Key Highlights
- NVDA finished Friday’s trading at $230.36, climbing as high as 2% intraday, approaching its record peak of $235.74
- The chipmaker completed its acquisition of AI platform Hugging Face in a deal valued at approximately $13 billion
- Anthropic, recipient of up to $10 billion in Nvidia funding last year, is rumored to be planning an IPO filing
- Earlier this week, Nvidia announced a $3.5 billion stake in Taiwan-based chip designer MediaTek
- Wall Street analysts hold a consensus “Moderate Buy” stance with a mean price target of $324.83
Nvidia (NVDA) finished Friday’s session at $230.36, posting a 0.84% gain after touching intraday highs of 2%. The closing price leaves shares hovering just beneath the company’s all-time peak of $235.74, reached on May 14.
The rally reflects sustained strength in AI-focused chip stocks, with recent corporate developments providing additional upward pressure.
The most significant development came with Nvidia’s nearly $13 billion purchase of Hugging Face, the leading open-weight AI model repository. The platform serves over 18 million developers and 200,000 organizations worldwide as a central hub for AI model sharing and deployment.
According to Nvidia’s statements, Hugging Face will maintain its open-ecosystem approach post-acquisition.
Futurum CEO Daniel Newman articulated the strategic logic: “Nvidia wants to be in front of this, access to more developers, access to more enterprises.”
Adding to investor enthusiasm: emerging reports suggest Anthropic is gearing up for an IPO filing. Given Nvidia’s up to $10 billion commitment to Anthropic in the previous year, a public offering would establish a tangible valuation for that investment.
Strategic Investments Continue
Nvidia’s acquisition activity extended beyond Hugging Face. Earlier in the week, the semiconductor giant disclosed a $3.5 billion investment in MediaTek, the Taiwan-based chip designer, which will integrate Nvidia’s NVFusion platform into its operations.
Industry observers view this partnership as strategic positioning for Nvidia as cloud providers increasingly develop proprietary chip solutions, ensuring the company remains embedded in the value chain.
The company is simultaneously pushing into consumer AI devices. Lenovo and Acer plan to release Windows PCs featuring Nvidia’s RTX Spark processor in October, while HP has unveiled new OmniBook laptops incorporating the same chip architecture.
Strong Institutional Support and Analyst Confidence
Sentiment on Wall Street remains decidedly optimistic. JPMorgan elevated its price objective from $280 to $320 while maintaining an “overweight” recommendation. Evercore projects a $465 target. The analyst consensus average stands at $324.83, with 50 analysts rating the stock a “Buy” and only three at “Hold.”
Institutional accumulation persists. Baker Tilly Wealth Management expanded its NVDA holdings by 7.4% during Q2. Brighton Jones increased its position by 12.4% in Q4. Overall, institutional investors control 65.27% of Nvidia’s outstanding shares.
Regarding financial performance, Nvidia delivered Q2 earnings per share of $2.22, surpassing the $2.09 analyst estimate. Revenue totaled $96.22 billion, exceeding projections of $92.27 billion. This represented a year-over-year revenue surge of 105.9%.
The company maintains board authorization for an $80 billion stock repurchase initiative.
A noteworthy development: insider selling activity has picked up. Director Mark Stevens divested approximately 885,000 NVDA shares in June, while EVP Timothy Teter sold 30,000 shares in August. Both transactions occurred under previously established Rule 10b5-1 trading plans.
Over the past year, Nvidia shares have traded between a low of $164.07 and a high of $236.54.
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