Oppenheimer cut Nvidia to Perform from Outperform on Thursday and removed its price target, adding fresh pressure to a stock already rattled by leadership scrutiny and China-related risk. Nvidia shares fell nearly 7% in early premarket trading as investors digested the latest analyst downgrade.
The move landed on a day when traders were already looking for a clean read on the NVIDIA price after Bernstein earlier in the week slashed its own rating to Market Perform from Outperform and cut its target by half to $200, a level that still implied 15% upside. That backdrop has turned the stock into a live test of how much confidence remains in Nvidia's near-term outlook.
China pushed back just as that pressure built. At a regular briefing in Beijing on Thursday, Foreign Ministry spokesperson Mao Ning said China's scientific progress relies on independent innovation and open cooperation, and warned the U.S. not to use allegations of Chinese spying on Jensen Huang as a pretext for technology restrictions. She said the U.S. should stop fabricating the so-called Chinese spy narrative as a basis for curbs.
The friction does not stop there. On Wednesday, reporting said the U.S. Commerce Department is finalizing a semiconductor control update that would block remote access and chip smuggling into China through data centers, even as Beijing rejects the spying narrative outright. That leaves Nvidia squeezed between a fresh analyst downgrade and the prospect of tighter U.S. controls on the business that has helped define its surge.
There is still one unresolved piece that matters to investors: what Nvidia's board will do next. The company said earlier this week that it has no reason to believe U.S. national security or company secrets were compromised after Jensen Huang admitted on Sunday to an affair and the company launched an investigation. But with the board speculation still circulating and no price target left from Oppenheimer, the stock is now trading with fewer cushions and more questions.
