Baird Cuts Nvidia to Neutral, Morgan Stanley Drops Top Pick Tag on CEO Probe
NVDA is trading near its 52-week low of $164.27 (6.8% above the low) on elevated volume (3.3× avg).
Summary
Baird analyst Tristan Gerra cut Nvidia to Neutral from Outperform and slashed his price target to $200 from $500, citing uncertainty over potential government action tied to an upcoming Congressional hearing and the probe involving CEO Jensen Huang. Morgan Stanley's Joseph Moore pulled his top-pick label on the stock for the same reason but kept his Overweight rating and 12-month target, saying the AI buildout thesis is unchanged. Gerra flagged two risks: a new ban on H200 exports to China, and tighter export controls targeting Southeast Asia data center loopholes plus possible DOJ action against Megaspeed. The stock still added more than 4% in premarket trading Wednesday after this week's losses, so the market is not treating the downgrades as a thesis break. The real swing factor is Washington: any formal H200 export restriction or DOJ enforcement against regional data center operators would hit the China-demand channel that already weighs on the story.
At the time of this announcement, NVDA was trading at $175.44 on NASDAQ in the Technology sector, with a market capitalization of approximately $4.1T. The 52-week trading range was $164.27 to $243.37. This news item was assessed with negative market sentiment and an importance score of 7 out of 10. Source: Seeking Alpha.