Should You Invest $500 in Nvidia (NVDA) Right Now?
Key Points
Nvidia makes the best picks and shovels for the AI gold rush.
Its stock still looks reasonably valued relative to its growth potential.
- 10 stocks we like better than Nvidia ›
Nvidia's (NASDAQ: NVDA) stock has rallied more than 23,000% over the past ten years. A large portion of that rally was driven by its skyrocketing sales of data center GPUs for AI applications, which replaced PC GPUs as its core business. Investors might be wary of buying Nvidia after those massive gains, since it's already the world's most valuable company with a market cap of $4.5 trillion. But could it be a good place to park a modest $500 investment?
Image source: Getty Images.
Where to invest $1,000 right now? Our analyst team just revealed what they believe are the 10 best stocks to buy right now, when you join Stock Advisor. See the stocks »
Nvidia's GPUs process parallel tasks, while traditional x86 CPUs are optimized for sequential tasks. That key difference makes them better suited for handling complex AI tasks. Nvidia now controls over 90% of the discrete GPU market, and most of the world's top AI companies use its GPUs to train their latest AI applications. It also locks in those clients with CUDA (Compute Unified Device Architecture), its proprietary programming platform optimized for its own chips.
From fiscal 2025 (which ended last January) to fiscal 2028, analysts expect Nvidia's revenue and EPS to grow at CAGRs of 47% and 46%, respectively, as the AI boom continues. Those are incredible growth rates for a stock that trades at 26 times next year's earnings -- so it could easily turn a $500 investment into a lot more money over the long term.
Should you buy stock in Nvidia right now?
Before you buy stock in Nvidia, consider this:
The Motley Fool Stock Advisor analyst team just identified what they believe are the 10 best stocks for investors to buy now… and Nvidia wasn’t one of them. The 10 stocks that made the cut could produce monster returns in the coming years.
Consider when Netflix made this list on December 17, 2004... if you invested $1,000 at the time of our recommendation, you’d have $414,554!* Or when Nvidia made this list on April 15, 2005... if you invested $1,000 at the time of our recommendation, you’d have $1,120,663!*
Now, it’s worth noting Stock Advisor’s total average return is 884% — a market-crushing outperformance compared to 193% for the S&P 500. Don't miss the latest top 10 list, available with Stock Advisor, and join an investing community built by individual investors for individual investors.
See the 10 stocks »
*Stock Advisor returns as of February 17, 2026.
Leo Sun has no position in any of the stocks mentioned. The Motley Fool has positions in and recommends Nvidia. The Motley Fool has a disclosure policy.
Recommended Articles
