No Kidding! AI Giant Nvidia Made More Money Than RIL's Total M-Cap In 1-Day, Thanks To Its Upbeat Earnings

Wall Street has just witnessed its craziest moment in many years. Mad buying, bulls in hysteria, and eye-bulging gains drove the world's artificial intelligence (AI) giant to break all records. Highest single-day gains in the history of Wall Street; outrunning big techs like Amazon, Google and Meta; reigning as the fourth largest company in the world; and what more?

Well, AI-behemoth Nvidia also made more money than compared to the total market value of India's top dog Reliance Industries (RIL). To put it in perspective, we're talking more money than RIL's overall market value of over Rs 20.20 lakh crore.

On Thursday, Nvidia's share price flew off the roof to rise by 16.40% to a record high of $785.38. As of now, Nvidia's total market value is of $1.963 trillion.

On the closing price, Nvidia's market value skyrocketed by $277 billion alone on February 20, easily becoming the largest single-day jump in m-cap of a stock on Wall Street, surpassing Meta Platforms aka Facebook's single-day record gain of $196 billion on February 2 when the Mark Zuckerburg led tech announced its first dividend for shareholders.

That's not all, Nvidia's single-day $277 billion gains, were also more than the entire market cap of Coca-Cola whose m-cap stood at $263.70 billion, L'Oréal's m-cap of $261.07 billion, Hermes' m-cap of $259.01 billion, and Netflix $254.66 billion.

Not too far away from these super stocks whom Nvidia outran like taking a walk in the park, was also Reliance Industries, the largest company in India in terms of market cap.

As of February 22, 2024, Reliance's market cap of $243.91 billion. In Indian rupees, the market cap was at Rs 20,04,909.80 crore.

While Reliance took nearly 20 years to achieve over Rs 20 lakh crore market cap, Nvidia did it in just 1 day.

Reliance became a trillion dollars worth for the first time in August 2005 when its m-cap crossed Rs 1 lakh crore, while it took nearly two years to touch over Rs 2 lakh crore m-cap. 2007 was very fruitful for the company as it touched m-cap from Rs 2 lakh crore to Rs 4 lakh crore in the year. But after that, there was nearly a decade of dull period. It took Reliance about 12 years to touch Rs 5 lakh crore m-cap in July 2017, but the valuation doubled to Rs 10 lakh crore in November 2019.

Furthermore, Covid turned out to be a boon as Reliance first touched Rs 15 lakh crore m-cap in September 2021, followed by Rs 19 lakh crore m-cap on January 29, 2024, and two weeks later, the company had crossed the Rs 20 lakh crore milestone.

Reliance is the first company to cross over Rs 20 lakh crore m-cap in In

On February 23, Reliance's share price touched a new 52-week high of Rs 2,996.15 apiece, and its market cap rose to as much as Rs 20,27,084.10 crore or over $244.42 billion. And yet, it was not enough compared to Nvidia's gains.

Nvidia shares will trade once the US market opens on Friday. So, it will be keenly watched how Nvidia shares fare ahead.

The reason for such an exhilarating reaction in Nvidia shares is due to the company's higher and better-than-expected quarterly earnings.

In the fourth quarter, Nvidia reported revenue of $22.1 billion, up 22% from the previous quarter and up 265% from a year ago. For the quarter, GAAP earnings per diluted share was $4.93, up 33% from the previous quarter and up 765% from a year ago. Non-GAAP earnings per diluted share was $5.16, up 28% from the previous quarter and up 486% from a year ago.

For fiscal 2024, revenue was up 126% to $60.9 billion. GAAP earnings per diluted share was $11.93, up 586% from a year ago. Non-GAAP earnings per diluted share were $12.96, up 288% from a year ago.

Jensen Huang, founder and CEO of NVIDIA said, "Accelerated computing and generative AI have hit the tipping point. Demand is surging worldwide across companies, industries and nations."

Huang added, "Our Data Center platform is powered by increasingly diverse drivers - demand for data processing, training and inference from large cloud-service providers and GPU-specialized ones, as well as from enterprise software and consumer internet companies. Vertical industries - led by auto, financial services and healthcare - are now at a multibillion-dollar level."

Further, he said, "NVIDIA RTX, introduced less than six years ago, is now a massive PC platform for generative AI, enjoyed by 100 million gamers and creators. The year ahead will bring major new product cycles with exceptional innovations to help propel our industry forward. Come join us at next month's GTC, where we and our rich ecosystem will reveal the exciting future ahead."

Nvidia's first-quarter outlook for fiscal 2025 is that it expects revenue to be at $24.0 billion, plus or minus 2%. GAAP and non-GAAP gross margins are expected to be 76.3% and 77.0%, respectively, plus or minus 50 basis points. While GAAP and non-GAAP operating expenses are expected to be approximately $3.5 billion and $2.5 billion, respectively.

Also, GAAP and non-GAAP other income and expenses are expected to be an income of approximately $250 million, excluding gains and losses from non-affiliated investments. Apart from this, the company expects GAAP and non-GAAP tax rates to be 17.0%, plus or minus 1%, excluding any discrete items.

The AI leader will pay its next quarterly cash dividend of $0.04 per share on March 27, 2024, to all shareholders of record on March 6, 2024.

In his Greed & Fear report, Jefferies Christopher Wood said, "The arms race to invest in AI "training" capacity has been confirmed with Nvidia's earnings announcement... The company seems to have surpassed expectations which is impressive given the media hype preceding the event."

Wood added, "This all confirms what GREED & fear has been telling investors in recent months. This is because the most important event in world stock markets last year was nothing macro but the Microsoft investment in ChatGPTmaker OpenAI. This was the catalyst for the AI theme to start driving market psychology and, crucially, gave the most important sector in the world's largest stock market a new story which is secular, not cyclical."

Founded in 1993, has been a pioneer in accelerated computing. The company's invention of the GPU in 1999 sparked the growth of the PC gaming market, redefined computer graphics, ignited the era of modern AI and is fueling industrial digitalization across markets. NVIDIA is now a full-stack computing infrastructure company with data-center-scale offerings.