Nvidia (NVDA) stock is up about 15.44% year to date, at the time of writing, on Friday afternoon, May 29. Meanwhile, the SPDR S&P 500 index (SPY) is up about 11.06% over the same period.
Although the stock has outperformed the S&P 500, its growth has lagged that of other semiconductor companies that are part of the AI boom.
Here are the benefits that other semiconductor companies have achieved during the same period:
Sandisk (SNDK) is up 608.5%.
Micron (MU) is up 238%.
Intel (INTC) rose 221.64%.
Advanced Micro Devices (AMD) rose 140.23%.
Marvell (MRVL) rose 138.14%.
Broadcom ( AVGO ) rose 26.2%.
When we see the huge profits achieved by some of these companies, especially Intel, things start to look strange.
Intel reported a GAAP net loss of $3.73 billion, yet it was mixed like crazy. At the time, Nvidia reported very strong earnings and announced a big budget increase, but it has declined.
There are two reasons holding the stock back. It is already held by many institutional investors. Another reason may be the upcoming large IPOs of SpaceX, OpenAI, and Anthropic.
We need to remember that SoftBank Group sold all its shares in Nvidia in November 2025 and threw that money into OpenAI.
The same could happen now with this year’s “hottest” IPOs.
Nevertheless, Nvidia is now mounting an offensive that aims to turn it into an unstoppable force in the semiconductor industry.
Vera CPU unlocks brand new $200 billion market for Nvidia.Bloomberg/Getty Images
Nvidia delivers its first Vera CPUs
Nvidia confirmed that the first Vera CPUs arrived at Anthropic, OpenAI, and SpaceXAI on May 15. Three days later, Oracle received its units, too.
There are several reasons why this CPU launch is a game changer for Nvidia. The company says Vera is “the world’s first purpose-built processor for the age of AI and reinforcement learning.”
What makes this CPU different is that, unlike the previous generation Grace CPU, which was built on ARM’s Neoverse V2 cores, this one has Nvidia’s “Olympus” custom features (also based on ARM architecture).
The Vera CPU includes 88 Olympus cores and, according to Nvidia, delivers twice the performance of the Grace CPU and is the first CPU to support FP8 precision.
Related: Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang delivers sharp message to big customers
The importance of the Vera CPU was explained by Nvidia’s EVP and CFO, Colette Kress, during the first quarter earnings call:
“Vera CPU unlocks $200 billion [total addressable market (TAM)] of Nvidia, a market we haven’t covered before. Every major hyperscale and system manufacturer partners with us for implementation. We’re seeing nearly $20 billion in total CPU revenue this year, which sets us up to be the [world ’s] leading CPU supplier.”
Not only is the CPU a departure from relying on ARM designs, but it is also now aimed at taking CPU market share from Intel and AMD through independent sales, making it a game changer for Nvidia.
The first benchmark of the Vera is out, but with a big caveat
The first benchmark of Vera is out, and it was done by Michael Larabel of Phoronix. The specialized media center has developed the Phoronix Test Suite for about 19 years.
The reason for Nvidia’s choice of Phoronix may be the business value of the Test Suite, as it can be used to detect Linux kernel degradation, and Linux is an operating system used in data centers.
The results were quite impressive, but came with a caveat. Phoronix was asked by Nvidia to do only a few tests. That is, Nvidia must have done a test before contacting him and only chose tests that he was sure the CPU would perform well in.
To further emphasize that this is very unusual, Larabel responded in the forums that he thinks the last time such a situation happened was when he marked the first Calxeda ARM server 16 years ago.
While it is possible that the CPU would not perform well if all the tests were run, Nvidia is not marketing this CPU as a general purpose CPU. Another thing to note is that there may be a lot of room for performance adjustments in its drivers.
Why should Intel be so worried about Vera, and AMD will probably be fine by now
Instead of going through a long list of tests, we can look at the results of the geometric mean.
The results showed that Vera delivered 10% better performance than AMD EPYC 9575F. We need to note here that the EPYC CPU has only 64 cores, compared to Vera’s 88.
Additionally, although this is a high-frequency CPU, it was released in 2024. AMD is introducing its Venice EPYC line, which is manufactured on TSMC’s 2nm process.
Due to the better production node and improved architecture, EPYC has more chances to take the crown.
Phoronix also compared the Grace CPU to Vera, and unlike Nvidia’s 2x faster claim, it got 1.63x performance. Regardless, it’s very impressive, especially considering Intel; things are really crazy. Vera crushed Intel’s Granite Rapids Xeon 6980P, with 128 cores, achieving 1.55x performance.
More technical stocks:
Nvidia’s new CPU may be Apple Silicon’s moment in the CPU space. Apple introduced the M1 chip, pushed Intel and AMD to make better CPUs, and Vera will do that too. The more work Intel and AMD put into improving their high-end CPUs, the better for consumers, as there will be a trickle-down effect.
In Vera’s case, there won’t be a consumer-oriented CPU, but perhaps the next generation (not the incoming N1/N1X) of Nvidia CPUs laptops will feature new core designs.
What analysts think about Nvidia
In a May 25 research note shared with me, Bank of America analyst Vivek Arya and his team updated their view on Nvidia stock.
Analysts say they believe Nvidia is trading below its historical price-to-earnings (PE) multiples and its price-to-earnings-to-growth (PEG) ratio.
According to the group, Nvidia’s 5-year PE history is 33.6x, and its estimated PEG ratio for the calendar year 2027 is 0.28x.
Stocks with a PEG of less than 1.0 are considered undervalued relative to their growth potential.
The group’s pro forma EPS estimates for fiscal years 2027 and 2028 are $9.09 and $13.27, respectively.
Arya reiterated a buy rating on Nvidia stock and a price target of $350, based on 26 times his price-to-earnings ratio excluding cash for the 2027 calendar year, which is within the forward-year range of Nvidia’s historical P/E range of 25 to 56.
Tigress Financial has Nvidia stock on its Focus List and in its Focus Opportunity Portfolio.
Company analyst Ivan Feinsethu updated his opinion on Nvidia stock following the earnings report.
The analyst said that the record results for the first fiscal quarter of 2027 show the demand for the AI factory and the increase in the return on investment, and that Nvidia is the main beneficiary of the construction of AI.
Feinseth reiterated a strong buy rating on Nvidia stock and raised his price target to $425 from $360.
Of 54 analyst ratings, 50 rate Nvidia a buy, and only three rate it a hold, with an average price target of $305.38, according to MarketBeat.
Disadvantages of Nvidia:
The decline in the use of AI infrastructure,
Erosion of share due to increased competitive pressure,
This story was originally published by TheStreet on May 30, 2026, where it appeared first in the investing category. Add TheStreet as a favorite source by clicking here.
