NVIDIA Stock Near 52-Week High: Time to Lock in Gains or Stay Put?

NVIDIA Corporation NVDA stands as a titan in the semiconductor industry, powered by its strong presence in the artificial intelligence (AI) chip space and solid financial health. The stock closed at $153.30 on July 1, shy of its recently hit 52-week high of $158.71 on June 27, reflecting strong investor confidence in NVIDIA’s prospects.

Year to date, shares of NVIDIA have gained 14.1% compared with the Zacks Computer and Technology sector’s rise of 5.6%. Additionally, the company has outperformed major semiconductor stocks, including Intel Corporation INTC, Advanced Micro Devices, Inc. AMD and QUALCOMM Incorporated QCOM. Shares of Intel, Advanced Micro Devices and QUALCOMM have rallied 13.9%, 12.6% and 3.7%, respectively.

This outperformance shows investors are becoming increasingly confident in NVIDIA’s long-term story, even in a volatile market shaped by trade conflicts and geopolitical risks. We believe this momentum is grounded in strong fundamentals, and NVDA’s long-term outlook justifies a hold position for now.

Image Source: Zacks Investment Research

NVIDIA’s most powerful growth engine continues to be its Data Center business. In the first quarter of fiscal 2026, the segment brought in $39.1 billion in revenues, a staggering 89% of total company sales. This represents 73% year-over-year growth and a 10% sequential rise, primarily fueled by the explosive demand for AI.

The company’s cutting-edge Hopper 200 and Blackwell GPU platforms are being rapidly adopted, as cloud and enterprise customers race to scale up AI infrastructure. A large chunk of this growth is coming from hyperscalers, who are betting big on NVIDIA’s GPUs to support their expanding AI workloads.

With the Blackwell architecture promising up to 25x better AI inference performance than Hopper 100, NVIDIA continues to raise the bar. The upcoming Blackwell Ultra and Vera Rubin platforms are likely to strengthen the company’s position further as global demand for AI computing accelerates.

Despite some geopolitical setbacks, NVIDIA’s financials remain rock solid. In the first quarter of fiscal 2026, revenues jumped 69% from the year-ago quarter, while non-GAAP earnings per share rose 33%.

Even with an $8 billion expected revenue hit in the second quarter due to export restrictions on its H20 chips in China (after a $2.5 billion revenue loss in the first quarter), NVIDIA remains confident in its momentum. Its second-quarter guidance of $45 billion in revenues marks a 50% jump from the same quarter last year.