NVDA
Big sales, smaller cheer
Nvidia keeps doing the corporate version of sprinting uphill: revenue jumped 85% year over year in the second quarter to a record $81.6 billion. That’s not a typo. In a world where most companies are fighting for single-digit growth, Nvidia is still posting numbers that look like they were generated on a cheat code.
So why is the stock acting so... normal?
Here’s the twist: despite the monster revenue, Nvidia is barely outpacing the S&P 500 in 2026. That tells you investors are no longer just buying the story that AI spending is big. They’re starting to price in the next question: what happens when the biggest customers start making their own chips?
And that’s not some far-off sci-fi plot. Nvidia’s hyperscaler customers — the cloud giants that buy a ton of its gear — all have in-house custom chips in the works. Translation: the buffet is still open, but a few of the biggest diners are bringing their own lunch.
The investor takeaway
For now, Nvidia’s growth is still absurdly strong, and the AI capex wave clearly hasn’t dried up. But the stock’s lukewarm relative performance suggests the market wants proof that demand can stay this hot even as customers get more ambitious about building around, or beyond, Nvidia’s hardware.
Big picture: Nvidia is still the AI trade’s main character. It just can’t rely on hype alone forever.