New York, Jan 16, 2026, 16:02 EST — After-hours
- Nvidia shares ended up about 0.2% at $187.45, tracking a broad lift in chip stocks into the weekend.
- Jefferies raised its Nvidia price target to $275; RBC started coverage at Outperform with a $240 target.
- Traders are also watching how U.S. and China restrictions shape shipments of Nvidia’s H200 AI chips.
Nvidia shares finished slightly higher on Friday after Jefferies lifted its price target on the AI chip leader, with Wall Street still trying to map out what U.S.-China rules could mean for high-end chip sales in 2026.
The muted move still matters. Nvidia is one of the market’s biggest bellwethers for artificial intelligence spending, and small shifts in expectations can ripple through chip peers and the broader tech complex.
The stock had jumped more than 2% a day earlier as semiconductor names rose after a U.S.-Taiwan trade deal put chips back in focus, but Friday’s trade was more about brokerage notes and positioning into a long weekend.
Jefferies analyst Blayne Curtis raised his price target on Nvidia to $275 from $250 and kept a Buy rating, arguing the stock “remains pretty cheap” against his longer-dated estimates coming out of CES. TipRanks
RBC Capital analyst Srini Pajjuri initiated coverage with an Outperform rating and a $240 price target, writing that he sees “limited threat” to Nvidia’s full-stack AI dominance even as custom chips — known as ASICs, or application-specific integrated circuits — and rivals such as Advanced Micro Devices make progress. TipRanks
Nvidia traded between $187.12 and $190.42 on Friday and was among the most active U.S. stocks by volume. The iShares Semiconductor ETF rose about 1.6%, while AMD climbed about 1.9% and Broadcom added roughly 2.7%. A Nasdaq-tracking fund (QQQ) was little changed.
Policy remains the other driver. The Trump administration this week gave a formal green light for China-bound sales of Nvidia’s H200 chips under conditions, including third-party testing and limits tied to U.S. supply, Reuters reported. Nvidia said the United States “should always want its industry to compete” for vetted commercial business. Reuters
But China has been sending mixed signals. Reuters reported on Thursday that Beijing was drafting purchase rules around the H200 and that domestic tech companies were told not to buy the chips unless necessary, underscoring the risk that approvals do not translate cleanly into orders.
A separate regulatory filing showed Nvidia Chief Financial Officer Colette Kress sold a total of 47,640 shares on Jan. 13, split across direct and indirect holdings, under a pre-arranged Rule 10b5-1 plan — a trading plan that can allow insiders to sell shares on a set schedule.
Still, the near-term setup cuts both ways. Analyst optimism can fade fast if cloud “hyperscalers” — the biggest data-center buyers — slow capital spending, or if export approvals tighten again. China-related restrictions, or delays in related supply chains such as high-end memory, could also cap upside.
U.S. markets are closed on Monday for the Martin Luther King Jr. Day holiday, and investors will be looking for fresh read-through from next week’s earnings reports, including Intel, and any new guidance on chip trade policy.
The next hard catalyst for Nvidia is its scheduled fourth-quarter FY26 results on Feb. 25, when investors will be listening for commentary on data-center demand and the path for China sales under the new rules.
