Nvidia: A Mildly Improbable Scenario

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Nvidia (NVDA +1.15%) – a company that makes things that make other things faster, and occasionally, slightly more sentient – hasn’t exactly been setting the stock market ablaze in 2026. A disconcerting lack of exponential growth, coupled with the usual geopolitical anxieties (which, let’s face it, are always there, lurking like a badly-coded subroutine), and a touch of profit-taking (because even investors occasionally remember they have other things to spend money on) have left the share price… well, roughly where it started the year. A truly baffling state of affairs.

Compared to the frankly alarming ascent of the past three years – an event that defied both logic and several established principles of financial physics – this relative calm has led some to wonder if the party’s over. Should one hold, sell, or perhaps invest in a slightly more predictable enterprise, like, say, a company that manufactures self-folding laundry? (The engineering challenges are considerable, naturally, but the potential market is… substantial.) I posit that there’s one thing Nvidia will do in 2026 that could, with a degree of improbability that shouldn’t be underestimated, reignite the upward trajectory.

The Exhaustion of Expectation

The problem, you see, isn’t that Nvidia is doing badly. It’s that investors have become… jaded. The relentless growth, the consistently exceeded expectations, it’s all become rather commonplace. It’s like ordering a particularly good cup of tea every day – eventually, you just expect it, and the joy diminishes. (Though a truly excellent cup of tea remains a cornerstone of civilization, naturally.) The stock has, after all, increased by nearly 900% over the last three years. That’s a lot of percentage points. A truly alarming number, when you think about it.

Even when management cautiously predicted higher sales each quarter, they managed to surpass their own estimates by a rather substantial $1 billion to $3 billion. (Which raises the intriguing question of why they didn’t predict higher sales in the first place. A mystery for the ages.) This consistent outperformance, while objectively positive, has somehow failed to generate the requisite levels of excitement. It’s as if the market has become immune to good news. A worrying symptom, frankly.

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Nvidia has confidently (and, one suspects, with a certain amount of internal trepidation) projected fourth-quarter fiscal 2026 sales of $65 billion. I predict – and this is where things get interesting – that they will, once again, exceed this estimate. And furthermore, I believe they will continue to raise and beat sales guidance throughout the remainder of 2026. A bold claim, perhaps, but one grounded in a careful analysis of… well, things. (And a healthy dose of optimistic speculation.)

The key, you see, lies in China. Sales haven’t been fully incorporated into the guidance, and the company has received regulatory approval to sell its H200 chips there. Rumors abound that CEO Jensen Huang is currently en route to China, and it wouldn’t be entirely surprising if he were to announce a renewed partnership. (One imagines a complex negotiation involving tea, dumplings, and a detailed explanation of CUDA.)

Even without a triumphant return to the Chinese market, Nvidia is remarkably well-positioned to deliver upside. Spending on data centers and AI infrastructure hasn’t slowed as much as some predicted. (Apparently, the world still needs faster computers. Who knew?) This creates a rather favorable backdrop for Nvidia to once again defy expectations. And if they do, well, share price gains should logically follow. (Though logic, as anyone who’s ever tried to assemble flat-pack furniture can attest, is often a remarkably unreliable guide.)

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2026-01-28 05:32