless, Wall Street analysts, including Vivek Arya of Bank of America Corp. (NYSE: BAC), anticipate further upside for NVDA shares over the coming 12 months.
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A machine learning-powered forecast from Finbold AI Agent has projected a modest decline in Nvidia (NASDAQ: NVDA) stock by the end of July.
According to the prediction generated on July 8, the AI model expects Nvidia shares to trade at an average price of $193.14 on July 31, representing a 1.89% decline from the stock’s current price of $196.86.
NVDA price prediction for July 31. Source: Finbold The forecast was produced using a multi-model machine learning system that incorporates predictions from Claude Opus 4.6, DeepSeek Chat, Gemini 3 Flash, and GPT-5.2.
The prediction also included technical indicators, including the Moving Average Convergence Divergence (MACD), Relative Strength Index (RSI), stochastic oscillator, MACD slope, 50-day SMA, and 200-day SMA.
Among the models, GPT-5.2 delivered the most bullish outlook, projecting NVDA to reach $203.50, implying a gain of 3.37% from current levels. Claude Opus 4.6 forecast a price of $191.50, while DeepSeek Chat predicted $193.
Gemini 3 Flash issued the most bearish projection, estimating Nvidia would fall to $184.55, representing a 6.25% decline.
NVDA price prediction for July 31. Source: Finbold Nvidia stock’s strong fundamentals The short-term bearish forecast comes despite Nvidia posting some of the strongest financial results in its history.
For fiscal 2026, the company generated $215.9 billion in revenue, up roughly 66% year-over-year, while net income climbed to approximately $120 billion.
Momentum continued into the first quarter of fiscal 2027, when Nvidia reported a record $81.6 billion in revenue, an 85% annual increase, driven primarily by its data center business.
The company’s AI infrastructure segment remains its primary growth engine, with data center revenue reaching $75.2 billion during the quarter.
Gross margins have remained near 75%, supported by strong demand for Nvidia’s advanced AI hardware and software ecosystem.
At the same time, investor sentiment toward Nvidia continues to be driven by the rapid expansion of artificial intelligence infrastructure spending.
The company’s Blackwell platform is ramping production as cloud providers, enterprises, and governments increase investments in AI computing capacity.
Nvidia also maintains a strong competitive position through its CUDA software ecosystem, networking solutions, and roadmap visibility extending beyond Blackwell to future architectures.
In addition, Nvidia continues returning capital to shareholders through share repurchases and dividends. During the first quarter of fiscal 2027, the company returned approximately $20 billion through buybacks and dividends and authorized an additional $80 billion in stock repurchases.
Right now, Nvidia (NVDA +0.62%) is on top of the world.
Not only is the semiconductor company the largest in the world by market capitalization, but it's also posting growth numbers that would make most small tech start-ups envious. In the most recent quarter alone, Nvidia increased its revenue by 74.6% and its net income by a jaw-dropping 120.7%.
But can the company keep this up over the next five years? Where will Nvidia stock be in five years?
Image source: Getty Images.
The short answer, of course, is that it depends on many factors, many of which are outside the company's control. That said, the company looks likely to continue its domination of the high-end processor space, and I expect its shares to increase at least 50% over the next five years and would bet even money on them to double (or more).
Continued dominance Right now, Nvidia's monster growth is being driven by AI spending. Much of that spending is by AI hyperscalers like Google parent Alphabet and fellow tech giant Microsoft. However, there are concerns about whether that level of spending is sustainable over the long term, given the resource-intensive nature of operating AI. If AI spending begins to plateau in the coming years, Nvidia's growth will likely falter, and investors will probably sell off the stock.
Here's the thing, though: The AI build-out needs Nvidia and its top-of-the-line processors and other infrastructure, but Nvidia doesn't necessarily need AI to succeed.
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Before AI, Nvidia already offered superior processing power through its graphics processing units (GPUs), which were the best at processing complex computer graphics, and the stock went up. Then, people discovered that Nvidia's superior GPUs were the best at powering cryptocurrency mining, and its stock price increased even more. Now its GPUs are proving indispensable for AI computations, and the stock has exploded higher.
Whether or not AI fizzles, powerful processing chips will still be required for the next big thing (quantum computing?). And Nvidia is likely to dominate that market, too.
John Bromels has positions in Alphabet, Microsoft, and Nvidia. The Motley Fool has positions in and recommends Alphabet, Microsoft, and Nvidia. The Motley Fool has a disclosure policy.
The largest company in the world, Nvidia (NVDA +0.62%), has had a bit of a rough stretch in recent months. Its stock peaked in May, but declined around 17% since then. That's not an insignificant decline, and leaves investors wondering when the next rally could be coming.
I think there are some catalysts later on in July that could cause Nvidia's stock to rocket back to all-time highs, and investors would be smart to load up on shares before the rally occurs.
Image source: Getty Images.
The next month will prove the AI build-out is as strong as ever Nvidia makes graphics processing units (GPUs) along with various products to support its accelerated computing ecosystem. GPUs are still the top choice for running AI workloads, and Nvidia dominates the market share of GPUs sold for data center computing. There's a very strong correlation between increasing data center spending and Nvidia's sales, and that trend will likely accelerate as data centers shift from construction costs to computing costs.
This year, the big four AI hyperscalers plan to spend around $650 billion on data center capital expenditures. Next year, Nvidia claims this group will spend more than $1 trillion.
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That's a major increase and should boost Nvidia's revenue along the way. In July, all of the big four AI hyperscalers report earnings, which will likely include commentary surrounding AI spending and how these companies are monetizing AI. I'll be paying attention to all of them, but the biggest one I'll be watching is Microsoft (MSFT +0.59%), as its fiscal year ended on June 30. Microsoft will provide investors with fiscal year (FY) 2027 capital expenditures guidance, and a huge jump over last year's figure could confirm the bull case behind Nvidia's stock. That could help propel it back to all-time highs, which is why I think Nvidia is a strong buy now.
Another key announcement will come from Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company (TSM 4.43%), Nvidia's primary logic chip fabricator. If TSMC reports strong growth from AI semiconductor sales, it will be easy to draw a conclusion that Nvidia is also doing well.
I think both of these companies will report strong earnings with great forward guidance, and that could cause Nvidia's stock to rise. Even if it doesn't, Nvidia reports earnings in late August and will likely report another blowout quarter, as there hasn't been any shift in actual spending habits from Nvidia's core clients yet.
As for a price tag, Nvidia trades for just 21.7 times forward earnings -- the same price tag as the S&P 500 (^GSPC 0.45%).
NVDA PE Ratio (Forward) data by YCharts
All of this adds up to make Nvidia a screaming deal in the market, and I think it's well worth buying right now.
Keithen Drury has positions in Microsoft, Nvidia, and Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing. The Motley Fool has positions in and recommends Microsoft, Nvidia, and Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing. The Motley Fool has a disclosure policy.
After its record-breaking initial public offering (IPO) and follow-up bond offering, Space Exploration Technologies (SPCX 6.72%) now has more than $100 billion in fresh capital to deploy. Expect this cash to be deployed quickly. SpaceX is currently losing money at a record pace, and growth will be its best path to profitability.
In total, SpaceX believes its total addressable growth opportunities are valued at an astounding $28.5 trillion. "We believe we have identified the largest actionable total addressable market in human history," the company claimed in its IPO prospectus. More than 90% of that total growth opportunity centers exclusively on one area: artificial intelligence (AI).
While many members of the general public still think of SpaceX as a space company, its IPO prospectus makes clear that SpaceX is a legitimate AI stock. If its AI bets don't take off, it will be very hard for SpaceX to justify its current $2 trillion valuation.
Investors should expect most of SpaceX's IPO proceeds to be allocated to AI growth initiatives. This means SpaceX's money will soon be in the hands of key suppliers to the AI industry. Two major AI stocks stick out as potential beneficiaries.
1. Nvidia Nvidia (NVDA +0.62%) is one of the dominant -- if not the foremost dominant -- suppliers to the AI industry globally. The company's graphics processing units (GPUs) are widely considered best in class, with an estimated 85% market share in AI data centers.
SpaceX and its AI-focused subsidiary, xAI, are already massive purchasers of Nvidia products. SpaceX's first supercomputer, the Colossus 1, for example, incorporates "over 220,000 Nvidia GPUs, including dense deployments of H100, H200, and next-generation GB200 accelerators." SpaceX's Colossus 2 data center, meanwhile, just signed a major deal in which another AI company will pay $150 million per month for access to the data center's Nvidia chips.
SpaceX needs to build more data centers to support AI growth. And those data centers, at least for the time being, will continue to rely on Nvidia products. In short, expect the SpaceX IPO to directly increase Nvidia's revenues.
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2. Tesla Tesla (TSLA 3.98%) -- another of Elon Musk's businesses -- has benefited from SpaceX's spending for years. It should continue to do so. Despite being a separate, independent business, Tesla is mentioned 87 times in SpaceX's IPO prospectus. The two companies are tied at the hip in many ways.
Image source: Getty Images.
SpaceX, for example, has purchased hundreds of millions of dollars' worth of Tesla's Megapacks: large, utility-scale battery storage units. In April alone, SpaceX purchased $269 million worth of Megapacks from Tesla. Total Megapack spending by SpaceX since 2024 now surpasses $1 billion.
SpaceX is using those Megapacks to help power its data center build-out. Those data centers, it turns out, could ultimately help Tesla in other ways.
In recent years, Tesla's auto sales have been declining. Yet the company's valuation remains well above $1 trillion. That's because investors now believe Tesla's future depends on AI and autonomous driving, not just car manufacturing.
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Rapid advancements in AI have dramatically accelerated the abilities of self-driving technologies. That's opening up new, potentially lucrative markets like robotaxis, which some experts believe will be a multitrillion-dollar opportunity. Tesla already has a pilot robotaxi service operating in several Texas cities. But its technology and real-world data still have a long way to go to scale globally in any meaningful way.
Fortunately, Tesla still has direct access to SpaceX's burgeoning AI capabilities. Earlier this year, Tesla invested $2 billion into xAI, which later fully merged with SpaceX. So not only does Tesla have an incentive to support SpaceX's AI build-out from a direct financial perspective, but it also wants SpaceX's AI capacity to improve in order to advance its own AI and autonomy agenda. In short, SpaceX's post-IPO spending spree should help Tesla in several ways over both the short term and long term.
For the first six months of 2026, Nvidia (NVDA +0.62%) hasn't led the artificial intelligence (AI) trade. It opened the year at $189.84 on Jan. 2 and closed at around $200 on June 30. That's a roughly 5% gain.
Anyone who invested $10,000 to start the year hasn't seen much progress in their Nvidia investment. Still, there's a market sector that can open up new revenue opportunities and reward patient Nvidia shareholders.
Image source: Getty Images.
What a $10,000 investment is worth after the first half of 2026 In the last five years alone, Nvidia's stock price has climbed around 859% as of this writing. But as the company has continued to find success, it's become more difficult to impress the markets, even when Nvidia easily beats quarterly expectations.
The chipmaker can still reward long-term shareholders, but expectations should be reasonable. Nvidia is not currently offering the kind of monster gains it has been known for in the past.
Anyone who purchased $10,000 worth of Nvidia stock through fractional investing at its Jan. 2 opening price of $189.84 got a little more than 52 shares. With the closing price of $200 on June 30, that initial $10,000 investment would be worth roughly $10,534.
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What could help reignite enthusiasm around Nvidia? One revenue growth opportunity for Nvidia will be in space, and it has already quietly been a behind-the-scenes player through its involvement with Space Exploration Technologies.
When the AI start-up Anthropic announced it was renting compute capacity from SpaceX's data center, it revealed that the data center is powered by over 220,000 Nvidia graphics processing units (GPUs). Alphabet has a similar deal, renting compute capacity that gives it access to 110,000 Nvidia GPUs.
That involvement with SpaceX will expand further, as Nvidia is set to serve as an initial supplier of hardware for SpaceX's orbital data centers. SpaceX's first version of the satellites it plans to use as data centers in space is called AI1 and will use Nvidia chips.
Also, Nvidia announced in March that it will be launching its Vera Rubin Space-1 Module at some point in the future. Instead of beaming data back to Earth for processing, this module will run AI computing directly in space.
"AI processing across space and ground systems enables real-time sensing, decision-making, and autonomy, transforming orbital data centers into instruments of discovery and spacecraft into self-navigating systems. With our partners, we're extending Nvidia beyond our planet -- boldly taking intelligence where it's never gone before," Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang said in the company's press release for the Vera Rubin Space-1 Module announcement.
The bigger picture Nvidia has set the bar so high in the past with some of its massive stock price runs that investors who are expecting repeat performances may be setting themselves up for disappointment.
That said, most AI roads still pass through Nvidia, whether on the ground or in space. It's still the maker of some of the most advanced chips on the planet, and orbital data centers may open a new revenue stream.
Nvidia's stock price can keep climbing and still reward long-term investors. But the blockbuster returns of the past shouldn't become expectations for the future.
The artificial intelligence investment story is beginning to evolve beyond chatbots and data centers, with an increasing number of strategists and technology leaders pointing to robotics, autonomous vehicles and humanoid machines as the next frontier for long-term growth.
While generative AI has dominated markets over the past two years, investors are increasingly exploring what many describe as "physical AI" — AI systems capable of interacting with and navigating the real world.
The theme spans industrial robots, autonomous mobile machines, self-driving vehicles and humanoid robots, all of which are expected to benefit from advances in AI models and computing power.
Several leading Wall Street firms and technology executives now argue that physical AI could represent the next phase of the AI investment cycle.
Raisah Rasid, global market strategist at JP Morgan Asset Management, recently identified robotics and autonomous vehicles as among the next major beneficiaries of the AI boom.
"AI is a story that is going to be here to stay for a long time," Rasid said during a recent briefing.
"Mass adoption rate is really happening very, very quick, especially with generative AI."
Her comments add to a growing chorus of investors arguing that the technology's commercial potential extends well beyond software applications.
Last month, SoftBank founder and Chief Executive Masayoshi Son told CNBC that he believes physical AI and robotics are where the next trillion-dollar company is likely to emerge.
Barclays has also highlighted the opportunity.
Speaking to CNBC, Zornitza Todorova, head of thematic FICC research at Barclays and co-author of the bank's "AI Gets Physical" report, said the humanoid robotics industry could expand dramatically over the next decade.
"The size of the market today is really small, it’s 2 to 3 billion [dollars], but we see it going up to $200 billion in 2035," she said.
Among the strongest advocates of physical AI is Nvidia Chief Executive Jensen Huang, whose company has become central to the AI infrastructure boom.
During a visit to South Korea last month, Huang described robotics as the country's next major industrial opportunity.
"Because Korea is a manufacturing centre of the world, we can apply the robotics technology, the physical AI technology that we invent here for the industry," he said.
Speaking later in the month at Nvidia's annual shareholder meeting, Huang identified robotics as the company's second-largest long-term growth opportunity after artificial intelligence.
"We have many growth opportunities across our company, with AI and robotics the two largest, representing a multitrillion-dollar growth opportunity."
He also said autonomous vehicles are likely to become the first major commercial application of physical AI technologies.
Barclays expects humanoid robotics adoption to unfold in two phases.
The first, running through 2030, is expected to focus on manufacturing, logistics, agriculture and construction, where labour shortages and productivity gains provide immediate incentives for automation.
A second wave after 2030 could expand into healthcare, elderly care, education and hospitality as the technology matures and costs decline.
The bank also highlighted China's dominant position in industrial robotics, noting that the country now installs roughly half of all industrial robots worldwide.
According to Barclays, China deploys nearly 300,000 industrial robots annually compared with roughly 34,000 in the United States.
Robot density has increased by around 600% since 2016 to nearly 500 robots for every 10,000 workers.
Despite growing enthusiasm, most companies developing advanced humanoid robots remain privately held, limiting opportunities for public equity investors.
Instead, investors are looking at listed companies that provide enabling technologies or exposure to automation.
One of those is Ouster, which manufactures digital lidar sensors used by autonomous machines to map their surroundings in three dimensions.
Lidar technology is widely viewed as a foundational component for autonomous vehicles, warehouse robots and industrial automation systems.
The company received a boost last month after its Rev8 OS digital lidar sensor family qualified for Nvidia's DRIVE Hyperion autonomous vehicle platform, allowing developers to deploy its sensors throughout the vehicle development cycle.
Ouster shares currently trade around $44.64 after gaining more than 90% this year.
The company's first-quarter product revenue climbed 55% year over year to a record $48.23 million, while total revenue increased 49%.
Gross margin expanded to 43%, and the company shipped more than 12,600 sensors during the quarter.
However, analysts also caution that Ouster remains unprofitable and trades at more than 23 times sales following its strong rally.
The consensus analyst rating currently stands at Hold.
Another company drawing attention is Teradyne, whose semiconductor testing business has become increasingly important as AI chip production accelerates, while its robotics division also grows.
Its Semiconductor Test division generated $1.11 billion in first-quarter revenue, while its robotics business contributed $91 million through collaborative robots from Universal Robots and autonomous mobile robots developed by Mobile Industrial Robots.
Teradyne shares have gained more than 66% this year and over 280% during the past 12 months.
Supporters argue that every AI accelerator, custom chip and high-bandwidth memory stack requires extensive testing, creating sustained demand for Teradyne's equipment.
Still, analysts warn that the stock's valuation has become demanding.
Management's second-quarter revenue guidance of $1.15 billion to $1.25 billion implies sequential moderation, while any slowdown in AI infrastructure spending or tighter export restrictions on China could pressure investor sentiment.
Investors seeking diversified exposure have also begun looking at RoboStrategy (BOT), which listed in May as the first closed-end fund dedicated entirely to physical AI and robotics.
Its portfolio includes stakes in both public and private robotics companies, including Figure AI, Apptronik, Dyna Robotics, Standard Bots and Dexmate.
The fund recently secured a committed equity facility worth up to $2 billion with Roth Principal Investments to support future investments.
However, the fund has already experienced considerable volatility, with shares falling more than 13% since listing, underscoring the risks associated with investing in an emerging industry that remains in its early stages.
As enthusiasm around generative AI matures, many investors increasingly see physical AI as the next chapter of the broader AI investment story.
Whether that optimism translates into sustained market leadership may ultimately depend on how quickly robots and autonomous systems move from promising technology to widespread commercial adoption.
An Nvidia Vera CPU compute tray on display at the sidelines of the Computex trade show in Taipei, Taiwan, June 3, 2026. REUTERS/Ann Wang/File Photo Purchase Licensing Rights, opens new tab
SAN FRANCISCO, July 7 (Reuters) - AI startup Perplexity on Tuesday confirmed it plans to use Nvidia's (NVDA.O), opens new tab new central processing units, as the chip giant works to broaden its market and take on entrenched players such as Intel (INTC.O), opens new tab and Advanced Micro Devices (AMD.O), opens new tab.
Nvidia has said it expects to generate $20 billion in sales from its "Vera" CPU, a more generic computing chip than its AI-specific offerings, by the end of this fiscal year. The Vera chips are part of Nvidia's efforts to diversify sales as artificial intelligence companies such as OpenAI and DeepSeek make their own AI chips.
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Nvidia is entering a crowded market for CPUs long dominated by Intel and AMD, who supply CPUs for everything from laptops to web servers. But many of those chips were designed before the rise of what are known as AI "agents" that can carry out complex tasks on their own after receiving instructions from their human users.
Unlike human users of CPUs, who take breaks between tasks, AI agents do not. Perplexity Vice President for Computer Enterprise and Infrastructure Nate Kupp said Nvidia's CPU carried out AI agent coding tasks about 1.5 times faster than traditional CPUs.
"Vera really stood out to us as just like a dead-on fit for a lot of the core workloads that we have," Kupp said in an interview.
Perplexity declined to disclose how many Nvidia CPUs it plans to buy. Nvidia has previously disclosed that OpenAI, Anthropic and Oracle plan to use its CPUs.
Reporting by Stephen Nellis in San Francisco Editing by Bill Berkrot
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Samsung Electronics just did something no company has done before. Its operating profit last quarter came in roughly 19 times what it was a year ago, revenue more than doubled to a record, and the bottom line landed above both NVIDIA (NASDAQ:NVDA | NVDA Price Prediction) and Apple (NASDAQ:AAPL). The stock, as CNBC’s Kristina Partsinevelos flagged Tuesday morning, fell 7%, briefly close to 10% intraday, and dragged the rest of the memory complex with it. If you were looking for the cleanest possible example of why great earnings can still torch a stock, this is the case study.
The Blowout That Wasn’t Enough Start with scale. NVIDIA’s most recent quarter delivered $81.61 billion in revenue and $58.32 billion of net income, and Apple’s March quarter clocked $111.18 billion in revenue with $29.58 billion of net income. Samsung, on a consolidated basis, out-earned both on the profit line. That should be a victory lap. Instead Samsung shares are down because the stock is already up roughly 382% in a year, and at that kind of run rate the sell-side estimate stops being the number that matters.
The Whisper-Number Trap Samsung beat the published Wall Street consensus by about 6%. Normally a 6% beat is a party. But when a name has tripled and change in twelve months, buy-side desks quietly mark their own internal targets well above the sell-side consensus. Those internal marks are the whisper numbers, and they are the numbers that actually get traded around. Miss the whisper, even while crushing the consensus, and the marginal buyer walks. Morgan Stanley’s shorthand for what’s happening was “memory exhaustion”, which is a polite way of saying every fast-money account that wanted to be long is already long.
You can see the same reflex in Micron Technology (NASDAQ:MU), which reported one of the more absurd quarters in semiconductor history two weeks ago. Revenue $41.46 billion, up 345.7% year over year, non-GAAP EPS of $25.11 versus a $20.28 estimate, gross margin expanding to 84.6%. Micron popped 11.7% in the first hour after the earnings report and has since bled over 20% in the past 5 days. Might be the same phenomenon.
The SK Hynix Cash Drain There is also a very specific, very boring near-term reason Samsung is being sold. SK Hynix, Samsung’s memory rival, is listing a $28 billion ADR on the Nasdaq this Friday. When a giant new deal in the same subsector prices, portfolio managers who are already at their sector-weight limit have to raise cash somewhere. The easiest source of that cash is the most crowded, most appreciated position in the same bucket. Which right now is Samsung. Rotation in, rotation out, mechanical, and almost nothing to do with the actual fundamentals of either company.
Bubble Pop or Just Exhaustion The tempting narrative is that this is the memory bubble popping. The pricing data does not agree. Counterpoint Research now sees DRAM prices climbing roughly 10% to 20% this quarter, above its earlier forecast. Micron’s guide for next quarter, $50 billion in revenue plus or minus $1 billion and non-GAAP EPS of $31, is not the guide of a company watching its end market collapse. NVIDIA’s $91 billion revenue guide and Jensen Huang’s line about “the largest infrastructure expansion in human history” are the demand pull on the other side of Samsung’s supply.
So what you have is a sentiment-and-flows selloff sitting on top of fundamentals that still look like a boom. Those two things can coexist for a while. They usually resolve when the whisper numbers reset lower, the SK Hynix deal clears, and the marginal buyer decides a memory stock at a reasonable multiple is once again interesting. Whether that takes days or quarters is the actual question worth arguing about. The 19-fold profit jump is not.
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Shares of Nvidia fought into the green despite a 5% sell-off in chip stocks tracked by the VanEck Semiconductor ETF (SMH), a notable outperformance a day after a research report claiming the AI leader was at least a year behind on manufacturing of its next line of server racks.
The stock's trading just under $200, a level it's flirted with since late last month, down 17% from its May record and up just 4% on the year, as investors have turned their attention to other AI components, like the memory-makers.
One thing Nvidia has those stocks don't right now: bullish options flows.
Nvidia, YTD
More than 1.5 million calls traded in Nvidia Tuesday, compared to under 690,000 puts, with more than twice as many calls bought versus puts bought, according to ThinkorSwim data. Volume ratios are about the opposite in the sector ETF, with puts outpacing calls almost four-to-one in SMH, with traders buying 33,000 puts, compared to just 7,300 calls.
Similar action took place in Nvidia Monday after the company disputed a report by SemiAnalysis that its next-gen Kyber server rack was running into delays. Calls more than doubled puts by volume with about two-thirds of the $600M of NVDA options premium tied to calls, and almost three times as many calls bought versus puts.
watch now
One group of trades that looked like they were initiated by a single trader bought a total $3.5 million of the 200-strike calls expiring at the end of July. Those contracts cost just under 7 bucks each at the time of the trade, meaning they still need about 5.5% more to pay off by month-end.
It looks like traders are hoping Nvidia's two-day firming will turn into a rally: as of writing the top five contracts are all calls expiring Wednesday. The most popular was the 200-strike, which traded almost 170,000 times for a total $11 million in premium, according to SpotGamma data.
Apple is closing in on Nvidia as it looks to reclaim title of largest U.S. company
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HomeIndustriesComputers/ElectronicsTech StocksTech StocksOnce the face of the AI trade, Nvidia’s valuation has compressed to levels not seen since 2013 while Apple shares continue to power higherJuly 7, 2026, 4:36 p.m. ET
After reigning as the largest U.S. company by market cap for over a year, Nvidia now risks losing that title to Apple.
Apple AAPL is worth about $200 billion less than Nvidia, according to Dow Jones Market Data. The narrowing of the market-capitalization gap between those two companies reflects how Nvidia NVDA has lost some luster on Wall Street, all while Apple has proved relatively resilient despite concerns about its artificial-intelligence strategy and component cost pressures.
About the Author
Christine Ji is a reporter covering Big Tech.
Emily Bary is MarketWatch's managing editor for companies coverage. She is based in New York.
A printed circuit board just pushed NVIDIA’s most powerful AI system into 2028 — at least according to one research firm. Semiconductor research firm SemiAnalysis reported on July 5–6, 2026 that NVIDIA’s Kyber NVL144 rack-scale AI system has been delayed, from its planned 2027 launch to 2028. CNBC cited the SemiAnalysis post. NVIDIA publicly disputed the report on Monday, with a spokesperson telling Bloomberg its “roadmap is intact.”
NVIDIA (NASDAQ:NVDA | NVDA Price Prediction) shares actually rose more than 1% on Monday — helped by the company’s denial and a Goldman Sachs note calling the valuation compelling — leaving its market cap around $4.7 trillion. Overseas, PCB suppliers to NVIDIA came under pressure, with reports of sharp intraday declines in names such as Japan’s Ibiden and Hong Kong’s Kingboard Laminates Holdings.
What Kyber Actually Is Kyber represents NVIDIA’s shift from selling chips to selling complete AI infrastructure. A single Kyber NVL144 cabinet houses 144 Rubin Ultra GPUs operating as one unified computing platform, targeting hyperscalers like Microsoft, Google, Meta, and Amazon. A larger sibling, the NVL576, designed to link eight racks via optical connections, is also likely delayed or limited to small initial volumes, according to SemiAnalysis.
The reported culprit is a component most retail investors have not heard of: the PCB midplane (which NVIDIA also calls the orthogonal backplane), a printed circuit board with up to 78 layers that connects electronic modules within the rack. SemiAnalysis said it “remains challenging from a manufacturability standpoint.” Stacking 78 layers with signal integrity, thermal tolerance, and yield at volume is a hard engineering problem, and SemiAnalysis frames it as the gating item for NVIDIA’s most ambitious system.
A Broader Pattern The delay raises a broader question: whether NVIDIA’s annual cadence, built to stay ahead of AMD and custom silicon, is hitting physical manufacturing limits. Data Center revenue reached $75.246 billion (+92% YoY) in Q1 FY27, and CEO Jensen Huang described “the largest infrastructure expansion in human history”. The bottleneck is assembly.
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The Competitive Opening AMD (NASDAQ:AMD) has the clearest window. Shares are up 157.77% year to date, and Goldman Sachs raised its AMD price target to $640 from $450 on July 6. CEO Lisa Su has said “customer engagement around MI450 Series and Helios is strengthening, with leading customer forecasts exceeding our initial expectations.”
Broadcom (NASDAQ:AVGO) benefits through custom ASICs. Q2 AI semiconductor revenue was $10.8 billion, +143% YoY, with Q3 guided to $16.0 billion. Bloomberg Intelligence forecasts 27% CAGR for the custom ASIC market through 2033.
Google (NASDAQ:GOOGL) is both a Rubin customer and a TPU competitor. Google Cloud revenue rose 63% with backlog nearly doubling to over $460 billion, and 2026 capex is guided up tp $190 billion. A Kyber slip strengthens the in-house silicon case.
The Bull Case NVIDIA has not confirmed the delay. The affected product is a 2028 item; Blackwell and current Rubin systems remain in short supply. NVIDIA still commands approximately 81% of the AI chip market, and GuruFocus analysis flags NVDA as 45% undervalued relative to GF Value at current prices. Hyperscalers cannot swap vendors overnight.
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Nscale, a U.K. artificial intelligence startup backed by Nvidia (NVDA), has secured a $900 million revolving credit facility to strengthen its balance sheet and
Nvidia (NVDA) could face increasing pressure to maintain its rapid growth trajectory as the chipmaker enters a new phase where investor expectations remain exce
Only one company in history has ever been worth $5 trillion: Nvidia (NVDA +0.55%) itself. The chipmaker first crossed the mark last October, then slipped back below it. After closing Monday at about $195.55 per share, the chipmaker carried a market value of roughly $4.74 trillion. That leaves it less than 6% below a milestone no other business has ever touched.
So how close is Nvidia, exactly, and what would it take to get there? The math is simple, and the underlying business is firing on all cylinders.
Image source: Getty Images.
The number that gets it there With about 24.2 billion shares outstanding, Nvidia crosses $5 trillion at a share price of roughly $206. From Monday's close near $195.55, that's a gain of a little more than $10 per share, or about 5.5%. Put another way, Nvidia needs to add about $260 billion in market value. That is a rounding error for a company this size, though it still exceeds the entire market value of most companies in the S&P 500.
With that said, shares are down slightly on Tuesday, so the stock will need to add a bit more than that, but the point remains: it's extremely close.
For a stock that has climbed more than 350% over the past three years on the back of the AI boom, a move that small is nothing. Nvidia has gained that much in a single day more than once. So the $5 trillion mark is less a distant summit than a step the stock could clear on any morning of good news.
What could close the gap, or widen it The case for Nvidia getting there soon rests on the same thing that got it here: extraordinary demand for its chips. In its fiscal first quarter (the period ended April 26, 2026), revenue rose 85% year over year to a record $81.6 billion. Data center revenue climbed 92% to $75.2 billion. Management then guided for about $91 billion in revenue this quarter, another sharp step up.
"The buildout of AI factories -- the largest infrastructure expansion in human history -- is accelerating at extraordinary speed," said Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang in the company's fiscal first-quarter earnings release. As long as that spending holds, the earnings power behind the stock keeps growing.
But the gap can widen just as easily, and it's widening today. Case in point: Tuesday morning's sell-off, part of a broader memory-led chip sell-off after Samsung's preliminary record quarterly profit forecast, which still wasn't enough for Wall Street, stoked fresh worries about how long the AI boom can last. That's the near-term headwind. Sentiment toward the whole sector has turned jumpy, and Nvidia rarely trades apart from it.
Meanwhile, the longer-term risks are familiar ones. Nvidia's biggest customers, including Amazon and Alphabet, are designing their own chips to lean less on it, which could soften Nvidia's pricing power over time. And the semiconductor industry has always moved in cycles, so today's demand surge probably won't run this hot forever.
It's also worth putting the company's sheer size in perspective. At about $4.7 trillion, Nvidia is already worth more than the entire annual output of most of the world's economies, and the last leg to $5 trillion alone would add about the market value of a large-cap company in a single move. That scale is a reminder of how much optimism is already reflected in the price.
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What the milestone actually means At about 30 times trailing earnings and less than 20 times forward earnings, Nvidia isn't priced like a stock that has run out of room. Indeed, that forward multiple is actually significantly cheaper than the broader market -- a reflection of the extraordinary trajectory of the company's underlying earnings. The real question, therefore, isn't the valuation so much as the durability of the demand behind it. If AI spending stays strong, the stock has a clear path well past $5 trillion. If today's sell-off marks the start of a genuine cooling in that spending growth, the milestone could stay out of reach for a while.
Either way, I'd treat the number itself as a curiosity, not a catalyst. What matters for investors is what happens to demand for its chips, not which side of a round number the stock happens to sit on.
Certara is integrating Nvidia’s BioNeMo Agent Toolkit into its AI-driven drug development platform, while Silo Pharma’s subsidiary, QwikAgents, has joined the Nvidia Developer Program to strengthen its AI agent capabilities.
• Nvidia stock is gaining positive traction. Why are NVDA shares climbing?
Certara Integrates Nvidia BioNeMo Into AI Drug Development PlatformCertara said it is partnering with Nvidia to advance its open, integrated AI platform by combining its scientific software, regulatory expertise, and proprietary datasets with AI-first, agentic frameworks.
Under the collaboration, the Nvidia BioNeMo Agent Toolkit will become one of several agentic frameworks available within Certara’s platform.
The toolkit is designed to turn AI agents into autonomous life sciences researchers by providing access to Nvidia’s life sciences technology stack while complementing Certara’s biosimulation models, regulatory expertise and scientific teams.
AI Agents Target Drug Development WorkflowsAccording to Certara, specialized AI agents will analyze scientific models, datasets and domain expertise across multiple stages of drug development.
The company said these agents can support tasks such as optimizing dosing strategies using systems pharmacology models, analyzing clinical datasets, simulating patient and clinical trial scenarios, evaluating ADMET properties, assembling regulatory-ready evidence and assessing early-stage drug discovery hypotheses.
Certara added that the technology is intended to enhance the work of biosimulation experts and scientific teams by accelerating insight generation while keeping scientists at the center of decision-making.
Silo Pharma Subsidiary Joins NVIDIA Developer ProgramSeparately, Silo Pharma announced its wholly owned subsidiary, QwikAgents, has joined the Nvidia Developer Program.
The company said QwikAgents’ platform automates complex workflows using autonomous AI agents capable of reasoning, taking action and interacting with enterprise systems.
The platform also incorporates persistent memory, intelligent routing across multiple large language model providers, browser automation and secure data management to support scalable AI-driven operations.
Silo Pharma said participation in the Nvidia Developer Program will provide QwikAgents with access to Nvidia’s AI software ecosystem, development frameworks, technical training and optimization resources.
The company expects those resources to help accelerate platform enhancements as it expands AI agent capabilities for enterprise customers.
CERT/SILO Stock Price Activity: Certara shares were down 0.63% at $7.09, Silo Pharma shares were down 2.10% at $6.09 at the time of publication on Tuesday, according to Benzinga Pro data.
Image via Shutterstock/ Alexander56891
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Jim Cramer went on CNBC’s Squawk on the Street Tuesday morning to defend the memory names getting hammered after South Korea’s market dropped nearly 5% overnight. Samsung posted a record quarter, missed a whisper revenue number by roughly 1%, and got sold off 7%.
Cramer sees profit-taking and a specific reason to slow-play SK Hynix. Neither Samsung nor SK Hynix trades on a US exchange, so American investors must consider spillover into NVIDIA (NASDAQ:NVDA | NVDA Price Prediction) and Micron Technology (NASDAQ:MU), the two US-listed names most exposed to the same HBM cycle.
The Beat That Still Tanked the Stock Whisper numbers are the unofficial consensus that trades on desks above the posted analyst estimate. When a stock has run roughly 380% in a year, the buyside quietly bakes in a higher bar, and merely beating the Street becomes a miss against what people actually expected. Samsung cleared the printed number and fell short of the whisper by a hair. That is enough to knock a stock down when it is already priced for perfection.
Cramer’s read is that the 1% revenue miss is immaterial next to the earnings power. Samsung made more money in one quarter than in the prior two years combined, which is strange to sell aggressively. The stock is still up around 130% year to date. When you have a run like that, any excuse works.
More Profitable Than NVIDIA, in Absolute Dollars Samsung’s operating profit of $55.8 billion topped NVIDIA’s last quarter at $53.5 billion. NVIDIA reported $53.536 billion in operating income in Q1 FY2027, on $81.615 billion in revenue at a 75.0% non-GAAP gross margin (SEC filing). In raw operating dollars for the quarter, Cramer is right.
Valuation is a different question. NVIDIA carries a $4.73 trillion market cap at a forward PE of 22x because the market pays for durability and margin structure, not just this quarter’s dollars. Samsung’s operating profit includes handsets, foundry, and consumer electronics baggage that NVIDIA does not carry. Cramer is arguing that if the memory names can print this kind of profit at what is arguably still an early stage of the HBM cycle, the multiple on the operator has room to expand.
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The $28 Billion SK Hynix Wrinkle SK Hynix is up about 680% over one year and 225% year to date, and fell 6% the prior day. Cramer flagged that the company is preparing to raise $28 billion in new capital, and he thinks the deal may price lower than expected. His advice was to wait rather than chase, since new investors might get in cheaper through the raise itself.
A capital raise of that size dilutes existing holders and signals that management sees enough incremental HBM demand to justify a build-out competitors will have to match. That is where Micron enters the frame. Micron just reported a 245.24% year-to-date rally and posted $24.89 EPS against a $20.98 estimate on June 24, 2026 (SEC filing). Micron’s forward PE of 7x already prices in some fear that SK Hynix’s added capacity eventually meets a softer market. That fear is the whole point of Cramer’s warning.
The Verdict on Cramer’s Framing Cramer’s take is to buy the dip on Samsung and wait on SK Hynix. The Samsung leg is defensible on absolute earnings, and pointing out that operating dollars now exceed NVIDIA’s is a fair jab at anyone claiming the memory boom is fake. The SK Hynix leg is the sharper call.
Overhangs from a $28 billion raise usually price in slowly, and a stock up 225% year to date has plenty of holders who will trim into the deal. NVIDIA’s own $48.554 billion in free cash flow in a single quarter is the reference point. Suppliers scaling capacity to serve that customer command attention. Paying up the day before the deal prices is a different question.
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The tech sector has been one of the hottest for growth investors, as it has a long history of outperforming the S&P 500. For instance, the State Street Technology Select Sector SPDR ETF has delivered roughly 140% in gains over the past five years, while the S&P 500 hasn't even doubled over the same stretch. Investors can get more nuanced in the tech industry with funds like the iShares Semiconductor ETF, which has almost quadrupled over the past five years.
But the performance of the broader tech industry compared to indexes explains why many investors prefer hunting for good picks in this sector. You can start your search with these promising tech stocks if you have $1,000 ready to invest.
Image source: Getty Images.
1. Nvidia Nvidia (NVDA +1.21%) is the largest AI chipmaker, and the competition isn't close. The company generates more revenue in a quarter than most of its competitors earn in an entire year. Even after years of strong growth, Nvidia still has the pedal to the metal.
The AI leader reported 85% year-over-year revenue growth in its fiscal 2027 first quarter, and its Q2 FY27 guidance implies more than 10% sequential growth.
It isn't just AI models like ChatGPT that need all those chips. Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang told shareholders that agentic AI is just getting started and is "scaling rapidly across companies and industries." Grand View Research projects a meaningful 46.2% CAGR for the enterprise agentic AI market through 2030.
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Physical robots can usher in the next wave of growth for Nvidia, and the company is already prepared for that opportunity. Halos for Robotics, Nvidia's full-stack, open robotics safety system, was recently touted as the first of its kind in a June press release. Nvidia intends to be the catalyst behind every AI innovation, which can position the stock for meaningful long-term growth.
2. Microsoft Microsoft (MSFT +1.94%) is another AI winner, but a 21% decline over the past year doesn't match up with its fundamental gains. The drop has resulted in a 23 P/E ratio as profits and sales continue to surge.
The tech giant recently delivered 18% year-over-year revenue growth in its fiscal 2026 third quarter. Operating income rose 20% year over year, with Microsoft Cloud doing the heavy lifting. Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella also touted the company's AI business surpassing $37 billion in annual recurring revenue, more than doubling year over year.
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Total cloud revenue reached $54.5 billion, up 29% year over year. That's almost two-thirds of the company's total revenue. As the cloud platform continues to gain market share, Microsoft's overall revenue growth rates should continue to accelerate.
The AI tailwind should extend for multiple years, and Microsoft has positioned itself well. Just because some investors are selling their shares doesn't make Microsoft a bad investment. The mismatch between Microsoft's declining stock price and strengthening fundamentals presents a buying opportunity.
Marc Guberti has no position in any of the stocks mentioned. The Motley Fool has positions in and recommends Microsoft, Nvidia, and iShares Trust - iShares Semiconductor ETF. The Motley Fool has a disclosure policy.
YieldMax NVDA Option Income Strategy ETF (NYSEARCA:NVDY) monetizes NVIDIA‘s (NASDAQ:NVDA | NVDA Price Prediction) volatility through a synthetic covered-call strategy, converting option premiums into weekly cash distributions. The fund once ranked among the highest-yielding listed ETFs, but the critical question is whether those distributions represent durable income or a slow-motion return of your own capital. The answer, based on the May 2026 fact sheet and recent distribution data, is more nuanced than the headline yield suggests.
How NVDY Manufactures Its Yield NVDY holds a small slice of NVIDIA stock (11.5% of net assets) and uses options to synthetically replicate exposure, then sells short-dated calls at strikes near NVIDIA’s spot price to harvest premium. The rest of the portfolio, over 80% in Treasury Bills and a First American Government Obligations money market position, sits as collateral and earns short-term interest.
The income you receive blends option premium (which scales with implied volatility) and T-Bill yield. When NVIDIA trades around 40 vol, premiums are rich and distributions swell. When volatility compresses or NVIDIA rallies past the short strike, the math turns against holders. NVDY caps upside at the sold strike, meaning if NVIDIA rises 15% in a month, the fund captures 3% to 5% while the call is assigned or rolled at a loss.
The Distribution Trend Tells the Real Story NVDY’s payout history is the single most important safety signal. In March 2024, the fund paid $2.62 per share in a single month. By mid-2024, monthly distributions were still running above $1.00. By the July 2, 2026 ex-date, and the weekly payment was $0.0984, with recent weeks clustering between $0.08 and $0.15. Even annualized across 52 weekly payments, the current run-rate falls well short of the 2024 pace.
That decline reflects two forces. NVIDIA’s realized volatility has moderated as the stock matured into a mega-cap, compressing the premiums NVDY can harvest. Meanwhile, the fund had to fund several distributions during periods when NVIDIA rallied through the short strike, which erodes NAV to make the payment whole. NAV erosion is the covered-call ETF‘s silent tax: the yield looks fine on paper, but the price per share drifts lower over time.
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Total Return, Not Just Yield NVIDIA itself returned roughly 24% over the past year and more than 854% over five years. NVDY, by design, cannot match that because every meaningful upside move is capped. Investors who bought NVDY at inception seeking “Nvidia income” have collected large distributions but watched share price decline while NVIDIA rallied. The tradeoff is real cash today for surrendered compounding tomorrow.
The 1.09% expense ratio compounds that drag. On $1.37 billion in net assets, that is meaningful friction versus simply holding Nvidia and selling covered calls in a personal account.
The Verdict The distribution mechanics work. The Treasury collateral is safe, and premium income will keep flowing as long as NVIDIA trades with reasonable volatility. What is at risk is the size of the check. Distributions have already fallen sharply from 2024 highs, and there is no structural reason to expect a return to those levels absent a fresh volatility regime.
For investors who understand they are trading upside for cash flow and are comfortable with a slowly eroding NAV, NVDY works as an income sleeve. For anyone treating it as a proxy for owning NVIDIA, the past year has been an expensive lesson. A lower-yielding alternative such as a broad dividend growth ETF, or simply holding NVIDIA and selling covered calls selectively, will usually produce better total returns.
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I keep hitting the buy button on NVIDIA (NASDAQ:NVDA | NVDA Price Prediction), and after the June pullback I hit it again. I bought near $225 in May, I bought near $212 in June, and I added last week close to $194.83. The story that got me into this position keeps getting louder.
Here is what pulls me back every time. NVIDIA sells the picks and shovels for what CEO Jensen Huang calls “the buildout of AI factories, the largest infrastructure expansion in human history.” The checks his customers are writing agree with him, and the numbers behind those checks are why I own more shares this week than I did last month.
The Valuation Has Quietly Compressed Forward earnings sit near 20x, and the trailing multiple prints at 30. For a business that just delivered 85.2% year-over-year revenue growth to $81.61 billion at a 75.0% non-GAAP gross margin, that reads like a mature-industrial multiple on a platform running every frontier AI model. Shares are down 12.46% over the past month and sit 28% below the 52-week high of $236.26, even as Q1 non-GAAP EPS came in at $1.87 against a $1.7738 consensus.
The Cash Machine Behind The Buyback Q1 free cash flow was $48.554 billion, roughly 59.5% of revenue turning directly into cash. Full-year FY2026 free cash flow hit $96.575 billion, up 58.7%. Management returned $41.1 billion to shareholders in FY2026 and another $20.0 billion in Q1, then approved an additional $80.0 billion buyback authorization on top of $38.5 billion still remaining. The dividend jumped from $0.01 to $0.25, a 25x raise declared May 18, 2026. Owners are getting paid while Blackwell 300, Vera Rubin, and BlueField-4 get funded out of the same wallet.
The Demand Book Is Booked The $119.0 billion in supply-related commitments that spooks the bears reads differently when you know the customer list. Meta committed to millions of Blackwell and Rubin GPUs. OpenAI signed for at least 10 GW of NVIDIA systems. Anthropic is scaling on 1 GW of initial capacity. CoreWeave is building 5+ GW of AI factories by 2030. Sovereign deals with the UK, South Korea, and Germany layer on top. Q2 FY27 guidance calls for $91.0 billion in revenue at a 75.0% gross margin, and that number excludes any China Data Center compute.
The Real Risk China exposure is real. H20 Data Center compute revenue from China is zero in the guide, versus $4.6 billion in the year-ago quarter. A cash tax step-up hits in Q2. And $119.0 billion in supply commitments cuts both ways if hyperscaler capex ever cools. I sat with all of it. My answer is that Data Center networking revenue grew 199% year over year, hyperscalers are roughly half of Data Center revenue with sovereign, enterprise, and industrial buyers filling the other half, and multi-year cloud service commitments have grown to $30.0 billion. The book keeps deepening.
Why The Buy Button Stays Warm Analyst consensus sits at a $301.62 price target with 58 buys against one sell. I focus on the free cash flow, the platform, and the runway of a company that just went from a penny dividend to a quarter and told me another $80.0 billion of buybacks is coming. When the market sells the picks-and-shovels vendor of the biggest capex cycle of my lifetime at roughly 20x forward earnings, I keep buying.
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