Nvidia Stock Fell Nearly 8% in October as AI Spending Doubts Hit Tech Stocks. Here’s Where the Stock Could Go by 2031
Key Stats for NVIDIA Stock
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Current Price: $210.96
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Target Price (Mid): ~$516
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Street Target: ~$329
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Potential Total Return: ~145%
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Annualized IRR: ~23% / year
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What Happened?
Nvidia (NVDA) has 59 Buy or Outperform ratings in TIKR’s data, two Holds and one Sell, and its lowest Street target is $180. That matches Seaport Research’s Jay Goldberg, who has rated the stock a Sell since April 2025 and kept his $180 target in an October 22 note, the same day renewed doubts over AI spending cut Nvidia 4.40%. The target sits about 15% below the October 23 close of $210.96. Goldberg still expects record sales into early 2027. His worry is that Nvidia is “over-taxing” its balance sheet to finance the customers who buy its chips.
Goldberg Calls Nvidia’s Financing a Discount in Disguise
Goldberg says Nvidia added roughly $250 billion of commitments last quarter to lock in supply and support data center construction. That excludes the $500 billion funding platform Nvidia is assembling with six private equity firms and banks, which he believes Nvidia would like to expand to $1 trillion. He calls the investments, loans and credit guarantees “another form of discounting,” Barron’s reported, because customers get capital to buy chips while Nvidia keeps its list price.
He links the push to “competitive pressures,” arguing Nvidia would rather supply 200 smaller, dependent customers than rely on three powerful tech giants. The risk is the cycle: those obligations help sales while AI spending rises and, in his view, amplify the pain when it turns. Some partners are already pushing back. AI cloud provider Nebius (NBIS) declined to join Nvidia’s guarantee program, The Information reported.
The balance sheet has moved. Nvidia’s net cash fell to $23.61 billion as of the latest quarter from $54.09 billion at the end of January, according to TIKR, as long-term debt rose to $32.37 billion by July 26 from $7.47 billion. Goldberg still says Nvidia has the financial capacity to support its commitments, with operating cash flow he estimates at around $200 billion this year, close to the Street’s estimate for the fiscal year ending January 2027.
TIKR tracks 62 analysts on Nvidia. How many say “Buy”? See the full breakdown of Buy, Hold, and Sell ratings on Nvidia, along with Wall Street’s revenue and earnings estimates, all in one place. More than 500,000 investors use TIKR to research stocks like this one. See Nvidia’s Analyst Ratings
Huang Guarantees the Land, Power and Shell He Calls the Problem
Goldberg also estimates only about 30 gigawatts of the 55 gigawatts announced for 2027 will get built, citing shortages of electricians, gas turbines and grid connections. CEO Jensen Huang conceded the bottleneck at Goldman Sachs’ Communacopia conference on September 10: “There is no question land, power and shell is a problem.” He said Nvidia is “tracking every single gigawatt of land power shell around the world.”
Nvidia backs that layer directly. Its latest 10-Q says it entered into “land, power, and shell guarantees for select AI cloud partners’ data center lease obligations.” Huang’s defense of the financing was a ratio, “we put in 1 and 100 comes back in,” and he said Nvidia helps with financing, “but a very small part of it.” The ratio is his own estimate, not a disclosed figure.
Investors have already cut the multiple. Nvidia trades around 17x NTM P/E, down from around 33x a year earlier, even as the share price rose from $186.26 and earnings estimates climbed. Broadcom (AVGO) trades around 19x.
TIKR Advanced Model Analysis
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Current Price: $210.96
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Target Price (Mid): ~$516
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Potential Total Return: ~145%
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Annualized IRR: ~23% / year
The mid case already assumes a shrinking multiple. Its assumptions, set over the model’s 2026 to 2036 forecast, call for around 25% annual revenue growth, net income margins around 53% against 56.9% over the past year, and a P/E that contracts about 5% a year. On the model card, that points to around $516 by January 2031, roughly 145% above $210.96. Upside comes if Vera Rubin supply lifts growth toward the high case’s 27%. The low case still assumes around 23% growth and 50% margins, so none of the model’s cases describe the downturn Goldberg warns about.
Conclusion
Third-quarter results, expected November 18, though Nvidia has not confirmed the date, bring the next 10-Q. Another jump in long-term debt from $32.37 billion, alongside more land, power and shell guarantees, would make Goldberg’s balance-sheet case harder to dismiss than his price target.
So what is NVIDIA stock actually worth?
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