Nvidia (NVDA +4.30%) is up a mind-numbing 21,840% over the last decade. At first glance, it might seem like a stock that was a generational buy rather than one that can still deliver incredible returns. The same goes for its “Magnificent Seven” peers.

Here’s why Nvidia still has a long runway for growth and why it remains a generational buying opportunity hiding in plain sight.

Nvidia has become a better value

In October, Nvidia became the first company to surpass $5 trillion in market capitalization, reaching an all-time intraday high and closing at a high on Oct. 29. But roughly six months later, the stock remains down by about 4% from that peak at about $4.85 trillion, even though Nvidia has continued to grow earnings, innovate, and raise its long-term guidance.

Nvidia now says it expects at least $1 trillion in artificial intelligence (AI) chip revenues in 2026 and 2027. The stagnating stock price, paired with optimistic earnings expectations, has pushed Nvidia’s forward price-to-earnings ratio down to just 24.

Nvidia is already a reasonable value, but it could end up being dirt cheap in hindsight if its AI roadmap comes to fruition.

Today’s Change

(4.30%) $8.60

Current Price

$208.24

Key Data Points

Market Cap

$5.1T

Day’s Range

$199.82 – $210.94

52wk Range

$104.08 – $212.19

Volume

8M

Avg Vol

174M

Gross Margin

71.07%

Dividend Yield

0.02%

A multidecade runway for future growth

Nvidia’s best quality is its flexibility — an especially rare attribute for a company of its size.

It has, over the years, pivoted from a professional visualization and gaming company to primarily providing AI chips for data centers. But its data center business has been anchored by general-purpose graphics processing units (GPUs) for training AI models. Hyperscale data centers have far higher energy and compute requirements, demanding energy and cost efficiency across AI chips, networking, and IT equipment. On its March earnings call, Nvidia competitor Broadcom said it believes its custom application-specific integrated circuits, which are designed for narrower workloads, will eventually overtake traditional GPU designs in data centers — a threat to Nvidia.

Nvidia has wasted no time addressing this concern. It has developed a rack-scale solution under its Vera Rubin architecture that includes a GPU, a central processing unit (CPU), memory chips, and interconnects to achieve what Nvidia calls extreme co-design. The system is purpose-built for the age of AI inferencing, which uses AI models on previously unseen data, such as autonomous driving or AI agents. Nvidia is betting big on the widespread adoption of AI agents and a boom in demand for AI inference tokens — the currency needed to pay for AI usage. Nvidia’s hardware and software are built to process tokens as fast as possible, which is appealing to its hyperscale customers.

In addition to inference, Nvidia is investing heavily in physical AI. This means applying AI in the real world beyond the data center through robotics, autonomous vehicles, manufacturing, and so on. Physical AI is less than 3% of its revenue but could transform the business in the coming decades.

The ideal growth stock for long-term investors

Nvidia marks a distinct paradigm shift in the stock market. Historically, when companies reach large-cap or megacap size, it can give them increased operating leverage, but it can also make it harder to sustain a higher-percentage growth rate. For example, Apple has evolved into more of a consumer staples company than a high-growth tech giant, now that the iPhone and Apple’s product ecosystem have become mainstream. And the world can only consume so much Coca-Cola. But Nvidia is quite literally creating new markets in the digital and physical worlds.

I expect Nvidia’s market cap to increase several-fold over the next decade, but the stock could also endure significant volatility and steep drawdowns along the way, driven by economic cycles, spending patterns among key consumers, and investor sentiment. All told, Nvidia is still a generational buying opportunity and a foundational AI stock to buy and hold, but only for risk-tolerant investors.

Authorities said the incident occurred outside the ballroom where Trump and other guests were seated. It was not immediately clear what happened.

The Secret Service and other authorities swarmed the banquet hall at the Washington Hilton as guests dining on burrata salad ducked under tables by the hundreds. “Out of the way, sir!” someone yelled. Others yelled to duck. From one corner, a “God Bless America” chant began as Trump was escorted off stage. He fell briefly — he apparently tripped — and was helped up by Secret Service agents.

A law enforcement official confirmed there was a shooter but no further details were immediately available. All officials protected by the Secret Service were evacuated. Organizers were attempting to resume the dinner.

Some in the crowd reported hearing what they believed to be five to eight shots fired. The banquet hall — where hundreds of prominent journalists, celebrities and national leaders were awaiting Trump’s remarks — was immediately evacuated. Members of the National Guard took up position inside the building as people were allowed to leave but not immediately re-enter. Security outside was also extremely tight.

Those in attendance included Trump, Vice President JD Vance, Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth and Secretary of State Marco Rubio — and many other leaders of the Trump administration.

The event appeared set to resume after the disorder. Servers refolded napkins and refilled water glasses in preparation for Trump’s return. Another worker prepared the president’s teleprompter for the remarks he was scheduled to make. Guest evacuating the ballroom had to step over many broken plates and glasses.

Outside the hotel, members of the National Guard and other authorities flooded the area as helicopters circled overhead.

Generally, the Hilton hotel, where the dinner has taken place for years, remains open to regular guests during the White House Correspondents’ Dinner, and security has typically been focused on the ballroom and rather than the hotel at large, with little screening for people not entering the dinner itself. In past years, that has created openings for disruptions in the lobby and other public spaces, including protests in which security moved to remove guests who unfurled banners or staged demonstrations.

U.S. Attorney Jeanine Pirro posted a short video from the hotel after the incident, saying, “I have been taken out of the ballroom after the sound of the shots fired. The Secret Service is now in charge of this building, this hotel. I just spoke to Mayor Murial Bowser. She is on her way and (Police) Chief Jeffery Carroll is on his way. He will be in charge as soon as he gets here.”

Event was about to take place

Trump’s attendance at Saturday’s annual dinner in Washington for his first time as president is putting his administration’s often-contentious relationship with the press on full public display.

Trump arrived to an event where the leaders of a nation at war mingled with celebrities, journalists and even a puppet — Triumph the Insult Comic Dog — in a dinner that typically generates debate about whether the relationship between journalists and their sources should include socializing together and putting aside sometimes adversarial relationships.

Trump was being watched closely at the event held by the organization of reporters who cover him and his administration. Past presidents who have attended have generally spoken about the importance of free speech and the First Amendment, adding in some light roasts about individual journalists.

The Republican president did not attend during his first term or the first year of his second. He came as a guest in 2011, sitting in the audience as President Barack Obama, a Democrat, made some jokes about the New York real estate developer. Trump also attended as a private citizen in 2015.

Trump entered the subterranean banquet hall of the Washington Hilton to the strains of “Hail to the Chief” and greeted prominent journalists on the dais, also pausing to laud White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt with a cheerful pointing of his finger.

Past dinners have also featured comedians who poke at presidents. This year, the group opted to hire mentalist Oz Pearlman as the featured entertainment.

A contentious relationship

Between berating individual reporters, fighting organizations like the Times, The Wall Street Journal and The Associated Press in court and restricting press access to the Pentagon, the administration’s animus toward journalists has been a fixture of Trump’s second term.

On the eve of the dinner, nearly 500 retired journalists signed a petition calling on the association “to forcefully demonstrate opposition to President Trump’s efforts to trample freedom of the press.”

The WHCA president, CBS News reporter Weijia Jiang, said the organization was fighting for all different forms of the press that have a line in to the American people. “I don’t think people realize how closely we are working with the White House,” she said on CSPAN before the dinner convened. “The relationship is important. It can be complicated. It can be intense. But it is robust.”

Welcoming guests, Jiang alluded to the contentious relationship in thanking Leavitt “for everything your team does to work with us every day, whether you like it or not.”

Veteran reporter Manu Raju of CNN, as he entered the Washington Hilton for the dinner, said it was not his role to express his opinion on Trump’s relationship with the press. “I’m not an activist,” he said. “My job is not to protest.”

A few dozen protesters stood across the hotel in the runup to the event. One was dressed in a prison uniform, wearing a Pete Hegseth mask and red gloves. Another carried a sign saying “Journalism is dead.”

Some news organizations invite sources as guests

Journalists often invite sources as guests at the dinner. It will be noticed Saturday whether administration officials who have also expressed hostility to the press will attend, and with whom they will be sitting. Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent said he was invited by the New York Post; Interior Secretary Doug Burgum and Secretary of State Marco Rubio were NBC guests.

The Associated Press invited a former Trump official that it sued last year. Taylor Budowich, a former White House deputy chief of staff who crafted communications policy, was a named defendant last year when the AP sued the administration after it reduced its access to the president because the news outlet did not follow Trump’s lead in renaming the Gulf of Mexico.

“We maintain professional relationships with people across the political spectrum because we are nonpartisan by design — focused on reporting the facts in the public’s interest,” AP spokesman Patrick Maks said.

The White House correspondents will also hand out awards for exemplary reporting. That includes some stories that displeased Trump, such as one from the Journal about a birthday message Trump once sent to convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein. The story led to a presidential lawsuit.