Feed: AnandTech
Feed Link: https://www.anandtech.com
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Title: NVIDIA Closes Above $135, Becomes WorldΓÇÖs Most Valuable Company

Date: Tue, 18 Jun 2024 17:40:00 EDT
Link: https://www.anandtech.com/show/21453/nvidia-c...

Thanks to the success of the burgeoning market for AI accelerators, NVIDIA
has been on a tear this year. And the only place that's even more apparent
than the company's rapidly growing revenues is in the company's stock price
and market capitalization. After breaking into the top 5 most valuable
companies only earlier this year, NVIDIA has reached the apex of Wall Street,
closing out today as the world's most valuable company.

With a closing price of $135.58 on a day that saw NVIDIA's stock pop up
another 3.5%, NVIDIA has topped both Microsoft and Apple in valuation,
reaching a market capitalization of $3.335 trillion. This follows a rapid
rise in the company's stock price, which has increased by 47% in the last
month alone - particularly on the back of NVIDIA's most recent estimates-
beating earnings report - as well as a recent 10-for-1 stock split. And
looking at the company's performance over a longer time period, NVIDIA's
stock jumped a staggering 218% over the last year, or a mere 3,474% over the
last 5 years.

NVIDIA's ascension continues a trend over the last several years of tech
companies all holding the top spots in the market capitalization rankings.
Though this is the first time in quite a while that the traditional tech
leaders of Apple and Microsoft have been pushed aside.

Market Capitalization Rankings Market Cap Stock Price NVIDIA $3.335T $135.58
Apple $3.317T $446.34 Microsoft $3.285T $214.29 Alphabet $2.170T $176.45
Amazon $1.902T $182.81

Driving the rapid growth of NVIDIA and its market capitalization has been
demand for AI accelerators from NVIIDA, particularly the company's server-
grade H100, H200, and GH200 accelerators for AI training. As the demand for
these products has spiked, NVIDIA has been scaling up accordingly, repeatedly
beating market expectations for how many of the accelerators they can ship -
and what price they can charge. And despite all that growth, orders for
NVIDIA's high-end accelerators are still backlogged, underscoring how NVIDIA
still isn't meeting the full demands of hyperscalers and other enterprises.

Consequently, NVIDIA's stock price and market capitalization have been on a
tear on the basis of these future expectations. With a price-to-earnings
(P/E) ratio of 76.7 - more than twice that of Microsoft or Apple - NVIDIA is
priced more like a start-up than a 30-year-old tech company. But then it goes
without saying that most 30-year-old tech companies aren't tripling their
revenue in a single year, placing NVIDIA in a rather unique situation at this
time.

Like the stock market itself, market capitalizations are highly volatile. And
historically speaking, it's far from guaranteed that NVIDIA will be able to
hold the top spot for long, never mind day-to-day fluctuations. NVIDIA,
Apple, and Microsoft's valuations are all within $50 billion (1.%) of each
other, so for the moment at least, it's still a tight race between all three
companies. But no matter what happens from here, NVIDIA gets the
exceptionally rare claim of having been the most valuable company in the
world at some point.

(Carousel image courtesy MSN Money)

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