Nvidia Is About 4% From Becoming The First $6 Trillion Co…

▲ S&P 500 +—%|▲ Stock Advisor +—%Join The Motley Fool

Apple’s milestones went three different ways

For each one, I measured from the close on the day the stock first reached the milestone during trading, out to a year later.

Apple first crossed $1 trillion on Aug. 2, 2018. In the next 12 months, its s fell around 2% but the S&P 500 gained about 4%. In early January 2019, Apple cut its revenue outlook for the December quarter to about $84 billion, saying iPhone upgrades came in lower than it expected.

The $2 trillion level, hit on Aug. 19, 2020, came just before a boom year for the business. Apple’s earnings per soared 71% for its fiscal 2021, which ended in late September 2021. Still, the stock’s 27% rise in the next 12 months lagged the index’s 31% return.

One reason is the price. Investors paid around 35 times earnings when Apple touched $2 trillion, and about 29 times earnings a year later.

Then came $3 trillion, on Jan. 3, 2022. Apple’s earnings per still rose 9% for fiscal 2022. But its price-to-earnings ratio dropped from around 32 to about 20 over the next year, and the stock lost 31%. The S&P 500 fell 20% over the same stretch.

Apple Stock Quote

NASDAQ: AAPL

Apple

Premium Feature

Moneyball Superscore

88/100

Today’s Change

(0.22%) $0.74

Current Price

$333.63

Key Data Points

Market Cap

$4.9TMarket cap calculated using publicly traded s outstanding only. Does not include unlisted, private, or dual-class non-traded s. Implied market cap may vary.

Day’s Range

$330.62 – $334.38

52wk Range

$243.42 – $345.34

Volume

30.4M

Avg Vol

45.5M

Gross Margin

48.65%

Dividend Yield

0.32%

Nvidia’s business outran its stock

Nvidia’s own milestones have gone better so far. It first hit $4 trillion on July 9, 2025, and its s rose around 25% in the next year, ahead of the S&P 500’s 20% gain.

Since first crossing $5 trillion on Oct. 29, 2025, the stock is up around 15% as of this writing, again a bit ahead of the index in those 11 months.

But the business did much more of the climbing. Showing how fast Nvidia grew after its $4 trillion day, revenue in the fiscal second quarter of 2027, which ended July 26, 2026, rose 106% year over year to $96.2 billion. Growth was 85% the quarter before, so the pace sped up.

Non-GAAP (adjusted) earnings per grew even faster, rising 120% to $2.22.

Put another way, the s gained a fraction of what earnings did, because investors paid less for each dollar of those earnings. This happened after all five milestones. Every time, the stock’s price-to-earnings ratio was lower a year later than when it crossed the line (11 months later, for Nvidia’s $5 trillion mark).

What decided each return was how fast earnings rose to make up for it.

Nvidia Stock Quote

NASDAQ: NVDA

Nvidia

Premium Feature

Moneyball Superscore

95/100

Today’s Change

(0.14%) $0.34

Current Price

$239.24

Key Data Points

Market Cap

$5.8TMarket cap calculated using publicly traded s outstanding only. Does not include unlisted, private, or dual-class non-traded s. Implied market cap may vary.

Day’s Range

$238.93 – $243.37

52wk Range

$164.27 – $243.37

Volume

101.7M

Avg Vol

122.6M

Gross Margin

74.67%

Dividend Yield

0.22%

What drives the stock from here?

Nvidia’s earnings look set to keep growing quickly, at least for now. Management expects revenue of around $108 billion in the fiscal third quarter, give or take 2%. This would be almost 90% more than the $57.0 billion Nvidia brought in during the same quarter a year before — still impressive, but slower than last quarter’s rate.

Investors arguably aren’t paying much for that growth. s trade at around 15 times expected earnings for fiscal 2028 (which ends in January 2028), using analysts’ consensus estimate. For a company whose earnings per more than doubled last quarter, that price looks low to me.

Of course, over 90% of Nvidia’s revenue last quarter came from its data center business, which depends on how much customers spend building out AI. A cut in this spending could slow Nvidia’s earnings quickly. If this happens as its price-to-earnings multiple keeps shrinking, the stock could see a year Apple’s after $3 trillion.

In the end, I wouldn’t make much of $6 trillion, if and when Nvidia gets there. As long as its earnings keep rising faster than its valuation multiple shrinks, the stock can keep climbing. At this price, I think the odds favor that result for now.