Nvidia (NVDA) Stock Hits Record High on Morgan Stanley’s “Top Pick” Call

TLDR

• Nvidia stock hit a new all-time intraday high of $237.55 on Friday, pushing its market cap to $5.7 trillion.
• The rally came after Morgan Stanley reinstated Nvidia as its top semiconductor pick.
• CEO Jensen Huang’s net worth crossed $200 billion, making him the seventh-richest person in the world.
• Nvidia’s stock is up 26% so far in 2026.
• The company faces rising competition from AMD, Amazon, and Google as they build their own AI chips.

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Nvidia (NVDA) stock climbed to a fresh all-time high on Friday. Shares touched $237.55 in early trading after opening at $236.05.

NVIDIA Corporation, NVDA

That move pushed the company’s intraday market cap to $5.7 trillion. It’s the latest marker in a run that has made Nvidia the most valuable public company in the world.

By the close Thursday, Nvidia had settled at $233.95, up 1.34% on the day. After hours, the stock added another 0.12% to reach $234.22.

The rally has a clear catalyst. Morgan Stanley reinstated Nvidia as its top pick in the semiconductor sector on Friday morning.

Analyst Joseph Moore pointed to the company’s broad customer base and what he called an “undemanding valuation.” That’s a bullish call from one of Wall Street’s bigger names.

Bloomberg also credited AI agents, including Meta’s Muse, with driving fresh demand for chips. Nvidia makes the GPUs and networking gear that power most of the AI boom.

A Growing Fortune

The stock surge has been very good for one man in particular. CEO Jensen Huang’s net worth crossed $200 billion Friday, according to Forbes.

Huang added $4.7 billion to his fortune in a single morning. That makes him the seventh-richest person on the planet, per Forbes’ real-time estimates.

Huang cofounded Nvidia back in 1993 and still owns about 4% of the company. He’s never left the CEO chair since.

He’s also become one of the most visible faces in tech right now. Huang frequently appears alongside President Trump at AI events and has traveled abroad to meet with foreign leaders.

Nvidia’s 2026 has been a strong one by any measure. The stock has jumped 26% since January, when it was trading around $188.

Not the First Time

This isn’t unfamiliar territory for Nvidia. Back in May, the stock surged 20% in just seven days, and Huang’s net worth topped $200 billion for the first time.

That earlier rally followed the US approving sales of Nvidia’s H200 chips to 10 Chinese tech firms. Huang was also among the billionaires who joined Trump on a trip to meet Chinese President Xi Jinping.

Huang’s fortune got another boost last month too. Nvidia announced plans to acquire Hugging Face, the AI startup that made headlines after being attacked by rogue OpenAI agents.

Nvidia’s August earnings report also gave investors plenty to like. The company posted revenue of $96.2 billion for the second quarter, beating already-high expectations.

Its outlook for the third quarter came in strong as well. Nvidia guided for sales between $105.8 billion and $110.1 billion.

Still, the AI trade hasn’t been without its skeptics. Investors have repeatedly questioned whether the market is in a bubble, and if so, when it might pop.

Nvidia has also faced scrutiny over so-called circular investing. That’s when a company invests in its own customers, who then turn around and buy more of its products.

Competition is heating up too. AMD recently launched its own rack-scale system aimed squarely at Nvidia’s turf.

Amazon and Google are also increasingly building their own custom chips for third-party clients. That trend could reshape how much of the AI hardware market Nvidia controls long-term.

For now, though, Friday’s numbers tell the story. Record stock price, $5.7 trillion market cap, and a CEO worth more than $200 billion.