Investing Expert On Nvidia: ‘People Will Wish They Bought’
Nvidia is having a terrible no-good really bad November. The 64-billion-dollar question is whether that’s temporary, or whether this is the pin that bursts the AI bubble, leading to much more painful and broader market losses.
On Tuesday, shares fell to $166.95, leaving the AI chipmaker down 18.42% for the month and wiping out all of its 2026 gains. Two days of selling erased more than $470 billion in market value, and the five-session slide was Nvidia’s worst since 2022, worse even than the DeepSeek shock. The main trigger, as we all know: a suspected Chinese espionage case as U.S. authorities investigate whether Alice Huang, a former executive at Singapore-based chip buyer Megaspeed that Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang was having an affair with passed information to Beijing. Republicans in Congress want Jensen Huang to explain his interactions with her, and House Foreign Affairs Committee chair Brian Mast threatened a subpoena. Nvidia’s board has opened an independent investigation and says it has no reason to believe national security or company secrets were compromised, and nothing so far shows Huang knowingly disclosed anything. Shareholders have filed a proposed class-action lawsuit anyway.
That’s not the only problem.
The Information reported that the White House has discussed new export restrictions on AI chips sold to China, including limits on remote access to compute in overseas data centers. Nvidia has reportedly told cloud partners to cap Chinese customers at 49% of their business. Google just released a new line of TPUs that compete directly with Nvidia’s chips, and OpenAI is reportedly considering buying them. Baird downgraded Nvidia to Neutral and cut its price target from $500 to $200, citing uncertainty over Huang’s tenure and the chance that big cloud companies spend less on AI in 2027.
So: bubble bursting, or bargain?
We’ll get some hard data on November 17, when Nvidia reports earnings. That’s one day before the closed-door briefing House Republicans have asked Huang to attend. To get a read on what investors should be watching, I turned to Ian Dunlap, co-host of Market Mondays and founder of Red Panda. Dunlap’s team says he was early on the long-term potential of Nvidia, AMD and Microsoft.
His take is bullish, with a catch.
Dunlap thinks Nvidia is “a tremendous buying opportunity for a long-term investor,” but the range he wants to buy in is $93 to $124. That’s roughly 26% to 44% below Tuesday’s price. He’s also less focused on Huang than you might expect, and much more focused on CFO Colette Kress, on who the board eventually picks to lead Nvidia long term, plus on whether the companies buying all those GPUs are actually getting their money back.
Here’s my Q&A with Dunlap.
John Koetsier: Is this a buying opportunity or a bubble bursting?
Ian Dunlap: I think Nvidia is a tremendous buying opportunity for a long-term investor. We may see AI spending come down across the industry, and some companies are going to have a hard time explaining what they got for all that money. If Nvidia gets down into the $93 to $124 range, I’d be very interested in buying and holding it for years.
John Koetsier: What does Nvidia need to deliver in its November 17 earnings?
Ian Dunlap: I’m expecting $107 billion to $109 billion in revenue for the quarter. The bigger question for me is what Colette Kress says about where she’s taking the company. The board, the institutions and the retail investors who’ve been with Nvidia for years all want to hear a clear plan. Even if they beat my number, that’s what I’ll be listening for.
John Koetsier: Is AI generating enough revenue to justify the investment?
Ian Dunlap: It depends on who’s writing the check. Nvidia has a considerable moat and is already making real money from AI. For the companies buying the chips, I want to know what they’re earning back on all that spending. If the rules around where Nvidia can sell its chips change, that can also affect how much growth it gets out of AI. I want to hear how Kress is thinking about that in her guidance.
John Koetsier: What happens if Big Tech cuts AI spending?
Ian Dunlap: Nvidia will feel it in the short term. I still think we’re in the early innings of AI, and I think the biggest opportunity for Nvidia is selling into businesses well beyond Big Tech. I want to see Kress build a plan that gives Nvidia more ways to grow. If Nvidia can help companies do three or four times as much work on specific tasks, those companies have a real reason to keep spending.
John Koetsier: Are Nvidia’s biggest customers becoming its competitors? (And, what about Google and its TPUs?)
Ian Dunlap: Absolutely. Google has the money and the engineering talent to build its own chips, and you’re going to see more big companies try to do the same thing. I’d like to see Nvidia help some of those companies build custom chips. Nvidia is still ahead of most of the field, and most businesses don’t have the people or the budget to build what Google can.
John Koetsier: How dependent is Nvidia on Jensen Huang?
Ian Dunlap: Let me be very clear. Jensen Huang is a once-in-a-lifetime CEO. Look at what he built over 30 years. Colette Kress is incredibly talented, and I’m watching closely to see who the board picks to lead Nvidia long term. I still believe the chip business, the software and the customer relationships Jensen built can keep Nvidia dominant for years.
John Koetsier: What AI stocks would you buy instead of Nvidia?
Ian Dunlap: Microsoft, Google, AMD and Taiwan Semiconductor.
John Koetsier: What’s the biggest warning sign of an AI crash?
Ian Dunlap: If several of the biggest AI companies come out and guide sharply lower for the next year, that’s the one I’m watching. A big cut in capital spending would get my attention, too. If we go into a global recession, I think some companies will put AI projects on hold for a couple of years.
John Koetsier: What would make you sell Nvidia?
Ian Dunlap: If we get a year down the road and I still don’t know who’s going to lead Nvidia or how they plan to take the lion’s share of enterprise AI, I’d sell. Those are the two things I need to see.
John Koetsier: Five years from now, will this look like a buying opportunity or a missed warning?
Ian Dunlap: I think five years from now people will wish they bought Nvidia here. I also think some of the circular spending in AI deserves a harder look. When companies are investing in each other and buying from each other, I want to know how much demand is coming from businesses that are paying because the technology actually saves them time or makes them money.
John Koetsier: Thank you for your time.
This article was originally published on Forbes.com