Summary
- Nvidia's stock price surged to a record $237.88 during Friday's trading, elevating the company's market capitalization to approximately $5.7 trillion, making it the most valuable company worldwide.
- On September 28, Nvidia's board approved an additional $150 billion for its share buyback program, increasing the total buyback authorization to $235 billion through fiscal 2028.
- In September, U.S. employers added only 29,000 jobs, falling short of the anticipated 90,000, which tempered expectations for a Federal Reserve rate hike as the Nasdaq index rose.
Nvidia's stock reached a historic high on Friday, hitting $237.88 in morning trading, which propelled the company's market value to around $5.7 trillion. This marks the first record since May.
Market capitalization, calculated as the share price multiplied by the total number of shares, acts as a valuation for the entire company. Nvidia now holds the title of the largest market cap globally.
Myriad: What are your predictions for Nvidia's future?.In August 2023, Nvidia's valuation stood at $1.18 trillion, surpassing the entire cryptocurrency market at that time. The company overtook Apple at a market cap of $3 trillion in June 2024 and became the first to reach $5 trillion in October 2025. Currently, the total market capitalization for all cryptocurrencies, including Bitcoin, is just above $3 trillion.
Nvidia's stock has increased by over 40% from a low of $165.17 on March 30. This growth extends beyond Silicon Valley, as Nvidia is part of the S&P 500 index, meaning many retirement accounts holding index funds include Nvidia shares.
Nvidia specializes in producing graphics processing units (GPUs), which were initially designed for video games but have proven ideal for AI training and operations. Major tech companies purchase these chips in vast quantities; for instance, Amazon's cloud division plans to deploy about 1 million GPUs by 2027. Additionally, xAI’s facilities, which also support Anthropic, already possess half a million chips and intend to triple that number soon.
For the quarter ending July 26, Nvidia reported revenues of $96.2 billion, which is a 106% increase from the previous year. Data centers, housing servers that power AI, contributed $89 billion to this figure.
CEO Jensen Huang stated in the earnings release, "Now, compute is revenue," referring to the computing power provided by Nvidia's chips. Essentially, Nvidia's revenue is derived from the AI budgets of other companies.
Recent Developments
On Monday, Nvidia's board announced the $150 billion increase to its buyback program, raising the total to $235 billion through fiscal 2028, which the company described as the largest buyback in history. A buyback means the company uses its cash to purchase its own shares, resulting in fewer shares available in the market and increasing the value of each remaining share.
On September 23, Supermicro announced the shipment of racks built on Nvidia's latest platform, Vera Rubin, which can hold 72 GPUs each.
The jobs report released on Friday indicated that employers added only 29,000 jobs in September, significantly lower than the expected 90,000, and the unemployment rate increased to 4.2%.
While this news is unfavorable for workers, stock prices rose nonetheless. The disappointing job figures reduced speculation regarding a potential interest rate hike by the Federal Reserve. Higher rates would increase borrowing costs for companies, including those investing in AI data centers. Given Nvidia's dominant position in the market, the challenges of securing debt affect its competitors more than Nvidia itself.
Nvidia also invests in its customers, having pledged up to $100 billion to OpenAI in September 2025, with the final investment amounting to $30 billion, alongside another $10 billion allocated to Anthropic.
Moreover, Nvidia disclosed commitments totaling $366 billion for multiyear AI infrastructure, with $279 billion primarily related to memory procurement.
The company projects revenue of $108 billion for the current quarter, as noted in its guidance, and retains $235 billion in buyback authority to utilize through January 2028.