Investors that missed out on this year’s dizzying rally in Nvidia Corp. have an attractive entry point this month.
That’s according to Morgan Stanley, which argues that concerns about demand sustainability for Nvidia’s chips used in artificial intelligence computing will soon be quelled by management comments or financial results. That will make the stock’s decline of 14% in September an excellent buying opportunity, analysts led by Joseph Moore said.
“Numbers are likely to continue to be strong, and to the extent that investors are concerned about near term demand that’s a good thing, as it is a negative thesis that the company can quickly disprove,” the analysts wrote in a research note on Monday.
Nvidia’s valuation has become a subject of intense debate among investment professionals after its stock tripled this year amid soaring demand from customers rushing to beef up AI computing capacity. While Wall Street analysts are nearly universally bullish, skeptics like Rob Arnott, founder of Research Affiliates LLC, argue that Nvidia is priced so high that it can’t possibly live up to expectations. It’s even too expensive for Ark Investment Management’s Cathie Wood.
The selloff in Nvidia comes as technology stocks are under pressure from rising Treasury yields, with the Federal Reserve signaling its willingness to keep interest rates high to combat inflation. Still, Nvidia has fallen much more than the Nasdaq 100 Stock Index, which is down 5% this month.
The stock’s decline combined with rising profit estimates have pushed Nvidia’s valuation to the cheapest in nearly a year. At 29 times profits projected over the next 12 months, Nvidia is half as expensive as it was in May, before the first of its two consecutive blow-out earnings reports and below the stock’s average of 32 times over the past decade, according to data compiled by Bloomberg.
Of course, that places a lot of faith in estimates, which have been jumping at a breakneck pace. The average analyst projection for earnings per share in Nvidia’s fiscal 2025, which ends on Jan. 31, 2025, has more than tripled in the past six months.
That hasn’t deterred Thomas George, portfolio manager at Grizzle Investment Management, which counts Nvidia among its top holdings.
“Nvidia is really reasonably priced for the growth it is generating,” George said in an interview. “In a few years, you’ll look back and see it as very attractively priced right now. The demand isn’t a mirage.”
For some investors, Nvidia’s failure to rally after beating second quarter sales estimates by more than $2 billion in August is a sign that the stock has priced in a lot of future growth despite faltering momentum.
But analysts have only gotten more bullish since then with the average price target for Nvidia rising to $646, implying a gain of more than 50%. With the stock’s retreat, the gap between expectations and current share price is close to the widest on record, according to data compiled by Bloomberg.
Tech Chart of the Day
The Nasdaq 100 Index’s recent pullback has brought valuations lower, but with yields on the rise, it’s still quite pricey. On a forward price-to-sales basis, the tech-heavy index trades at 3.8 times, well above its 10-year average, indicating that the frothiness is still there.
Top Tech Stories
- Amazon.com Inc. will invest as much as $4 billion in Anthropic, bagging a crucial partner in its effort to become a major player in generative artificial intelligence and offering a vote of confidence in the hot startup.
- Striking Hollywood writers reached a new labor agreement with studios including Walt Disney Co. and Netflix Inc., but production remains shut down. An actual return to filming will require a new contract between SAG-Aftra — the Screen Actors Guild — and the Alliance of Motion Picture & Television Producers, the studios’ bargaining group.
- TikTok’s ambition to expand in online shopping is facing a major blow from new rules in Indonesia that are set to curb its operations in its biggest e-commerce market.
- The US Federal Communications Commission is to announce plans on Tuesday to reinstate so-called net neutrality rules governing broadband providers, according to people briefed on the matter.
- Billionaire Xavier Niel is investing €200 million ($212 million) in artificial intelligence, split between a future research lab to be located in Paris, cloud supercomputing capabilities powered by Nvidia Corp. hardware, and funding for startups.
- Binance is seeking to launch stablecoins denominated in the dollar, euro and yen in Japan next year, as the embattled global crypto exchange pushes into the nation’s nascent market.
Earnings Due Tuesday
A message from Advisor Perspectives and VettaFi: To learn more about this and other topics, check out our podcasts.
Bloomberg News provided this article. For more articles like this please visit
bloomberg.com.
Read more articles by Jeran Wittenstein, Ryan Vlastelica