According to Todd Gordon, the founder of Inside Edge Capital, NVIDIA Corporation (NVDA) is a strong buy despite a recent pullback. The chart analyst also set a target price of $1,150 for the stock.
“I say that NVDA is just resting its legs gearing up for another move, but this time it’s bringing more friends along for the run. There are quite a few different names in the semi-industry setup in a similar fashion telling me that once again the chips are ready to rip,” Gordon said.
Moreover, on March 13, Bank of America maintained its buy rating on NVDA and raised its price target from $925 to $1,100. As per BofA analyst Vivek Arya, Nvidia is expected to dominate the $90 billion accelerator market in 2024, unaffected by Google’s new CPU launch.
Last month, CNBC’s Jim Cramer suggested investors welcome an impending pullback. “I think people are right to expect a pullback here,” Cramer said. “But that’s not a reason to head for the hills. Instead, you want to raise a little cash, watch the market broaden — as it is doing — and then buy your favorite tech stocks when they come down.”
In Particular, Cramer said there may be an attractive opportunity to invest in one of his favorite stocks, NVDA. He hinted at his continued support for the tech giant over the years, even when the stock witnessed significant losses. While some on Wall Street might be growing weary of AI, Cramer emphasized that the future “runs on Nvidia.”
“If you don’t own Nvidia already, you know what? You’re about to get a sale,” he stated. “And if you do own it already, just stick with it, because it’s way too hard to swap out and then swap back in at the right level.”
Shares of NVDA have surged more than 75% year-to-date and nearly 223% over the past year. However, the stock has plunged around 3% over the past month.
Now, let’s discuss in detail factors that could influence NVDA’s performance in the near term:
Fourth-Quarter Beat on Revenue and Earnings
The chip giant reported fourth-quarter 2024 earnings that beat analysts’ expectations. For the quarter that ended January 28, 2024, NVDA’s non-GAAP revenue came in at $22.10 billion, surpassing analysts’ estimate of $20.55 billion. This compared to revenue of $6.05 billion in the same quarter of 2022.
The company posted a record revenue from the Data Center segment of $18.4 billion, up 409% from the year-ago value. NVIDIA achieved significant progress in this business segment. In collaboration with Google, NVDA launched optimizations across its data center and PC AI platforms for Gemma, Google’s groundbreaking open language models.
Further, the company expanded its partnership with Amazon Web Services (AWS) to host NVIDIA® DGX™ Cloud on AWS.
Regarding technological innovations, NVIDIA introduced several groundbreaking solutions, including NVIDIA NeMo™ Retriever. It is a generative AI microservice that enables enterprises to connect custom large language models with enterprise data, delivering highly accurate responses for various AI applications.
Additionally, NVIDIA launched NVIDIA MONAI™ cloud APIs, facilitating the seamless integration of AI into medical-imaging offerings for developers and platform providers.
The company’s Gaming revenue for the quarter was $2.90 billion, up 56% year-over-year. Talking about recent developments in the Gaming division, NVIDIA launched GeForce RTX™ 40 SUPER Series GPUs, starting at $599, featuring advanced RTX™ technologies such as DLSS 3.5 Ray Reconstruction and NVIDIA Reflex for enhanced gaming experiences.
The company also introduced microservices for the NVIDIA Avatar Cloud Engine, enabling game and application developers to integrate state-of-the-art generative AI models into non-playable characters, enhancing immersion and interactivity in virtual worlds.
NVIDIA’s non-GAAP operating income increased 563.2% year-over-year to $14.75 billion. Also, the company’s non-GAAP net income grew 490.6% from the previous year’s period to $12.84 billion. It reported non-GAAP earnings per share of $5.16, compared to the consensus estimate of $4.63, and up 486% year-over-year.
Furthermore, the company’s non-GAAP free cash flow was $11.22 billion, an increase of 546.1% from the previous year’s quarter. Its total current assets stood at $44.35 billion as of January 28, 2024, compared to $23.07 billion as of January 29, 2023.
During a call with analysts, Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang addressed investor concerns regarding the company’s ability to sustain its current growth or sales levels throughout the year.
“Fundamentally, the conditions are excellent for continued growth” in 2025 and beyond, Huang told analysts. He added that the continued demand for the company’s GPUs would persist, driven by the adoption of generative AI and an industry-wide shift from central processors to Nvidia’s accelerators.
For the first quarter of fiscal 2025, NVIDIA expects revenue of $24 billion. The company’s non-GAAP gross margin is expected to be 77%.
Recent Announcement of AI Chips During Nvidia GTC AI Conference
NVDA announced a new generation of AI chips and software tailored for running AI models during its developer’s conference at SAP Center on March 18 in San Jose, California. This announcement underscores the chipmaker’s efforts to solidify its position as the go-to supplier for AI companies.
The new generation of AI graphics processors is named Blackwell. The first Blackwell chip is the GB200 and is anticipated to ship later this year. It will also be available as an entire server called the GB200 NVLink 2, combining 72 Blackwell GPUs and other Nvidia parts designed to train AI models. NVIDIA is enticing customers by offering more powerful chips to spur new orders.
The announcement comes as companies and software makers still scramble to get their hands on the current “Hopper” H100s and similar chips.
“Hopper is fantastic, but we need bigger GPUs,” Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang said at the company’s developer conference.
Further, the tech giant unveiled revenue-generating software called NIM, which stands for Nvidia Inference Microservices, to its Nvidia enterprise software subscription. NIM simplifies using older Nvidia GPUs for inference or running AI software and will enable companies to leverage the hundreds of millions of Nvidia GPUs they already own.
According to Nvidia executives, the company is transitioning from primarily being a mercenary chip provider to becoming more of a platform provider, like Microsoft Corporation (MSFT) or Apple Inc. (AAPL), on which other firms can build software.
Analysts at Goldman Sachs retained a buy rating of NVDA stock and raised their price target to $1,000 from $875. They expressed “renewed appreciation” for Nvidia’s innovation, customer and partner relationships, and vital role in the generative AI space after the company’s keynote.
“Based on our recent industry conversations, we expect Blackwell to be the fastest ramping product in Nvidia’s history,” the analysts said. “Nvidia has played (and will continue to play) an instrumental role in democratizing AI across many industry verticals.”
Bottom Line
NVDA surpassed Wall Street’s estimates for earnings and sales in the fourth quarter of fiscal 2023. The chipmaker has significantly benefited from the recent technology industry obsession with large AI models, which are developed on its pricey graphics processors for servers.
Moreover, sales reported in the company’s Data Center business comprise most of its revenue. NVDA’s Data Center platform is driven by diverse drivers like demand for data processing, training and inference from large cloud-service providers, GPU-specialized ones, enterprise software, and consumer internet companies.
Further, vertical industries, led by automotive, financial services, and healthcare, are now at a multibillion-dollar level.
The data center GPU market is projected to be worth more than $63 billion by 2028, growing at a staggering CAGR of 34.6% during the forecast period (2024-2028). The increasing adoption of data center GPUs in enterprises should bode well for NVDA.
Analysts expect NVDA’s revenue and EPS for the fiscal 2025 first quarter (ending April 2024) to increase 237.7% and 405.9% year-over-year to $24.29 billion and $5.51, respectively. Moreover, the company has topped consensus revenue and EPS estimates in all four trailing quarters, which is remarkable.
Furthermore, for the fiscal year ending January 2025, the company’s revenue and EPS are expected to grow 83% and 92.1% from the prior year to $111.49 billion and $24.89, respectively.
NVDA has achieved significant progress across its business divisions, and this year, it will bring new product cycles with exceptional innovations to help boost its industry forward.
Since the AI boom began in late 2022, catalyzed by OpenAI’s ChatGPT, Nvidia’s stock has been up fivefold, and its total sales have more than tripled. The company’s high-end server GPUs are essential for training and deploying large AI models. Notably, tech companies like MSFT and Meta Platforms, Inc. (META) have spent billions of dollars buying these chips.
Recently, the chipmaker announced a new generation of AI chips and software for running AI models, giving customers another reason to stick to Nvidia chips over a growing field of competitors, including Advanced Micro Devices, Inc. (AMD) and Intel Corporation (INTC).
While NVDA’s stock has declined nearly 3% over the past month, several analysts affirmed their bullish sentiment toward the stock and see a significant upside potential, owing to its booming AI business and new innovative launches to maintain its leading position in the face of rising competition.
Given these factors, investors could consider buying NVDA for potential gains.
