What happened
Shares of Nvidia (NVDA +2.98%) were sliding this morning after Credit Suisse analyst John Pitzer reiterated his outperform rating for Nvidia's stock and said that he's concerned about near-term volatility from the stock because of a slowdown in the cryptocurrency market.
The tech stock was down by as much as 3.6% today and was down by 2.4% as of 11:45 a.m. EDT.
So what
Investors weren't happy to hear that Pitzer thinks that a slowdown in crypto could affect Nvidia in the short term. But it's worth pointing out that Pitzer is bullish on Nvidia over the long term because of the company's AI enterprise and its automotive opportunities.
Image source: Getty Images.
But Pitzer's price target of $175 for Nvidia's stock is below the company's current price of about $195, and his concern over the crypto market has been a recent focus of many tech investors.
The crypto market has experienced some volatility over the past few months as the Chinese government has cracked down on Bitcoin miners in the country. Some U.S. lawmakers have also indicated that cryptocurrencies should be more regulated.
The focus of both governments on crypto has put pressure on cryptocurrencies over the past few months and has helped push the price of Bitcoin to about $47,000 -- down from nearly $65,000 back in April.
Nvidia investors are watching the cryptocurrency market closely because the company's graphics processing chips are used in high-powered crypto-mining computers.
Now what
Long-term Nvidia investors may want to be cautious about using Pitzer's recent investor note as a guide for changing their investing thesis. Nvidia is still a leader in the graphics processor market and continues to benefit from increased demand for AI-powered servers.
The cryptocurrency market is likely to remain very volatile, but Nvidia isn't dependent on cryptocurrency mining to be successful. The company's data center and gaming segments are its most important businesses, and nothing has fundamentally changed about them.
