This is not investment advice. The author has no position in any of the stocks mentioned. Wccftech.com has a disclosure and ethics policy.
NVIDIA shares have been firmly pegged on a dizzying roller-coaster ever since DeepSeek released its R1 model back in January, having contended with peak AI fears, a full-fledged global war and the ensuing rapid de-escalation, and the fallout from the ongoing decoupling between the US and China. Yet, NVIDIA seems to have emerged from these Sisyphean obstructions relatively unscathed, and is on the cusp of clearing its last remaining negative catalysts for the year, as per a new investment note from Piper Sandler.
To wit, Piper Sandler analyst Harsh Kumar has reiterated an 'Overweight' rating and $150 share price target for NVIDIA, while noting:
"All in all, we think that NVDA is poised to be flat to down into the print this week. We think that April quarter is poised for a miss in revenues largely from macro uncertainty and from the H20 ban."
For the benefit of those who might not be aware, the Trump administration recently imposed licensing requirements on NVIDIA's China-specific H20 GPUs, which is expected to translate to a $5.5 billion inventory-related charge in Q1.
As per an estimation by Susquehanna analysts, these licensing requirements cost NVIDIA $1 billion in China-related sales over the last three weeks of the company's April-ending quarter. For the rest of the year, these lost sales are likely to amount to $3.5 billion per quarter.
What's more, the H20-related write-downs might depress NVIDIA's margins by 11 percentage points to 67.7 percent in Q1, as per an analysis by Wedbush.
Last week, NVIDIA's CEO Jensen Huang declared that his company had walked away from $15 billion in potential annual sales in China following the imposition of licensing requirements. Concurrently, Huang predicted that the market for AI GPUs in China would swell to $50 billion in 2026.
Of course, NVIDIA has been working on a China-specific, watered-down version of its Blackwell GPUs to comply with existing US export controls. However, given Washington's mercurial temperament towards all things China-related, the world's second-largest economy remains a persistent point of concern for NVIDIA.
Coming back, Piper Sandler's Harsh Kumar believes NVIDIA's new China-specific Blackwell GPU will only launch in the latter half of its July-ending quarter.
Kumar also believes that the factors responsible for NVIDIA's underperformance in Q1 are largely "outside" its control.
The analyst goes on to note:
"Despite this, we see a strong back half of the year given HPC capex coming on strong coupled with macro forces improving driven by sovereign investments following the announcements of several large deals over recent weeks."
Kumar ends his note with solid advice:
"We advise investors to weather the uncertainty and stay long the stock as this is likely largely the last wave of negative news for NVDA this year."
Of course, while Piper Sandler appears cautious heading into NVIDIA's Q1 earnings print on Wednesday, Lynx Equity is anything but, boldly declaring that the stock could break out to new highs.
"After a couple of quarters of inline results, we think NVDA has the potential to provide upside to muted investor expectations."
Lynx Equity also took pains to note the resurgence of CoWoS capacity build at TSMC, which strongly suggests recovery in NVIDIA's supply chain.
About the author: Writing is my one incontrovertible passion. Over the past six years, he has authored over 2,200 distinct articles on financial and tech-related topics, spanning nearly 1 million words. And he has been a member of Wcctech mobile team since 2025. As an alumnus of the University of Toronto, Rotman Commerce Program, I bring nuance, in-depth knowledge, and a unique perspective to every topic that I cover. When I'm not writing, I'm traveling the world, exploring hidden confectionaries and restaurants as an aspiring food connoisseur.
Follow Wccftech on Google to get more of our news coverage in your feeds.
