Investors should 'buy the dip' in Nvidia shares, Itau BBA analysts say

Published Tue, Oct 24 20238:12 PM EDT

Shares of chipmaker Nvidia fell sharply earlier this month after the U.S. government announced new restrictions on exporting advanced artificial intelligence chips to China. But one bank says the selloff presents a buying opportunity for investors. Investment bank Itau BBA's analysts believe the new export controls could reduce Nvidia's revenues from China by about 10% in 2025. They estimate that that could reduce the company's earnings per share that year by a similar amount. However, the analysts say the stock's pullback has likely already priced in most or all of that impact. Nvidia is now trading at around 22 times the estimated 2025 earnings after the selloff, according to FactSet data. Assuming a fair value multiple of 25 for that year, the decline has "fully priced in the China restriction effects or is very close to doing so," Itau BBA analysts led by Thiago Alves Kapulskis said in a note to clients on Oct. 18. "Therefore, we would buy the dip at this point, as we continue to see upward revisions in the very short term for NVDA, as we have written extensively before," they added. NVDA 1M mountain Itau BBA's $600 price target for Nvidia points to more than 40% upside from the current share price. The Itau BBA analysts estimate that 20% of the AI chipmaker's data center revenues come from China, of which a third is from networking products not subject to sanctions. They believe the remaining two-thirds account for about a tenth of Nvidia's total forecast sales for 2025. The investment bank's bullish call comes after the U.S. Commerce Department announced plans to clamp down further on exports of advanced AI chips . The move aims to close loopholes that emerged after restrictions were imposed last year, according to officials. The earlier limits targeted Nvidia's top-of-the-line H100 processor but left room for sales of slightly downgraded H800 chips to China. Now, the H800 and equivalents will be banned as well. Nvidia has said it does not expect a "near-term meaningful impact" on earnings from the restrictions. But its stock sank around 13% in the two trading days after the announcement before paring losses later in the week. In response to the plans for new export restrictions, Citi analyst Atif Malik cut his Nvidia price target to $575 from $630. However, the Wall Street bank remains optimistic about Nvidia's long-term growth potential. Similarly, Morgan Stanley's Joseph Moore trimmed his target by $30 to $600, saying that restrictions to areas such as Saudi Arabia may be a more significant threat to revenue than initially expected. — CNBC's Samantha Subin and Michael Bloom contributed to this report.