Nvidia Stock Slips. What’s Behind Its Sudden Stall.

Nvidia’s earnings appear to have produced a muted market reaction for once. The chip maker’s blowout quarterly report was good enough to support the stock but not provide another leg to its stunning rally.

Nvidia shares were down 2.5% at $143.04 in morning trading on Friday. The stock rose 0.5% during Thursday’s trading session.

By any normal measure Nvidia’s third-quarter numbers were stunning, as it nearly doubled its revenue from the prior year. However, its guidance wasn’t as strong as some analysts had expected.

The stock was downgraded to an Accumulate rating from Buy by Phillip Securities analyst Yik Ban Chong in a research note on Friday, citing recent price moves, although he raised his target price to $160 from $155.

“Any weakness will likely be bought for investors but traders who require beats and raises every quarter could lighten their exposure if no big beats happen for a few quarters…Very few businesses have a multiyear problem of ‘customers just can’t get enough.’ That situation tends to bring in many short-term investors who can be more fickle,” said Eric Clark, portfolio manager of the Rational Dynamic Brands Fund.

Attention will now turn to the rollout of Nvidia’s Blackwell artificial-intelligence chips. One potentially positive piece of news for Nvidia is that Elon Musk’s xAI has told investors it raised $5 billion in a funding round valuing it at $50 billion, according to The Wall Street Journal, citing people familiar with the matter.

Musk’s xAI is expected to partly use the funds raised to purchase 100,000 more Nvidia chips, as the AI start-up plans to double the size of a data center used for training its models.

Write to Adam Clark at [email protected]