Yorkville Ives Affirms Outperform on NVIDIA, $300 Price Target

Yorkville Ives analyst Dan Ives reiterated an Outperform rating and $300 price target on NVIDIA (NASDAQ: NVDA).

“The New York Times reported tonight, citing people who worked at the company, that Jensen Huang also had an alleged relationship with Kimberly Powell, Nvidia’s vice president of healthcare, an executive who reports to him, and that the two were captured on video at a San Jose hotel during the company’s conference in March.

The Wall Street Journal also reported that Nvidia’s board is preparing to oust Huang and could meet as soon as tonight to decide his future. In our view the writing is on the wall that Jensen’s days at Nvidia could be numbered and we would expect this to be a very fluid situation over the next 48 hours.

Jensen has created a black eye moment for himself and Nvidia and now has created a spider web of complexity that Wall Street, Silicon Valley, DC, and the global tech ecosystem are trying to figure out what is next. The reality is that the old Jensen is now gone in the eyes of the public, customers, and technology world and the Board is quickly realizing this situation is getting worse by the day as more news comes out.

While Jensen is the hearts and lungs of the Nvidia story…the company and its leading edge GPU technology will go on and it does not change the entrenched position Nvidia has in the AI Revolution chip arms race.

That said, the question for investors will be who replaces Jensen, the interim strategic roadmap, Board changes, and dealing with the myriad of government investigations coming around the corner around the China spy issue/Nvidia GPU chips getting to China (via Singapore).

We believe Nvidia’s value is $300 per share with Jensen as CEO and $225 per share without Jensen as CEO. The stock will clearly be under pressure with this fluid news but the reality is its a dark day for Nvidia, but the company will navigate this turmoil and get through to the other side and remain a core foundational piece of the AI Revolution.

Jensen is not replaceable by another CEO or group of interim executives, but Nvidia likely now has to move on without Jensen at the helm which seemed like a Twilight Zone episode narrative before Sunday afternoon when the news broke.”

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