Goldman Sachs sees something Wall Street may be missing on Nvidia

It has been a brutal few weeks for the world’s most valuable chipmaker. Nvidia was trading around $187 in early November, down about 22% over the past month, and it slid again before the opening bell on Nov. 9.

However, Goldman Sachs is not flinching. The bank reiterated its Buy rating and $300 price target after the selloff.

In other words, the bank is treating the drop as a chance to buy rather than a reason to run. The question is whether the rest of the market comes around before the doubts get louder.

Goldman Sachs has been building this case all year

This is not a new stance for the bank. Back in February, Goldman expected Nvidia’s results to beat Wall Street, but warned that “upside to Nvidia’s CY26 estimates is largely priced into the stock at current levels.”

At the time, its price target was $250, and the bank was already arguing that guidance for the next two years mattered more than any single quarter, TheStreet reported.

Also read: AMD, Nvidia, and Intel diverge as Morningstar resets the scorecard

A few weeks later, Goldman’s tone shifted. Its trading desk flagged a “significant disconnect” in the stock, questioning why a company growing as fast as Nvidia was trading in line with the average S&P 500 stock.

By the summer, the target had moved higher. In June, Goldman analyst James Schneider said he expected a “positive catalyst path ahead for the stock in the coming months,” helped by better visibility into cloud spending through 2027.

Schneider kept his Buy rating with a $285 target in July, arguing that the valuation already reflected market share fears and still implied strong AI growth, Yahoo Finance reported.

The bank has plenty of company. Of 62 analysts covering Nvidia, 59 rate it Buy or Strong Buy, two say Hold, and only one says Sell, according to 24/7 Wall St. That leaves a wide gap between how the stock is trading and what Wall Street thinks it is worth, and Goldman is firmly on the optimistic side of it.

Related: How much Nvidia stock does CEO Jensen Huang actually own?

A selloff that put the call to the test

The pain started with a rival rather than Nvidia itself. Intel shares fell about 29% on Oct. 30 after a weak forecast, dragging the broader semiconductor index down about 7% and knocking Nvidia 4.2% lower that day, Reuters reported.

Then came the midterms. On Nov. 5, Nvidia dropped 9.26% as investors worried the election results could limit AI data center expansion. Cathie Wood’s Ark funds used the dip to buy about $46 million of Nvidia stock, and the shares bounced more than 3.6% the following day.

The weekend brought a different kind of shock. Nvidia’s board launched an independent investigation after reports that CEO Jensen Huang was the target of a foreign intelligence effort, though it said it had no reason to believe national security or company secrets were compromised, according to a statement from Nvidia’s board.

Investors still reacted. Nvidia was down nearly 6% in premarket trading on Nov. 9.

Capital.com analyst Daniela Hathorn said leadership speculation could unsettle the market, though the controversy does not necessarily change the demand outlook, which is the part of the story Goldman is betting on.

Goldman Sachs’ $300 Nvidia stock price target sits slightly below the average analyst target of about $327.

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The financing debate Goldman is watching

Goldman knows funding is the soft spot. The bank estimated that AI-related debt issuance had reached nearly $500 billion by early August. Melius Research warned that several trillion-dollar companies may need to raise hundreds of billions more.

Melius cut its Nvidia target to $315 from $420 but kept its Buy rating, showing that even the bulls are pricing in more risk than they were a month ago.

Nvidia’s own commitments have grown fast. Supply commitments climbed to $279 billion from $119 billion, and days sales outstanding rose to 60 from 45, according to TheStreet.

Gross margin is also expected to dip to between 71% and 72% in the fourth quarter before recovering in fiscal 2028, so profits per chip may shrink for a while even if sales keep climbing.

More Nvidia:

That is where Aletheia Capital broke ranks. The firm cut Nvidia to Hold from Buy and withdrew its $340 target, pointing to the AI Computing Partner program and possible turmoil as the board looks into its CEO, 24/7 Wall St reported.

Even finance chief Colette Kress has acknowledged, “We know some will call this circular financing.”

Some of Nvidia’s customers are under strain too. CoreWeave, in which Nvidia bought about $2 billion of stock in January, closed at $46.40 on Nov. 6, roughly 47% below Nvidia’s entry price, and its credit-default-swap spread had widened sharply.

That is exactly the kind of stress Goldman’s bull case has to look past.

What could prove Goldman Sachs right

The fundamentals are Goldman’s strongest card. Nvidia reported second-quarter revenue of $96.2 billion, up 106% from a year earlier, and guided for about $108 billion in the third quarter. Those third-quarter results are due on Nov. 17, and they will be the clearest test yet of whether demand is holding up.

The CEO probe could still cloud the picture, even if it has nothing to do with chip demand. Republican House members asked Huang to testify before Congress on Nov. 18, and Sen. Elizabeth Warren said Huang and Nvidia’s board “owe Congress answers,” as reported by Al Jazeera.

For now, Goldman’s $300 target sits slightly below the average analyst target of about $327.

Whether the stock closes that gap depends on how quickly investors get clear answers on demand, financing and leadership, and none of those questions is likely to be settled in a single week.

Related: Jim Cramer sends a strong signal to Nvidia stock investors