Retail Investors Pour $111 Million in Half an Hour
U.S. retail investors bought the dip in Nvidia heavily on the 13th. Market analytics firm Vanda Research noted that in the first half hour after the open, retail inflows into Nvidia reached an estimated $111 million, a record high. Supported by buying, Nvidia narrowed its decline from 14% at the open to about 5% in the afternoon. Nvidia is the 2nd-largest U.S. listed company by market capitalization, and following reports yesterday alleging an extramarital affair between founder Jensen Huang and a senior executive reporting to him, today's sell-off cut its market value by $550 billion this week.
Dip-Buying Returns With Over 390,000 Fidelity Buy Orders
The initial selling pressure stemmed from questions about Jensen Huang's relationship with a woman accused of being a Beijing spy. Extending the heavy selling over the past month, Nvidia plunged as much as 14% at the open before rebounding. Nationwide Chief Market Strategist Hackett said that every time dip-buying works, it further reinforces the behavior, which is a distinctive phenomenon seen only in a healthy market. Since the end of the financial crisis in 2009, the buy-the-dip strategy has been favored by investors, and today was no exception.
Fidelity Buy Orders More Than Double the Combined Total of Other Hot Stocks
Data from popular trading platforms showed retail investors crowding in. At Fidelity Investments, as of 12:00 p.m. Eastern Time, or 1:00 a.m. on the 13th Taiwan time, investors had placed 394,818 Nvidia buy orders versus 80,088 sell orders, with buy orders more than double the combined total of the other 9 most actively traded stocks. AMD ranked second with 24,790 buy orders, followed by Nebius in third with 24,519. In the 5 weeks since the Nasdaq Composite last hit a new high, Nvidia shares have fallen nearly 13%, wiping out over $1 trillion in market value.
Wall Street Downgrades as Focus Turns to Earnings and IPO
Market sentiment was far from unanimous, however. On the Reddit trading forum wallstreetbets, 60% of comments about Nvidia were negative. Wall Street also issued a wave of downgrades this week, with Baird Equity Research analyst downgrading Nvidia to Neutral yesterday and slashing the price target by 60% to $200, still well above this afternoon's $164. Senior analyst Gila noted that due to the uncertain near-term outlook, the market has pushed back forecasts for 2027 data centers, mostly due to supply issues but possibly also soft demand, with capital expenditure growth by hyperscale AI cloud operators in 2027 potentially slowing to 40% or slightly below. Looking ahead, investors are watching what Nvidia executives say on the quarterly earnings call on the 17th, as well as the Anthropic IPO expected later next week. Hackett said the AI outlook remains positive, and the Anthropic IPO is likely to draw more attention next week, as Nvidia's new management team just took office and can hardly earn immunity with just one earnings call.