Nvidia Corp. (NASDAQ:NVDA) has fallen 15% from its October high of $212.19, dragged down by a cocktail of AI disruption fears, the Iran oil shock and broader market anxiety. 

But buried beneath the sell-off, there may be a buying signal that has historically rewarded patient investors — if you connect the dots.

The signal comes from Morgan Stanley Investment Management’s Andrew Slimmon, a senior portfolio manager who recently published his latest equity commentary. 

To be clear, Slimmon doesn’t mention Nvidia by name. His argument is about the broader market. But it applies to Nvidia with striking relevance.

The Stock-Picking Trifecta 

Slimmon tracks what he calls the “trifecta” of stock-picking factors: momentum, earnings revisions, and share buybacks.

Of these, earnings revisions — the pattern where analysts raise profit forecasts for a company, and the stock price follows — is normally one of the most reliable predictors of future returns. When Wall Street upgrades its earnings outlook for a stock, the price tends to rise in step.

Right now, that relationship has broken. Earnings revisions have been one of the worst-performing factors year-to-date. Companies seeing their profit estimates raised are not being rewarded with higher stock prices. 

The reason, Slimmon argues, is that investors are fixated on macro headlines — Iran, oil at nearly $100 a barrel, AI disruption panic, private credit stress — and ignoring individual company fundamentals.

Why It Matters

Here’s why that matters for Nvidia specifically. The chipmaker just reported a quarter where revenue surged $68.13 billion, up 73% from last year’s fourth quarter, earnings per share jumped 60% and free cash flow climbed 64%. 

Analysts have beaten a path to raise estimates and Cantor Fitzgerald’s C.J. Muse reiterated a $300 target just last week, noting Nvidia is sold out through all of 2026 and trades at just 15 times his projected 2027 earnings.

In other words, Nvidia is a textbook case of the very pattern Slimmon describes: earnings estimates going up, stock price going down.

Slimmon’s view is that this kind of dislocation always resolves itself. “When stock prices stray from this straightforward relationship, it creates an opportunity,” he writes. “This time is not different.”

Nvidia's GTC Catalyst 

The timing adds another layer. Nvidia’s GTC conference kicks off today in San Jose, where CEO Jensen Huang is expected to unveil details on the company’s next-generation Vera Rubin architecture and provide what analysts expect to be a bullish outlook on AI demand. 

BofA Securities reiterated its Buy rating and raised the price target to $300 ahead of the event, flagging Nvidia’s inference product roadmap and quantum computing prospects as key catalysts.

If GTC delivers on those expectations, it could be the kind of company-specific trigger that snaps the stock back toward its fundamentals — exactly the correction Slimmon’s framework predicts.

Of course, he may be wrong. Oil could stay elevated for months rather than weeks. The private credit tremors currently rattling Blackstone and Blue Owl could spread into broader credit markets. AI disruption fears could deepen rather than fade.

Any of those scenarios would keep macro anxiety in the driver’s seat and delay the fundamental reconnection Slimmon expects.

But if history is any guide — and Slimmon is betting his framework that it is — Nvidia’s current price may be less a reflection of its fundamentals and more a reflection of a market too distracted by headlines to notice that the analysts keep raising their numbers. 

The gap between what Wall Street’s models say Nvidia is worth and what investors are willing to pay for it today is wide. Gaps like that, Slimmon argues, don’t stay open for long.

NVDA Price Action: Nvidia shares were up 2.17% at $184.15 at the time of publication on Monday, according to Benzinga Pro data.

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