Nvidia (NVDA) stock jumped as much as 4.7% on Monday ahead of CEO Jensen Huang’s keynote address at the annual Consumer Electronics Show (CES) in Las Vegas, pushing shares north of $151 and putting the stock on track for a record close.
The stock’s most recent record close came on Nov. 7, 2024 at $148.88 per share.
As Wall Street analysts head to Sin City to meet with management from top tech companies, all eyes are on the AI chipmaker.
Nvidia typically makes important product announcements at the CES trade show — such as last year’s debut of new desktop graphics chips for gaming and AI — while Huang’s commentary is expected to give investors a preview of what’s ahead for the artificial intelligence giant and the burgeoning artificial intelligence market.
Huang will deliver his keynote at 6:20 p.m. PST on Monday. It will be livestreamed on Facebook, YouTube, LinkedIn, and other sites.
His address comes as investors eagerly await the rollout of Nvidia’s latest Blackwell AI chips, which analysts have said will drive a massive new cycle of demand for the company’s products, despite fears of a slowdown in AI spending.
After a design flaw pushed back the rollout of its Blackwell lineup and rumors of overheating problems in servers using those chips circulated, Nvidia confirmed in a November earnings call that Blackwell production is ramping up in the current quarter, with the chips shipping to customers ahead of expectations. Stifel analyst Ruben Roy has suggested that the Blackwell AI chips represent a $100 billion market opportunity for Nvidia.
The jump in Nvidia stock on Monday extends its gains from last week, when the chipmaker led a rebound in the “Magnificent Seven” tech stocks after a disappointing end to 2024.
In another potential tailwind for Nvidia shares, Truist Securities analyst William Stein said in a note Monday that he believes Nvidia will announce a standalone CPU, or central processing unit — the “brain” of a computer, distinct from Nvidia’s Hopper and Blackwell GPUs, or graphics processing units — at CES. Stein has said in past notes that such an announcement could open up another $35 billion market opportunity for the company.
Bank of America’s Vivek Arya said in a note Monday that while “NVDA stock has essentially stalled over the past 6 months” he expects CES to be a “positive catalyst, re-asserting NVDA’s platform dominance.” Arya said he believes Nvidia will provide “reassuring updates” on its Blackwell shipments and announcements about its robotics strategy and, potentially, an AI PC partnership.