Nvidia Passes Microsoft as Market’s Most Valuable Company. Why Now

Dow Jones
04 Jun

Nvidia stock closed as the largest U.S. company by market value on Tuesday.

The stock edged higher as investment bank Jefferies added the chip maker to its list of highest-conviction picks.

Nvidia shares rose 2.8% to $141.22. The S&P 500 and Nasdaq Composite gained 0.6% and 0.8%, respectively.

The latest gains put Nvidia above Microsoft for the No. 1 spot in U.S. stock market capitalization, according to Dow Jones Market Data. Nvidia’s market cap is now $3.45 trillion versus Microsoft’s $3.44 trillion.

The last time Nvidia was the largest company by market cap on an intraday basis was on May 29. The stock ultimately failed to hold on to those gains.

The share price crossed $140 for the first time in months following earnings last week, but it has fallen back slightly with investors on edge amid a flare-up in tariff tensions between China and the U.S.

Still, Jefferies added the chip maker to its list of top stock picks on Tuesday. Equity analyst Blayne Curtis expects the ramp of Nvidia’s Blackwell artificial-intelligence chips to drive the company’s gross margin to somewhere between 70% and 80% this year, up from 61% as of its fiscal first quarter, which ended April 27.

“Going forward, we see a favorable setup for Nvidia in [the second half of 2025] as Blackwell Ultra ramps and Networking strength continues (NVLink and Spectrum-X). We also expect a smoother transition into NVDA’s next-generation Rubin platform as it will have similar rack-type architecture as Blackwell,” Curtis wrote in a research note.

Curtis has a Buy rating with a $185 target price.

UBS analysts were similarly bullish, reiterating a Buy rating and $175 price target. Analyst Timothy Arcuri wrote that Nvidia managment’s comments on the chip maker’s pipeline—during lst week’s earnings call—were “somewhat overlooked” by investors.

Management said Nvidia had visibility into “tens of gigawatts” of AI infrastructure projects in the “not-too-distant future.” Arcuri sees a minimum total revenue opportunity of $1 trillion for this pipeline, assuming a range of $40 billion to $50 billion a gigawatt.

The company didn’t specify a timeline, but Arcuri thinks these projects will probably roll out over two to three years.

Wall Street has generally cheered Nvidia, but the looming prospect of semiconductor tariffs has infused some uncertainty and concern into the market. Potential levies on imported chips are under investigation by the U.S. Department of Commerce under Section 232 of the Trade Expansion Act of 1962, which allows the president to impose duties on imports that are considered a national security threat.

“Nvidia is only trading at 4% discount to our fair value. But I would say, from the point of view of wanting to have exposure to AI…Nvidia is still the bellwether for growth,” wrote Dave Sekera, chief U.S. market strategist at Morningstar, in a research note.

Shares of other chip makers were also on the upswing. AMD and Broadcom were up 2.3% and 3.3%, respectively.

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