By one of Wall Street's favorite measures, Nvidia is a bargain. By every other measure, it is a stock in free fall.

Nvidia now trades at about 12 times expected earnings, its lowest valuation since 2012, Reuters reported Thursday. The company at the center of the artificial intelligence boom has lost more than 30% of its value since its October 6 record high, wiping out roughly $1.8 trillion in market capitalization in five weeks. On Thursday, the day CEO Jensen Huang resigned, the stock plunged as much as 14% at the open before clawing back to a roughly 4% decline.

The striking part is who is buying. Retail investors piled in at Thursday's open in the biggest first-half-hour flow into Nvidia that Vanda Research has ever recorded — about $111 million. By noon ET, Fidelity customers had placed 394,818 buy orders against 80,088 sells, Reuters reported. "Every time it works, it gets further reinforced," Mark Hackett, chief market strategist at Nationwide, said of the dip-buying reflex.

Wall Street is not so sure the market is healthy. Baird cut the stock to neutral on Wednesday and slashed its price target 60%, to $200 — still well above Thursday's roughly $164 close. The reasoning matters more than the number: 2027 data-center forecasts are being delayed, analyst Tristan Gerra wrote, on "very recent lack of visibility," with supply problems and possible demand softening both in play. A low price-to-earnings ratio can cut both ways: investors favor cheap stocks, but a cheap multiple can also mean the market doubts the expected earnings will ever materialize.

The bull case is that nothing about demand actually changed this week. "This is a key-person event, not a demand event. Nobody is canceling GPU orders because the CEO resigned," Erik Kratz, chief investment officer at Arena Private Wealth, told Reuters. Analysts have so far kept their profit forecasts intact. The verdict comes Tuesday, when Nvidia reports quarterly results: analysts expect a 92% revenue surge and net profit above $60 billion, up 89% year over year, according to LSEG data.

What matters Tuesday is interim CEO Colette Kress — not the numbers, but the outlook. A guidance cut would confirm the market's fear that the AI buildout is slowing. A confident forecast, delivered five days after a scandal-driven resignation, would be the first real test of whether Nvidia can sell its story without the man who wrote it.

— via Reuters