Shares of Nvidia (NASDAQ:NVDA) have been hammered since the start of October. The rout in Nvidia stock pained a lot of long-term investors and shaken out, or caused severe losses for, a lot of recent buyers.
NVDA stock suffered a 50% decline in just 35 trading sessions from its early-October highs. Others, like Advanced Micro Devices (NASDAQ:AMD) have fared better, but have also been under pressure.
Despite the beating, Nvidia’s stock price is more a case of a broken stock than a broken company. Admittedly, it has a few issues, but they are more temporary than anything else and it still has several secular tailwinds at its back.
Evaluating Nvidia Stock
Current estimates call for 50% earnings growth this year and nearly 26% sales growth. However, those estimates drop considerably next year, calling for flat earnings growth and just 6% revenue growth. Now, inaccurate estimates can hurt both the bulls and the bears here, but consider how far off analyst estimates were for the upcoming quarter.
Management guided for $2.7 billion in Q4 sales, way below expectations for $3.4 billion. With that kind of miss, we can’t rule out that revenue could come under further pressure through the year. We also can’t rule out that analysts cut their estimates too much over the next five quarters.
That said, Nvidia has its share of issues. Mainly there was a false sense of demand for graphics chips thanks to cryptocurrency mining. Even though Nvidia had crypto-specific options, these miners were using all the chips they could get their hands on. That led to management, analysts and investors believing that demand was much strong than it really was. Once that crypto-fueled demand faded, it left NVDA with a glut of inventory, which will hurt business over the next few quarters.
For short-term investors, that likely takes Nvidia stock off their watchlist. For long-term investors though, that opens the door to opportunity. Nvidia is still a leading force in the artificial intelligence revolution and its new ray-tracing technology is unrivaled. It has solid growth in gaming and monstrous growth in the datacenter. Its professional visualization segment is no slouch and while small now, its automotive unit continues to churn out impressive growth, too.
Trading NVDA Stock
![chart of NVDA stock price](https://investorplace.com/wp-content/plugins/lazy-load/images/1x1.trans.gif)
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When in doubt, I side with the company’s quality, which is top notch. Further, my outlook for Nvidia stock isn’t the next five to eight quarters, it’s the next five to eight years.
With that said, the valuation is only part of the equation. What do the charts say?
Nvidia stock has been locked in a costly downtrend that it’s still not out of. That sets up the first level we need to watch. Over the 21-day moving average and downtrend resistance, and NVDA stock may be able to get some bullish momentum.
If it can, look to see if it can hurdle its November high and make a push back to $194. At that level, Nvidia will fill its earnings gap and hit its 38.2% Fibonacci retracement level from the October highs to the November lows (that’s also the 2018 high/low range).
The other level to watch comes on the downside. Specifically, let’s see how Nvidia does in this $140 to $145 level. Although it shot below it last month amid its post-earnings pummeling, it’s been serving as a level of stability for the name.
If it can hold up there, long-term investors may add to their position. Should it fail as support, the $134 lows are in play. Below that and perhaps $120 becomes possible, a big breakout level in 2017.
Bret Kenwell is the manager and author of Future Blue Chips and is on Twitter @BretKenwell. As of this writing, Bret Kenwell was long NVDA stock.