"This is insane," says one market analyst on X (formerly Twitter). "It's a beast," says another on CNBC. It's becoming difficult to find suitable superlatives to describe the market performance of Nvidia Corporation (NASDAQ: NVDA).
The Kobeissi Letter on X on Friday, described the performance of Nvidia on Thursday, saying: "This is just insane."
"Nvidia fell to $914 at 4:15 PM ET today after the market closed. But then, by the end of the after hours session at 8:00 PM ET, the stock closed above $946. That's a 3.5% swing in after hours trading, adding $80 billion in market cap. If you include the regular hours session, Nvidia casually added $180 billion of market cap today."
In pre-market trade on Friday, the stock was up 2.9% taking the share price to $953.33.
Tom Sosnoff, founder of Tastytrade told CNBC's last call on Thursday night: "The depth of liquidity today in Nvidia was off the charts. It was the number one stock traded on our platform today. It just crushed everything else. It's a beast."
Explosive Growth In Market Cap
Back to market cap. On Thursday, Benzinga wrote about the market performance of Nvidia vs. Apple Inc. (NASDAQ: AAPL) - stocks of similar market cap.
Nvidia's market cap currently hovers at around $2.42 trillion, while Apple remains at $2.61 trillion.
Nvidia is catching up fast. The market cap has increased by around $1 trillion since the start of 2024. In just the past eight trading sessions of consecutive gains, the market cap has increased by $440 billion.
Only the top 18 stocks on the S&P 500 have total market caps above $440 billion.
Nvidia's increase in market cap in the past eight trading sessions is roughly equal to the total market cap of oil giant Exxon Mobil Corp. (NYSE: XOM).
At this rate, Nvidia's market cap should soon eclipse that of Apple and set sights upon the $3 trillion market cap of Microsoft Corporation (NASDAQ: MSFT).
To reach a market cap of $3 trillion, Nvidia's shares would have to reach a price of $1,219. They currently stand, as above, at around $953. That's $266 difference.
The shares have gained more than $266 since the beginning of February and the momentum has barely slowed.
Bubble Talk
It's at this point, that we have to warn investors that historical performance isn't always an indicator of future performance. But, as we've heard from the accolades above, this stock is a beast.
However, such performances will always stoke conversations about market bubbles. Nvidia's unremitting rise has been all about its powerful graphics processing units (GPUs) driving growth of artificial intelligence (AI) development.
Some market commentators are suggesting echoes of the dot.com bubble of the late 1990s. Nvidia could be a bubble stock, but it's no comparison to the dot.com bubble.
Dot.com stocks were overvalued, chiefly because the companies were profitless. Nvidia's profits consistently beat Wall Street forecasts and show year-over-year growth.
All is likely to depend on market sentiment and AI delivering on its promise of vast future profits.