Nvidia falls short of May record as value nears $6 trillion

Fresh updates from the financial markets indicate that Nvidia Corp. shares touched an intraday high for the first time since May before trimming those upside and closing just short of a record as market participants piled back into the stock after a two-month selloff that wiped out more than $1 trillion of market value.

Shares of the world’s most valuable public firm advanced as much as 3% Friday to touch an intraday record and closed up 1.3%, shy of their May high. The stock’s climb extended a 23% surge from a late July low when fears surrounding the outlook for artificial intelligence pressured the chip developer’s stock.

The surge has been buoyed in recent weeks by optimism that AI agents like Meta Platforms Inc.’s Muse could drive increased demand for semiconductors. Shares got a further lift after Nvidia announced Monday that it was increasing the size of its buyback plan by a record $150 billion.

Nvidia’s rebound comes after months of quickly shifting sentiment around the state of the AI landscape, including questions over the hundreds of billions of dollars being spent by firms on its infrastructure and safety risks that the technology could pose to humanity.

The Santa Clara, California-based firm unveiled a new double-layered AI security system on Monday, meant to stop AI agents from going awry. Nvidia stated the new system would have stopped the recent breach of Hugging Face by OpenAI’s models — at a time when market participants have become more concerned with AI safety.

All told, Nvidia shares have advanced around 25% so far this year, on track for their fourth consecutive year of double-digit returns. Its market capitalization now stands at roughly $5.6 trillion, leaving it less than $400 billion away from becoming the first firm in history to hit the $6 trillion level.