If there’s one stock that Jim Cramer can’t stop talking about, it’s NVIDIA Corporation (NASDAQ:NVDA). Throughout the year, the CNBC TV host has remained one of the firm’s most ardent supporters. He wholeheartedly believes that NVIDIA Corporation (NASDAQ:NVDA) is at the center of a new industrial revolution. On September 3rd, after the firm announced that it had decided to acquire open source AI platform operator Hugging Face, Cramer remarked that not only was the move defensive, but the shares would have suffered if a rival firm had made a similar move:
“Well look I think that Jensen and Collette Kress, the CFO, have really been pushing people to understand this. Someone like me, I was, candidly, more of a novice to it. They walked me through it. And emphasized, look, you really got to be open, the Chinese are doing very very well. We have to blunt them, have it, so that we have the best. Even though they have a good relationship with China. But they’re just saying, listen, we need our own open, we didn’t know about Hugging Face at the time. But I applaud this and I think what people have to do, and say, if AMD had announced they were buying Hugging Face, if Broadcom had announced they were buying Hugging Face, we would send NVIDIA down big. So you’ve got to think of it like that, it’s a little asymmetrical. But I was really glad they got it, because if there was a bidding war and they lost to someone else, people would be saying, wow they’ve lost their touch in the open. . .
“You have to say it’s offensive and defensive. They have a lot of customers and they really have a great brand and the defense is they’ve got to be sure that nobody else catches them when it comes to open. . .I just feel like the stock has stalled, and I think it’s stalled because there are sellers everywhere it needs to mop up the selling. Which is what Apple did. . .”
The debate generated by NVIDIA Corporation’s Hugging Face acquisition somewhat sits at the center of the broader debate for the firm. This debate is whether the firm will be able to experience sustained demand for its AI GPUs and the broader profitability of the new technology. For its part, NVIDIA Corporation has entered into agreements with cloud providers and other firms to help them build their AI infrastructure. The firm’s critics have criticized the deals for seemingly inflating the demand for its AI products.
On the financial front, NVIDIA Corporation has managed to continue its growth. Its second fiscal quarter saw the firm grow revenue by 106% annually. The jump was powered by the data center business whose revenue grew by 117% over the year ago figures. Yet, at the same time, the 196% growth was slower than the fiscal first quarter’s 262% annual growth and the year ago quarter’s 122%. Yet, at the same time, the data center business accounted for $89 billion of NVIDIA Corporation’s $96 billion revenue and management also admitted to lower margins in the third quarter. Additionally, the growth hypothesis also appears to be slowing down with the Q3 guide hinting towards further deceleration at 89.5% growth.
Looking at hedge fund data, 285 out of 1,006 funds in Insider Monkey’s database had held a stake in NVIDIA Corporation in Q2, which marked a jump over the 275 funds in Q1. Notable additions came in the form of a $485 million stake by Torno Capital and a $202 million stake by Foxhaven Asset Management. On a forward P/E basis, the firm is still cheaper compared to AMD and Intel. It trades at a forward P/E ratio of 25.58, which is lower than AMD’s 30.67 and INTC’s 51.81.
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