Nvidia (NVDA) stock rose more than 3% in afternoon trading on Tuesday, putting shares on pace for their fifth straight day of gains.
Wall Street analysts at KeyBanc, Citi (C), Bernstein, and several other investment firms reiterated their Buy ratings on the stock this week.
KeyBanc analysts raised their fiscal year 2025 sales outlook for Nvidia from $128.5 billion to $130.6 billion, with Nvidia’s new flagship Blackwell AI chips contributing $7 billion to fourth quarter revenues. That’s higher than Wall Street’s consensus estimate of $125.6 billion for 2025 revenue, according to Bloomberg data. Even as production of Nvidia’s Blackwell chips ramps up, KeyBanc said in a note to investors Monday that demand for Nvidia’s prior AI chip models — H100s and H200s — “remains extremely robust.”
Nvidia shares are up 13% over the past week and 189% from last year.
Wedbush analysts said “another positive data point” for Nvidia is a potential new wave of funding for AI startups. The Information reported Monday that OpenAI’s staggering $6.6 billion funding round will likely drive a wave of new AI investments. New funding for AI-related startups would, in turn, fuel demand for Nvidia's AI chips.
Wedbush’s Matt Bryson said on Tuesday that the report is an indication "that there is little likelihood AI spending growth pauses through much (if not all of 2025) to NVDA's benefit."
Nvidia is also looking to prove its worth beyond AI hardware. At its AI Summit in D.C. this week, the company is attempting to highlight the strength of its AI software offerings in a bid to prove it’s more than just a chipmaker.
Adding to the wave of positive press for Nvidia was the announcement of Foxconn's new megafactory assembling Nvidia's AI servers. The chair of electronics manufacturer Foxconn (2354.TW), Young Liu, said during an annual event in Taipei Tuesday that it’s building the world’s largest factory assembling Nvidia GB200 servers in Mexico, according to the Financial Times. Liu said there is “crazy” demand for Nvidia’s latest AI chips. The move will reduce Nvidia’s reliance on China amid rising trade tensions.
Nvidia and Foxconn said they're also working to build Taiwan's fastest supercomputer.
Nvidia isn’t the only semiconductor company that’s thriving. Citing WSTS semiconductor industry data, JPMorgan (JPM) said Tuesday that sector-wide sales rose 28% in August from last year.
“We remain positive on semiconductor and semiconductor equipment stocks as we believe stocks should continue to move higher in anticipation of better supply/demand in 2H24/25 [the second half of 2024 and 2025] and stable/rising earnings power trends in CY24/25 [the 2024 and 2025 calendar years].”
The PHLX Semiconductor Index (^SOX) and the tech-heavy Nasdaq (^IXIC) both rose more than 1% on Tuesday.
Meanwhile, chipmakers in China faced a different fate Tuesday. After China’s economic planning agency failed to live up to the market’s hope for more stimulus measures, China’s Semiconductor Manufacturing International Corporation (0981.HK) fell 18%. Investors had expected stimulus initiatives to boost China’s semiconductor sector.
Laura Bratton is a reporter for Yahoo Finance.
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