As excitement surrounding artificial intelligence technology appears to show few signs of slowing down, investors are looking to Nvidia's latest quarterly earnings report to see whether the company's meteoric growth can last.
The technology company considered to be at the heart of the AI chip boom reported its fourth quarter earnings after the stock market's close on Wednesday, beating expectations for both earnings and sales, CNBC reports. The company's total revenue is up 265% from a year ago.
For context, Nvidia makes powerful computer chips that power popular AI tools like OpenAI's ChatGPT and Microsoft's Copilot. High demand for those chips has propelled the company into Wall Street's exclusive trillion-dollar market capitalization club.
As of market close on Feb. 21, the tech company's market cap sat at $1.667 trillion, putting it behind Alphabet's $1.779 trillion market cap. It's also behind Microsoft and Apple, which hold market caps of $2.988 trillion and $2.819 trillion, respectively.
Nvidia's stock price has been on an upward trajectory so far this year. Although the company's stock price declined by nearly 3% during Wednesday's trading session, shares have surged by nearly 40% since the beginning of the year. On top of that, they've soared by over 225% in the last 12 months.
Although short-term demand for Nvidia's AI chips has been strong, major companies such as Microsoft and Meta have indicated interest in buying them from other companies.
How much a $1,000 investment in Nvidia would be worth
If you had invested $1,000 in Nvidia one, five or 10 years ago, here's how much your money would be worth now. CNBC's calculations are based on the company's Feb. 20 closing share price of $694.52.
- If you had invested $1,000 in Nvidia a year ago, your investment would have tripled by about 225% and be worth around $3,248 as of Feb. 20.
- If you had invested $1,000 in Nvidia five years ago, your investment would have increased by an eye-watering 1,015% and be worth around $17,542 as of Feb. 20.
- If you had invested $1,000 in Nvidia 10 years ago, your investment would have soared by about 22,340% and be worth around $148,226 as of Feb. 20.
- If you had invested $1,000 in Nvidia on Jan. 22, 1999 when Nvidia first went public, your investment would have grown by around 277,708% and be worth close to $2,784,065 as of Feb. 20.
Before investing, do your due diligence
Remember, a company's short-term performance shouldn't be used as the only indicator of how it will perform in the future. By nature, the stock market is fickle and unpredictable factors can cause a company's share price to experience sudden drops and fluctuations in value.
For that reason, most financial experts advise against hand-selecting individual stocks. Instead, a more hands-off approach, such as buying exchange-traded funds or mutual funds, tends to make sense for most people.
These types of funds aim to mimic a market index like the S&P 500, which tracks the stock performance of around 500 large U.S. companies. When you invest in one, your investment is actually spread across a wide variety of top-performing companies, such as Nvidia, Amazon, Apple and Microsoft.
As of Feb. 21, the S&P 500 is up by close to 25% compared with 12 months ago, per CNBC's calculations. Since 2019, the index's value has risen by around 79% and has swelled by 170% since 2014.
Read the latest article from CNBC Pro to learn more about an ETF that should benefit from Nvidia's continued growth.
Want to land your dream job in 2024? Take CNBC's new online course How to Ace Your Job Interview to learn what hiring managers are really looking for, body language techniques, what to say and not to say, and the best way to talk about pay.
