(Bloomberg) — Nvidia Corp. Investors are hopeful that Monday’s speech from CEO Jensen Huang will lead to another breakout in the chipmaker’s shares, which just ended at their first high since November.
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Huang will take the stage at the closely watched CES trade show in Las Vegas on Monday evening. Nvidia has typically used the event to showcase consumer devices that use its chips. However, investors today will focus on any commentary on the Blackwell chip, which is seen as Nvidia’s next big growth driver. Despite robust demand, Blackwell has faced supply constraints, partly due to production issues that have delayed its rollout.
“Demand for Blackwell is expected to remain very strong,” said Matt Cioppa, portfolio manager at Franklin Templeton Equity Group. “That could bring the ultimate longer-term opportunities for Nvidia back into focus for the market.”
Investors have reasons to be optimistic. Over the past six months, Huang’s comments on chip demand have boosted the stock. In October, he called demand for Blackwell “insane,” and in November he said the chips are shipping in the current quarter amid “very strong” demand.
Shares posted a monthly loss in December but are still up 171% through 2024, making them by far the biggest driver of the S&P 500 Index’s overall gains. The stock is already up 11% this year, including a 3.4% gain on Monday. With a market cap of $3.66 trillion, Apple Inc. is about to take over. to overtake again as the largest company; the iPhone maker has a market cap of $3.7 trillion.
Disappointment in profits
Still, the stock fell shortly after Nvidia’s Nov. 20 earnings report. The company’s revenue forecast failed to impress Wall Street, which had grown accustomed to projections that beat average estimates by wider margins.
The lull in stocks has come as excitement over AI spending has spread to other parts of the semiconductor industry.
The shares of Broadcom Inc. have surged more than 30% in recent weeks after the chipmaker predicted a boom in the market for AI components it designs for data center operators. The shares of Marvell Technology Inc. are up more than 20% since it reported better-than-expected earnings on demand for its custom AI chips.
Morgan Stanley analysts led by Joseph Moore likened the rallies in those stocks to a wealth transfer from Nvidia, whose shares fell for four straight days in the wake of Broadcom’s report, wiping out more than $200 billion in market value.