After reaching a local bottom at $106.98 on March 10, Nvidia stock (NASDAQ: NVDA) mounted a 13.5% recovery, and retested crucial resistance at $120 two times — on March 14 and March 24.
Although both days saw prices close above resistance, pullbacks occurred within a day or two in both instances.
On March 26, NVDA was the S&P 500’s loss leader, as prices dropped by 5.47%, from $120.69 to $113.76. By press time, Nvidia shares were changing hands at a price of $111.98 — having marked an 11.57% loss on the monthly chart which has brought year-to-date (YTD) losses up to 16.61%.
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Amidst this bearish turn, worries abound that the chipmaker’s stock presents a proverbial house of cards, and that it could crash below $100 in a move which would almost certainly ignite a wider selloff.
While price action has, obviously, not been positive, the leading semiconductor business is a longstanding favorite of Wall Street analysts, who tend to focus on big-picture developments and long-term prospects as opposed to technical analysis and temporary dips.
Let’s take a closer look as to how equity researchers have reacted to the recent developments surrounding Nvidia stock.
Despite the pullback, analysts remain universally bullish on Nvidia stock
At present, 42 analysts track Nvidia stock and issue ratings for it, per data retrieved by Finbold from TipRanks. NVDA shares remain a consensus ‘strong buy’ — with 39 ‘buy’ ratings, 3 ‘hold’ ratings, and notably no ‘sell’ ratings.
The price targets that analysts have set on NVDA shares vary significantly. At the low end, the most bearish outlook forecasts a price of just $125, while the Street-high price target sits at $220.
However, the average price target is currently $176.54 — a figure that implies a 55.19% upside from current prices. For reference, the lowest forecast implies an 11.62% upside, while the highest would equate to a 96.46% rally.
Despite all of the tumult that the chipmaker has experienced in recent weeks, these updated figures are only marginally different from Wall Street’s average outlook as of late February, which had an average 12-month price forecast of $178.66.
All in all, although analysts were not particularly impressed by the company’s GPU Technology Conference (GTC), which lasted between March 17 and March 21, and included a slew of product reveals, on the whole, Wall Street’s outlook remains firmly bullish.
Bull and bear cases for NVDA shares
Although the company failed to generate substantial hype from the GTC, something interesting did happen. Since the conclusion of the conference, nine analysts have updated their coverage on the stock. Quite notably, all of them have maintained both their prior ratings and price target — essentially, their outlook hasn’t shifted.
The one exception to this is DA Davidson researcher Gil Luria, who reiterated a ‘neutral’ rating for Nvidia stock and slashed his price forecast from $135 to the Street-low $125. In a (rather short) note shared with investors, Luria acknowledged the chipmaker’s leading role in the industry, but maintained a cautious outlook, stressing that DA Davidson remains cautious about out-year expectations.
The Street-high price target of $220 actually comes from two sources — Rosenblatt analyst Kevin Cassidy and Tigress Financial researcher Ivan Feinseth. Both researchers cited the same factors — strong demand for Nvidia’s Blackwell chips and high AI capital expenditures, as the reasons behind their bullish outlooks.
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