Nvidia remains a core holding for most investment managers. With an 8% weighting in the S&P 500, it effectively has to be. Yet Nvidia has been a frustrating position for many investors, who have watched AMD and Broadcom significantly outperform over the past two months — and even Alphabet and Apple, if you consider them part of the broader AI theme.
As we look ahead to Q3 2026 earnings on 19 November, and with tailwinds from Jensen Huang’s keynote at GTC, the key question is whether that period of underperformance is now behind the AI giant, with the share price building firmly above $200.
The Setup: A Rally into GTC
Nvidia’s shares were already rising into CEO Jensen Huang’s GTC Conference presentation on Tuesday, buoyed by reports of progress in US–China trade talks. While some expected a modest reaction, few anticipated the 5% gain that followed.
Historically, GTC events have produced volatile swings in Nvidia’s share price, but investors are now far more familiar with the company’s story and its dominant role in driving the AI revolution. As such, expectations for a major new revelation or an outsized move were initially quite low.
The Catalyst: What CEO Jensen Huang Said to Move the Share Price
Jensen Huang was always going to deliver an energetic presentation and speak confidently about Nvidia’s pipeline and outlook — and he didn’t disappoint.
While unsurprisingly downplaying concerns of an AI bubble, he announced new strategic deals with Palantir, Samsung, and Hyundai. However, the real catalyst behind the 5% gain and the close above $200 came from his declaration that Blackwell is now in “full production” and that Nvidia expects “$500 billion of business in the next six quarters.”
Importantly, this revenue projection excludes any sales to China.
The Numbers Behind the Target
To reach $500 billion in sales over six quarters, Nvidia would need to ship roughly 20 million GPUs. With Blackwell now fully ramped, that figure is feasible — though ambitious. Nvidia has already shipped around 6 million GPUs, implying roughly $350 billion in additional sales between calendar years 2025 and 2026. By comparison, sell-side bank analysts had been modelling $313 billion in data centre revenue over the same period. If Huang’s comments are indeed interpreted as guidance, they suggest consensus sales estimates are around 12% too low — a significant potential upgrade catalyst and a clear positive for the share price.
Flow Dynamics: How Options Activity Amplified the Rally
On the day, Nvidia traded 297 million shares, well above the 15-day average of 174 million — though perhaps lighter than expected for a 5% rally.
The real driver was the options market. Traders bought 3.89 million short-dated call options, with 3.1 calls for every put. Most of the volume was clustered between $187 and $200 strikes. As the share price climbed, market makers who had sold those calls were forced to hedge by buying the underlying stock to remain delta-neutral.
This flow-driven buying, combined with traders front-running end-of-day ETF and leveraged ETF rebalancing, fuelled the rally even further.
When strong fundamental catalysts align with technical and flow-based momentum, the resulting moves can be outsized and self-reinforcing — and that was precisely the case here.
Summary and Outlook
The question now is whether the market fully buys into Jensen Huang’s $500 billion sales projection, and if it prompts analysts to re-rate revenue expectations ahead of Nvidia’s 19 November earnings.
If that happens — and if macro conditions remain supportive for equity markets — Nvidia could easily push higher from here and potentially become the first $5 trillion market-cap company.
Whether it can outpace AMD and close the recent performance gap remains open for debate, but few would doubt that momentum has clearly shifted back in Nvidia’s favour.
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