Is It Time To Unload Nvidia?

Source: Streetwise Reports (6/26/24)

Some financial experts say yes, others no. Read on to learn the rationale behind the conclusions and stance of several.

The movement of Nvidia Corp.’s (NVDA:NASDAQ) stock during June, rising to its all-time high and then plunging, has investors debating now whether to jump into it, bolster their existing position, or abandon it altogether. Whereas financial analysts and other experts generally agree the information technology (IT) stock has been overbought since early June, they differ, some radically, in their current recommendations on it.

“Nvidia has likely become one of the most overheated stocks we’ve witnessed in a quarter century,” Eric Fry of Fry’s Investment Report said in an InvestorPlace interview.

On June 18, Nvidia ousted Microsoft Corp. (MSFT:NASDAQ) from its spot as the world’s most valuable company, and last week, Nvidia’s stock peaked at US$140.76 per share. Since, it dropped to third place, therein suffering a loss of about US$500 billion ($500B) in value, Seeking Alpha reported on June 25. However, NVDA maintains about a 140% year-to-date gain and thus is the second-best performer in the Standard & Poor’s (S&P) 500 Index.

Is it OK To Buy?

None of the factors behind the stock’s recent descent into its current correction constitutes a sound reason to “turn gloomy on Nvidia,” Garfield Reynolds, Bloomberg’s Markets Live Asia team leader, wrote in a June 24 article. The five causes were expiring options, insider sales, the stock’s technically overbought state, investor reassessment of the stock after it dethroned Apple Inc. (AAPL:NASDAQ) and Microsoft, and a long squeeze.

“The bull case for the artificial intelligence (AI) darling along with the broader tech sector remains strong over the short to medium term, at the very least,” he wrote.

It would take a major event, such as a broad economic slump or a big earnings miss, to keep Nvidia down for long, asserted Reynolds.

Certainly, numerous analysts recommend Nvidia as a Buy. According to TipRanks, of the 41 analysts who rated the stock at some point in the last three months, 38 have it Buy, three Hold, and none Sell. Zacks Investment Research, for instance, has a Strong Buy rating on it.

“Even with those concerns about overconcentration lingering,” he added, “the selloff would need to extend significantly further to change the narrative away from the consensus call that the AI revolution will keep going and that Nvidia stands to benefit hugely as a result.”

As such, Reynolds expects new buyers of the stock on future price dips, he wrote.

Certainly, numerous analysts recommend Nvidia as a Buy. According to TipRanks, of the 41 analysts who rated the stock at some point in the last three months, 38 have it Buy, three Hold, and none Sell. Zacks Investment Research, for instance, has a Strong Buy rating on it.

In a June 22 article, The Motley Fool’s Edward Shelton suggested that investors should consider three points when deciding what to do regarding Nvidia.

One, Nvidia stock being overbought does not preclude it from climbing further. Case in point, he said, is the stock’s last pullback, in March, of 20%, after which the price soared to its highest point ever.

Two, NVDA is not in a bubble, despite what analysts say, because the fundamentals support its valuation.

Three, the company’s earnings per share (EPS) guidance for 2025 of US$3.61 could be conservative. Should earnings turn out to be higher (some analysts predict US$5), the stock would look cheap.

Ballanger Says Think Twice Before Buying

According to Michael Ballanger, editor & publisher of GGM Advisory Inc., investors should take seriously Nvidia’s recent shift into a correction. The stock is coming down from its peak “with a full bearish moving average convergence/divergence (MACD) rollover and ‘sell signal’ now complete,” he described in a June 24 email alert.

A sector rotation out of tech stocks and into more conservative Dow Jones Industrial Average blue chip stocks is underway, he noted, but the whiplashing of this a long-time market leader into a correction could be a harbinger of what is to come.

“If ‘AI’ starts to correct,” Ballanger warned, “the entire market is going with it, including the Dow and the S&P 500.”

Newsletter Writers Say Do Not Buy Now

Chris Johnson, Money Morning qualitative specialist, implied that it might be better to wait to Buy Nvidia as there is a good chance the stock will present a short-term opportunity to do so on a future pullback.

“If ‘AI’ starts to correct,” Michael Ballanger of GGM Advisory Inc. warned, “the entire market is going with it, including the Dow and the S&P 500.”

These opportunities often arise with heavily traded stocks after they experience persisting overbought conditions and the pullbacks that typically follow.

“Investors looking for a deeper correction in the stock should consider the US$100 price target as an ideal price for longer-term support for Nvidia shares,” he noted in a June 24 article. (At close today, the tech company was at US$126 per share.)

Kimberley Koenig with Investor’s Business Daily flat out advised against buying Nvidia right now. Instead, she recommended on June 25, “Wait for selling to subside and another base to form or follow-on buy point to present itself to buy the AI chip stock.”

One Expert Says Sell It All Today

The advice of Technical Analyst Clive Maund, based on his interpretations of the stock’s 10-year and two-year charts, is to sell Nvidia.

“The main takeaways for us are that Nvidia should be ‘avoided like the plague’ simply because it has gone up so much and is massively overbought,” he wrote in a June 23 report. “Anyone holding should, of course, take profits soon.”

He explained that on the charts, the MACD indicator shows the stock has become “insanely overbought.” However, he noted, “Recent volume does not look terminal as it has not (yet) risen to become climactic, and the accumulation line remains strong.” These indicators suggest that rather than immediately plunging, the stock may form a large top pattern over some months, during which time it could even creep higher.

Eric Fry of Fry’s Investment Report suggested investors follow the lead of the country’s billionaires and unload not just Nvidia stock but also the other tech giants’ stock now because, he said, an entire tech market crash is coming.

“There’s an undeniable tension gripping the markets right now, and if your gut is telling you that something monumental is lurking just over the horizon, trust me, your instincts are dead on,” he said.

Fry likened Nvidia stock today to Cisco stock in the 1990s. Though Cisco then had nearly twice the earnings power of Nvidia today, he said, when the dot-com bubble burst, it dropped about 87% from its peak.

Yes, there is room for growth in the AI market, and yes, Nvidia could be an AI star over the long term, said Fry. However, world-changing stocks go through their own boom and bust periods.

“I do want people to be aware of the cyclical risks involved here, at these crazy valuations,” he added.

Fry forecasted a future “tidal wave of selling to engulf the tech titans of Wall Street — Nvidia, Apple, Microsoft, Google, Meta and more” — in what he’s calling The 2024 Tech Reset. Billionaires, including Jeff Bezos, Warren Buffet, Elon Musk, and Mark Zuckerberg, have already started selling tech stocks, even their own company’s stock. They are moving their money into next-gen stocks, which Fry defined as “stocks of businesses that are essential for the growth and prosperity of society as a whole.”

This massive selloff Fry predicted will cause tech stocks to plummet from their record highs and will, in the process, drag down thousands of other stocks, he warned. It will “erase years of investors’ gains, in the blink of an eye.”

Sector to Hit $29 Trillion by 2030

Currently IT is facing some challenges, and in the short term “the demand environment remains uncertain as enterprises add more scrutiny to the budgeting process and reduce discretionary IT spending,” CIBC wrote in a June 20 report. The current environment has dampened the expectation held since last year that demand would start improving in H2/24.

The report asserted that the initial “gen AI boom” is in the rear-view mirror, and what is happening now is a “period of resetting expectations.” Despite most companies knowing they need AI strategies, they are still deciding on what these will be, the analysts said.

The long-term outlook for IT is brighter. Growth for the IT market is forecasted up to 2030, at a 15% compound annual growth rate, according to Exactitude Consultancy, a market research and consulting services firm. By 2030, the market is projected to increase to US$28.99 trillion ($28.99T) in value from US$10.9T in 2023.

Accelerated advancement in AI, cloud computing, the Internet of Things and cybersecurity is the primary growth driver, noted Exactitude.

Ownership and Share Structure

According to Reuters, 4.23% of the company is held by management and insiders.

0.05% is with strategic investors. Milestone Resources Group Ltd. has 0.02%, with 4.39 million, and Banco Santander SA has 0.01%, with 2.10 million.

67.70% is held by institutions. The VanGuard Group Inc. has 8.63%, with 2,122.88 million shares. BlackRock Institutional Trust Company N.A. has 4.82%, with 1,186.45 million. Fidelity Management & Research Company LLC. has 4.51%, with 1,109.18 million.

The rest is with retail investors.

Nvidia has 24.6 billion (24.6B) shares outstanding and 23.5B free float traded shares.

The company’s market cap is US$3.1 trillion. Its stock has traded between US$39.23 and US$140.76 per share over the past 52 weeks.

Important Disclosures:

1. Doresa Banning wrote this article for Streetwise Reports LLC and provides services to Streetwise Reports as an independent contractor.
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