Former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi is almost as widely known for her activities in the stock market as for her work in Congress - so much so that there is an ETF whose ticker symbol is a nod to the Democrat from California, the Unusual Whales Democratic ETF (NANC). Notably, one of Pelosi's highest-profile picks in recent months is artificial intelligence (AI) poster child Nvidia (NVDA). Pelosi's bullish bet on the chip designer, made last year in November, reportedly yielded a payoff that more than doubled her government salary in just a couple of months.
However, Nancy Pelosi isn't the only politician who's been placing trades on the Jensen Huang-led company. Here are some of the latest Capitol Hill bets on Nvidia as the chip stock continues to dominate Wall Street.
Nvidia: A Trading Favorite in the House
According to Quiver Quantitative data, Rep. Daniel Meuser (R-PA), reported three sales worth up to $600,000 of Nvidia stock on Feb. 20. A representative for Pennsylvania's 9th congressional district since 2019, as well as a Financial Services committee member, Meuser had previously shed Nvidia shares in two series of trades in May and August 2023.
Around the same time, there was another noteworthy sale of Nvidia stock by one of Meuser's fellow Financial Services committee members. Rep. Josh Gottheimer (D-NJ) sold Nvidia shares worth up to $15,000 on Feb. 8.
However, not all of the recent trading in Nvidia stock by politicians has been sales. There have been purchases, too - with the most notable being the one made by the representative from Mississippi's 3rd congressional district, Rep. Michael Guest (R-MS), who bought Nvidia shares worth up to $15,000 on Feb. 20.
Guest, a member of the Homeland Security committee, picked up shares of Nvidia ahead of the March decision by Beijing to block the use of microprocessors from Intel (INTC) and Advanced Micro Devices (AMD) in government hardware.
About Nvidia Stock
Setting aside the recent political trading activity in Nvidia stock, the shares continue to scale new highs, driven by solid fundamentals. With just three months of 2024 in the books so far, NVDA is up 82.5% year-to-date.
Notably, Nvidia reported another blockbuster set of quarterly numbers recently, as both revenue and came in above expectations. The company banked record quarterly revenues of $22.1 billion, up a massive 265% from the previous year, aided by a 409% yearly jump in data center revenues to $18.4 billion.
EPS jumped almost 5x year-over-year to $5.16, also comfortably outpacing the consensus estimate. Over the past five quarters, the company's EPS has consistently surpassed analysts' estimates.
Nvidia's liquidity position is also robust, as the chip giant closed the quarter with a cash balance of almost $26 billion. Given its asset-light business model, that's well above both its short-term and long-term debt levels of $1.25 billion and $8.46 billion, respectively.
The company's growth story appears far from over, too. Consensus expectations are calling for forward revenue growth of 70.6% and EPS growth of 107.9%, both of which are several orders of magnitude beyond the tech sector median forecasts.
Given its solid fundamental position and dominant footprint in the exciting generative AI space, perhaps it's no surprise that analysts continue to remain bullish about Nvidia. The stock has a consensus rating of “Strong Buy” with a mean target price of $912.12. This indicates an upside potential of less than 1% from current levels, although the Street-high target price of $1,200 indicates a premium of 32.8% from Thursday's close.
Out of 39 analysts covering the stock, 34 have a “Strong Buy” rating, 2 have a “Moderate Buy” rating, and 3 have a “Hold” rating.
