Nvidia has been benefiting from a number of tailwinds for some time, including strong pricing power due to high demand for its chips and tight supply, which has helped the company achieve gross margins of over 70%. The chipmaker reported fiscal second-quarter earnings on Wednesday that beat market expectations, although the stock fell in intraday trading Thursday as investors hoped for a bigger gain. Looking ahead, one analyst highlighted a sign that investors should pay close attention to, which could signal the beginning of an erosion of Nvidia’s pricing power and margins. The signal is capital expenditures from so-called “hyperscale companies” such as Microsoft, Google and Amazon. Several major tech companies have released their June quarter earnings reports, which show rising spending, particularly on artificial intelligence – which includes Nvidia-designed graphics processing units. These are the world’s largest cloud computing players, and they have been expanding their infrastructure to train artificial intelligence models. Microsoft said capital expenditures increased more than 77% year-on-year in the June quarter to $19 billion. Meanwhile, Google parent company Alphabet said its capital expenditures increased by more than 90% in the second quarter compared with the same period last year. Tech giants have signaled that high spending on artificial intelligence is likely to continue. “As long as this continues, you can expect Nvidia’s current margin situation to continue,” Josh Koren, founder of Musketeer Capital Partners, told CNBC’s “Street Signs Europe” on Wednesday. “But when we start When you see those capex guidance come down…that’s how you know pricing is starting to come down,” he added. He said that might not happen this season, but it could happen in the near future. “I wouldn’t be surprised if this happens in the next two or three quarters,” Collen said, adding that when that happens, Nvidia’s stock price could drop 20% or more. Coren and his company do not own Nvidia stock. Analysts on Wednesday expected Nvidia shares to rise about 7% from Tuesday’s closing price, according to LSEG. The stock has 18 “Strong Buy” ratings and 37 “Buy” ratings. Nvidia is currently facing increasing competition from the likes of AMD, but many analysts still believe the company is in a strong position to fend off its rivals. Yang Wang, senior research analyst at Counterpoint Research, said Nvidia will receive most of its funding from cloud companies in the next two to three years as cloud companies continue to increase capital expenditures. “We estimate that Nvidia will still account for the majority of the $700 billion in capital expenditures over the next two and a half years. So Nvidia’s outlook should remain strong,” Wang said on CNBC’s “Squawk Box Europe” on Wednesday.
Fund managers say Nvidia shares could plummet 20% if big tech companies start signaling this change | Real Time Headlines
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