What happened
Shares of Nvidia (NVDA 0.76%) continued their rally today following its quarterly earnings. Tech stocks overall were up, as measured by the Nasdaq Composite's 1.2% gain as of 11:30 a.m. ET, but Nvidia was up 5.6%. Another market analyst is weighing in on the high-performance computing company, and they like what they see.
Image source: Getty Images.
So what
Bank of America analyst Vivek Arya named Nvidia as his top large-cap semiconductor stock yesterday. Arya also reiterated bullishness on some other top chip companies, which the analyst has dubbed MANGO stocks -- an acronym for Marvell Technology Group (MRVL -1.86%), AMD (AMD 0.69%), Analog Devices (ADI -0.98%), Broadcom (AVGO -1.84%), Nvidia, GlobalFoundries (GFS -0.99%), and ON Semiconductor (ON -2.39%).
Besides Nvidia, Arya also specifically called out Marvell and AMD yesterday for those companies' exposure to cloud computing and data centers, and ON for its automotive-chip portfolio.
Last week, following Nvidia's first-quarter report, ARK Invest went shopping for the stock, and Evercore analyst C.J. Muse also maintained a buy rating on Nvidia. Since the quarterly update on the evening of May 25, the stock is on a run about 20% higher -- though it is still down 46% from all-time highs reached late in 2021.
Now what
It's encouraging to see a short-term bounce here, but long-term shareholders of Nvidia should stay focused on the bigger picture. There is uncertainty in the video game segment as the company has suspended sales to Russia, recent pandemic lockdowns in China affect chip supply, and gamers await a refresh in Nvidia's lineup of PC hardware later this year. However, this looks like it could be largely offset by the data center segment, which could be the largest end-market for Nvidia in the future.
The opportunity in the decade ahead is hard to quantify given that artificial intelligence is spawning new uses for data centers, according to CEO Jensen Huang. But for the patient investor, this looks like a top stock in the semiconductor space to buy and hold for the long haul.
