New York, May 28, 2026, 04:11 EDT
- Nvidia was last at $212.60, down roughly 1.1%. The company’s market value is around $5.19 trillion.
- Nasdaq and S&P 500 set new closing highs Wednesday, though chip stocks lost steam after their rally.
- Taiwan prosecutors think Nvidia chips may have been smuggled into China via Japan, according to Bloomberg. Reuters said on Monday it was unable to verify the Bloomberg report.
Nvidia shares dropped Wednesday with investors taking a breather after a strong run in U.S. stocks and chip makers. That put the world’s biggest public company up against a key question: can demand for artificial intelligence chips keep beating already lofty expectations?
The stock was last at $212.60, off 1.1%, putting market cap close to $5.19 trillion. Nasdaq’s regular session starts at 9:30 a.m. Eastern. The 2026 calendar lists Memorial Day on May 25 as the market holiday this week, not Thursday.
Nvidia is now seen as the lead barometer for the AI trade, a stand-in for how much companies are spending on chip and server gear for artificial intelligence software. The Philadelphia SE Semiconductor Index slid 1.4%, dropping after a record on Tuesday. Nvidia was down 1% as well, according to Reuters.
S&P 500 edged up 0.02% to 7,520.36 and the Nasdaq Composite gained 0.07% to 26,674.74, both ending at record highs. The pullback wasn’t a sign of panic, traders said. “After such a large run-up in the markets, it’s not surprising to me that there is a little bit of a pause,” Sean Clark, chief investment officer at Clark Capital Management Group, said. Reuters
The pause sent other chip stocks lower as well. Qualcomm slipped 6%, Marvell Technology shed 4.6%, and Intel gave up 1.4%. Nvidia’s decline tracked the sector, suggesting the pullback in semis was broader and not just about Nvidia. Traders are watching to see if this is real money coming out of AI hardware or just profit-taking after the big run.
Nvidia’s fundamentals remain solid. The company last week posted first-quarter revenue of $81.6 billion, up 85% year-on-year. Data center revenue came in at $75.2 billion, a 92% jump. That business focuses on server farms used to train and run AI systems.
Nvidia approved another $80 billion for buybacks and bumped up its quarterly dividend to 25 cents from 1 cent. Buybacks shrink the share count when they happen, which can lift earnings per share, though they don’t eliminate business risk.
Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang talked up demand for “AI factories,” Nvidia’s term for big computing centers that generate AI results. “Agentic AI has arrived,” Huang said, pointing to software designed to take on tasks without much help from people. NVIDIA Newsroom
Nvidia guided to second-quarter revenue of $91.0 billion, give or take 2%. But the forecast assumes no data center compute sales from China—so the trade stance is still a factor for investors.
China is still the biggest unknown. Nvidia got U.S. licenses to sell its H200 chips to China, Reuters reported last week, but it has not secured Chinese clearance and hasn’t shipped any chips yet. “The Chinese market is very important,” Huang said during a talk in Taipei. Reuters
The risks for Nvidia are clear. Export controls could get tougher, China could delay approvals, or investors could turn away from AI if they think the trade is too crowded. That might hit Nvidia’s premium, even with sales still strong. “Stretched momentum conditions and elevated positioning” are putting the durability of the rally into question, said Adam Turnquist, chief technical strategist at LPL Financial. Reuters
New legal and policy trouble surfaced in Asia. Taiwan prosecutors think three people sent at least one load of Nvidia chips to China, routed through Japan, Bloomberg News reported Wednesday, citing people familiar with the issue. Reuters said it could not confirm the Bloomberg report right away.
Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang has said the company takes chip diversion risk in Taiwan seriously, telling reporters Nvidia was “very rigorous” about making legal requirements clear to partners. Speaking about Super Micro, Huang added: “I hope that they will enhance and improve their regulation compliance.” Reuters
Right now, Nvidia isn’t seen as broken by the market. The stock is seen as crowded and priced high enough for doubt, but it’s still a must-own for the ongoing AI push, which hasn’t slowed down yet. Traders will watch Thursday’s open to see if Wednesday’s slip was just a breather or the opening of a deeper check on the market leader.
