Nvidia's stellar quarter lifts Huang into billionaire elite

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Nvidia’s stock surged past US$227 in a single session, adding roughly US$450 billion to its market capitalisation and pushing chief executive Jensen Huang into the top six of the world’s billionaires. The rally came after the company reported record second-quarter revenue of US$96.2 billion, more than doubling year-over-year figures and cementing its status as the most valuable publicly traded company globally with a total valuation of US$5.52 trillion.

The results surpassed analyst consensus estimates of US$92.2 billion, with non-GAAP earnings per diluted share of US$2.22 beating expectations of US$2.09 according to FactSet data. Nvidia shares closed at US$227.98, not far from their all-time high of US$236, and the surge lifted Huang’s net worth by US$15.6 billion in a single day to US$196.8 billion. This placed him sixth on the Forbes Billionaires List, ahead of Meta’s Mark Zuckerberg (US$196.2 billion) and Oracle’s Larry Ellison (US$194.9 billion).

Chief financial officer Colette Kress said on the earnings call that Nvidia expects revenue growth of 70 per cent for fiscal year 2028 (running from February 2027 to January 2028), well above the 44 per cent analysts had anticipated. Huang went further, saying demand was “much greater than 70 per cent,” but that the company is constrained by how much product it can supply. Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co., Nvidia’s primary manufacturer, continues to face supply constraints, while memory chips, a key component of Nvidia’s systems, also remain in short supply.

The results triggered a wave of analyst upgrades. Raymond James raised its price target on Nvidia to US$515 from US$352, the most bullish among major investment firms, while Bernstein lifted its target to US$400 from US$315 and JPMorgan moved to US$320 from US$280. “Nvidia’s earnings results tell you that the valuation today is cheap,” said Siddy Jobe, senior portfolio manager at Econopolis Wealth Management’s Exponential Technologies Fund, speaking on CNBC’s Squawk Box Europe. Paul Meeks, head of technology research at Freedom Capital Markets, echoed that view: “I continue to be very bullish on Nvidia and this entire ecosystem.”

Compounding the earnings story, Nvidia has reportedly agreed to acquire Hugging Face, the leading open-source AI model repository, for US$12.9 billion, according to journalists on the scene. Business Insider separately reported that Nvidia had been “in talks” to acquire the platform. If completed, the deal would extend Nvidia’s reach from hardware into the software and model ecosystem, giving the chipmaker a stake in virtually every layer of the AI development stack. Neither Nvidia nor Hugging Face had issued an official statement as of publication.

Markets rally across the globe

The Nvidia result rippled across global equity markets on August 28. In Europe, Paris’s CAC 40 gained 1.1 per cent, Germany’s DAX rose 0.6 per cent, and Britain’s FTSE 100 edged up 0.2 per cent. Asian markets were broadly positive, with Tokyo’s Nikkei 225 gaining 0.4 per cent and Hong Kong’s Hang Seng adding 0.2 per cent. Several chip stocks also rallied in the U.S., with Broadcom and Intel both moving higher alongside neocloud provider Nebius.