Topline
Nvidia recorded the highest ever market capitalization in the history of publicly traded companies Monday, reaching nearly $5.3 trillion after shares closed up 4%, continuing a weeks-long string of boosts that began early this month.
Key Facts
Nvidia’s market cap hit $5.26 trillion Monday, with shares closing near trading session highs and inching up in extended-hours trading.
The jolt in market cap further cemented Nvidia’s position as the most valuable company in the world, far above Google ($4.2 trillion) and Apple ($3.9 trillion) as its closest competitors for the title.
The surge in Nvidia shares Monday comes as Qualcomm, an Nvidia partner, and OpenAI, a major Nvidia customer, announced a deal to create smartphone processing chips for OpenAI.
Tangent
The S&P 500 also set a new record high Monday, closing at 7,173.91, up just over 0.1% on the day.
Big Number
Approximately 1,300%. That’s how much Nvidia’s stock has risen in the last five years. That is a roughly 14-time increase since 2021.
Forbes Valuation
We estimate Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang’s net worth at $187.1 billion, making him the seventh wealthiest person in the world behind Oracle co-founder Larry Ellison ($217.5 billion). He had the largest net worth bump of any billionaire Monday, with a $7.1 billion rise.
Tangent
Qualcomm’s stock rose nearly 1% to $150.26 on Monday, bringing its gains from April so far to 18.2%.
Key Background
Nvidia notched just over $68 billion in sales in its latest quarter, a 73% jump year-over-year, largely triggered by surging data center revenue, which reached $62.3 billion in the fourth quarter. Shares of the company are up just over 16% since the start of the year, when they traded around $188. It is one of the few tech companies in the “Magnificent Seven” to record stock gains this year as firms like Microsoft, Tesla and Apple have yet to see their shares go positive since January. Nvidia’s stock is benefiting from high demand for artificial intelligence infrastructure, with cloud providers like Amazon putting billions toward AI investments.
Further Reading
Nvidia Earnings Top Expectations On Record Data Center Revenue (Forbes)
Nvidia Chief Jensen Huang Says People Should ‘Move To California’ As Billionaire Tax Looms (Forbes)
