Investing.com -- Nvidia (NASDAQ:NVDA) stock surged after the AI chipmaker reported earnings after the close Wednesday that topped analyst consensus. The question for investors and analysts now is whether the stock can hit $1,000 per share as the AI momentum continues.
Nvidia Earnings
Nvidia reported a fourth-quarter profit of $5.16 per share, $0.55 better than the analyst estimate of $4.61, while revenue for the quarter also came in above expectations at $22.1 billion versus the consensus estimate of $20.55 billion. Nvidia's revenue rose 22% from Q3 and a substantial 265% from a year ago.
"Accelerated computing and generative AI have hit the tipping point. Demand is surging worldwide across companies, industries and nations," commented Jensen Huang, founder and CEO of Nvidia.
Meanwhile, the company's guidance was also positive, with Nvidia saying it sees Q1 2025 revenue of $24 billion versus the consensus of $22 billion.
"January quarter results of $22B hit the low-end of whispers numbers of $22-$23B and outlook of $24B is also at the lower end of the $24-$25B whisper number but was enough to offset the cautious sentiment and commentary heading into the print,” Kinngai Chan, senior analyst at Summit Insights Group, told Investing.com.
Nvidia Stock Reaction
Following the report, NVDA's share price jumped more than 13% in after-hours trading. Premarket Thursday, it is up 12.7% at $760.80 per share.
While the stock had taken a slight dip ahead of the release, falling from around $746 to a low of approximately $662 per share on Wednesday, it has still made an enormous gain in the last year, climbing more than 221%.
In fact, since January 2023, the stock has been driving higher.
Can Nvidia Shares Hit $1,000?
According to KeyBanc, Nvidia shares can climb above $1,000 per share.
The firm told investors in its note reacting to the earnings release that they are encouraged by the results and believe strong AI demand and improving supply drove the companies beat and raise.
"We're encouraged by these impressive results," said the firm, raising its price target for the stock to $1,100 from $740 per share, keeping its Overweight rating. KeyBanc views NVDA as "best positioned in semis to benefit from Gen AI."
Meanwhile, analysts at Bernstein raised their price target for Nvidia to $1,000 from $700 per share, maintaining an Outperform rating on the stock.
The firm said Nvidia’s results were “once again remarkable.”
“The company is printing money at this point,” they stated. “And the prospect for continued growth from here still seems solid.”
“It seems clear that demand continues to accelerate even as Hopper supply comes online, and the company still sees constraints existing as next-gen products ramp through the year, which may help to alleviate (or at least continue to push out) air pocket concerns.” Bernstein added that the Nvidia story still feels like it has legs.
Finally, Benchmark analysts also now have a $1,000 price target for Buy-rated Nvidia. The firm said the company’s strong earnings result was as expected.
“With NVDA’s January results and April guidance easily exceeding most all Street expectations, we see nothing in the report or its outlook to warrant a call to sell NVDA’s shares, except for possibly the law of large numbers, where the question is, how long can NVDA keep up this kind of growth pace, particularly now off of this much higher performance base,” said Benchmark.
Of course, not all analysts have a more than $1,000 price target on the stock. Overall, the average price target currently stands at $787.69 per share. However, after yesterday’s release, that number could tick higher as firms update their estimates.
