Nvidia (NASDAQ:NVDA) stock’s up 60% over the past 12 months. But remember where we were a year ago. Tech stocks had dipped from highs following the DeepSeek announcement and fell after Donald Trump soft-launched his tariff plans — which were eventually announced on 2 April.
So £10,000 invested in Nvidia a year ago would be worth around £15,700 today. That 60% dollar gain is trimmed slightly by sterling’s roughly 2% appreciation against the dollar over the past year — a quiet but real drag for UK investors holding US stocks.
But the journey was far from smooth. Liberation Day sparked a sell-off across global markets, and Nvidia — as a bellwether for artificial intelligence (AI) spending — took its share of the pain.
Concerns about export controls on advanced chips to China added further pressure, with Washington tightening restrictions that directly threatened a meaningful slice of Nvidia’s revenue.
Those who held through all of that were rewarded. Personally, I managed to buy more shares under $100 in April 2025, demonstrating that being greedy when others are fearful can be wise if the fundamentals remain intact.
Of course, Nvidia’s now a long way off its 52-week highs. The stock has pushed as high as $212 per share. And as I write, it’s down 7% over six months.
What’s going on at Nvidia?
It’s been five weeks since Nvidia reported on FY26 earnings with a beat. That was hardly surprising. The company has beaten earnings expectations for the last 13 quarters. The beat on revenue was also pretty sizeable at $1.9bn for the quarter.
Looking ahead to FY27, the market expectations are very strong. Analysts are projecting revenue of $78.74bn for the upcoming quarter — a number that underlines just how much Wall Street has riding on continued AI infrastructure spending. EPS estimates sit at $1.78 on a normalised basis, and the revision trend is overwhelmingly bullish. Thirty-two analysts have moved their estimates up in the last 90 days, against just one revision down.
That kind of consensus optimism can cut both ways. It reflects genuine confidence in Nvidia’s order book and the Vera Rubin ramp — but it also means the bar’s set very high. With 13 consecutive earnings beats behind it, the market’s come to expect Nvidia to outperform. Anything short of a sizeable beat, or cautious forward guidance, could be enough to crush the share price.
Just look at peer Micron. The stock’s been the darling of US technology companies over the past 12 months. It smashed earnings last month, delivered an enormous guidance for the coming quarter. But the market punished the company’s Capex plans and it’s down around 25% since then.
The bottom line
For me, Nvidia’s centrality to the AI revolution appears secure. And personally, I want to own all the compute stocks I can — that’s a thesis for another day.
What’s more, at 19 times forward earnings, it’s actually trading at a discount to the index average. On face value, that looks like a pricing error. Institutional analysts appear to agree with this broad assessment with the average price target implying a 54% undervaluation.
I certainly believe it’s worth considering.
