On Tuesday, Nvidia came close to surpassing Alphabet as Wall Street’s third most valuable company, with the dominant AI chipmaker ending the day with a market capitalization higher than Amazon’s for the first time in two decades.
Nvidia’s shares experienced a slight slip of 0.17%, but its stock market value reached $1.78 trillion, exceeding Amazon’s $1.75 trillion value after the online shopping and cloud-computing heavyweight’s stock declined by 2.15%.
Google-owner Alphabet’s stock also saw a decline of 1.62%, resulting in its market capitalization standing at $1.81 trillion.
Nvidia has been a primary beneficiary of technology companies’ push to integrate AI into their products and services. Its graphics processors are in high demand, with Meta Platforms and other major tech firms purchasing billions of dollars worth of its components.
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In a client note, Mizuho raised its price target for Nvidia’s stock to $825 from $625 ahead of the company’s quarterly results due on Feb. 21. The stock concluded Tuesday at $721.28.
While lead times for Nvidia’s top-shelf H100 processor have decreased, demand still significantly outweighs supply, according to Mizuho analyst Vijay Rakesh. He sees “substantial AI upside” for Nvidia, Broadcom, and Advanced Micro Devices.
Nvidia currently controls approximately 80% of the high-end AI chip market. This dominance has propelled its stock up by 46% this year, following a more than triple in value in 2023. Other technology-related companies, including Microsoft and Meta, have also experienced record highs due to optimism surrounding AI.
Alphabet has integrated chatbot technology into its Google search engine and marketed generative AI tools to cloud customers. Despite hitting an all-time high before its quarterly report on Jan. 30, which failed to meet investors’ expectations and caused a dip in share prices, Alphabet’s stock remains up by 4% in 2024.
While Nvidia briefly surpassed Amazon’s market capitalization on Monday, Amazon regained its lead by the end of that trading session.
The last time Nvidia was valued higher than Amazon was in 2002, when both companies were worth under $6 billion. By mid-2004, Nvidia’s market value had dropped to under $2 billion, while Alphabet listed its shares at a valuation of $23 billion.
In January, Microsoft overtook Apple to become the world’s most valuable company, now valued at over $3 trillion. Saudi Aramco is the third most valuable publicly listed company, with a market capitalization of $2 trillion.
Apple’s stock has experienced a 4% decline in 2024, as it is often seen as lagging behind in the AI race. Although Saudi Aramco boasts a $2 trillion market capitalization, the majority of its shares are closely held by the Saudi Arabian government, with less than 2% available for trading by investors.
