Topline
Nvidia’s share price is at its lowest level since late 2022 after the company executed its previously announced stock split, a procedural move symbolic of the artificial intelligence sensation and semiconductor chip designer’s astonishing stock market run.
Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang delivers a keynote address at his company’s March generative AI conference.
Key Facts
Monday was Nvidia’s first day of trading after the company split its shares on a 10-for-1 basis based on Friday’s closing share price of $1,210, meaning shareholders were awarded 10 shares for each of their existing shares, not diluting any equity.
Nvidia shares opened Monday at about $120 per share after a modest dip, but are still within 5% of its intraday, split-adjusted high of $125.59 recorded last week.
The stock split, a routine move for companies whose share prices rose significantly, comes after Nvidia’s stock market surge as investors poured into the firm arguably most well-positioned to profit off of the AI revolution.
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Surprising Fact
Nvidia’s stock traded Monday at the same unadjusted share price it did in October 2022, meaning 10 shares of the company 20 months ago is worth the same as one share now after the company exploded from a sub-$300 billion market valuation to almost $3 trillion, making Nvidia the third-largest company in the world.
Key Background
The self-appointed “engine of AI,” Nvidia most notably designs the hardware which stores the immense data loads needed for generative AI and the graphics processing units (GPUs) which bring machine learning computing to life. Over the last decade, Nvidia went from a little-discussed Silicon Valley company worth around $10 billion to the talk of Wall Street, as its profits exploded due to its market dominance in AI chips, with the likes of Amazon, Apple and Microsoft among its big-ticket customers. Thanks largely to the eye popping rally over the last two years with the AI boom, Nvidia stock’s long-term chart looks downright silly, with split-adjusted shares trading at less than $1 as recently as 2016. Nvidia was among the 10 most expensive S&P 500 components by share price at Friday’s close, but is now in line with the S&P median of $118 per share. Nvidia has almost single handedly boosted the S&P from its 2022 nadir to its record highs this year due to its market-beating returns at its massive valuation.