New York, March 3, 2026, 16:03 (ET) — Trading moves into after-hours.
- Nvidia dropped 1.3% on Tuesday, slipping alongside U.S. stocks in a wider pullback.
- Morgan Stanley has reinstated Nvidia as its preferred chip stock, citing GTC as a key turning point for sentiment.
- Nvidia’s new optics agreement with Coherent, plus the 6G initiative, stack up as near-term catalysts before March events.
Nvidia (NVDA.O) slipped 1.3% on Tuesday, finishing at $180.09 and putting the AI-chip giant’s market cap near $4.5 trillion. Shares ranged from $176.08 to $180.88 during the session.
Nvidia now serves as a bellwether for risk-taking across major tech. When a company of this scale wobbles—even slightly—the impact ripples through indexes and forces desks to rethink positions in a hurry.
Investors are picking apart company headlines from the noise on the tape. Over the next two weeks, Nvidia faces a burst of events and analyst notes tied to the stock, which has swung around since those late-February results.
U.S. stocks slipped Tuesday, with the Dow off 0.6%, the S&P 500 down 0.8%, and the Nasdaq also losing 0.8%, as investors fretted over the possibility of a drawn-out Middle East conflict and stubbornly high energy prices stoking inflation. “Investors are growing anxious about the duration of the war and its impact on energy prices,” Northern Trust Asset Management chief investment strategist Joseph Tanious said. LSEG data showed traders now betting the Fed’s next 25-basis-point rate cut won’t come until September, rather than July. Reuters
Joseph Moore at Morgan Stanley bumped Nvidia back into the firm’s top semiconductor spot on Monday, taking over from Micron. In his note, Moore described Nvidia’s valuation as “a surprisingly good entry point.” He emphasized there’s no sign yet that this investment cycle is winding down, citing industry checks that show major cloud players are locking in spending plans through 2028. Moore maintained his Overweight rating and left the price target at $260. Investing.com
Nvidia on Tuesday pushed forward with its next major phase, spotlighting its GPU Technology Conference in San Jose. “GTC is the epicenter of the AI industrial era,” CEO Jensen Huang said in a statement. NVIDIA Newsroom
NVIDIA has locked in GTC 2026 for March 16–19 in San Jose, California. CEO Jensen Huang’s keynote lands on March 16, running 11 a.m. to 1 p.m. Pacific. Investors often see this keynote as a critical update, particularly with fresh chips and new system architecture on the table.
Nvidia this week reached a multiyear deal with Coherent, focused on optics for connecting chips and systems inside data centers. The chip giant is putting $2 billion into Coherent and has locked in a purchase commitment worth several billion. “With Coherent, NVIDIA is pioneering next-generation silicon photonics,” Jensen Huang said. Coherent chief Jim Anderson described the move as building on their “20-year relationship” with Nvidia. NVIDIA Newsroom
Nvidia over the weekend said it’s joining forces with names like BT Group, Cisco, Deutsche Telekom, Ericsson, MITRE, Nokia, SK Telecom, SoftBank, and T-Mobile to develop open, “AI-native” 6G platforms—the future standard for mobile networks. The company has been pushing its AI-RAN approach—essentially artificial-intelligence-powered radio access networks that link mobile devices to towers—as a way to integrate AI deeper into telecom infrastructure. “Telecommunications is next,” Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang said. NVIDIA Investor Relations
Nvidia delivered $68.1 billion in quarterly revenue back in late February and put out a first-quarter forecast at roughly $78.0 billion, give or take 2%. Notably, the company said it wasn’t counting on any data center compute revenue from China in those numbers—a signal that even with robust global demand, geopolitical risks remain baked into the guidance.
Still, the stock isn’t out of the woods in the coming sessions. Higher oil, fading rate-cut optimism—both threaten to keep investors peeling off high-growth tech. If there’s even a whiff of customers slowing AI rollouts, or competitors grabbing share, the pressure could ramp up fast.
On Wednesday, eyes turn to Broadcom’s earnings along with new U.S. labor data—key updates traders hope will shed light on spending patterns and rate moves. Nvidia watchers, meanwhile, are marking March 16 on the calendar; that’s when Huang steps up for the GTC keynote.
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