Why Nvidia Is Worth More Than Apple

By Douglas A. McIntyre Updated Oct 28, 7:12AM EDT · Published Oct 26, 7:23AM EDT

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Why Nvidia Is Worth More Than Apple — © BING-JHEN HONG / iStock Editorial via Getty Images

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Nvidia Corp. (NASDAQ: NVDA | NVDA Price Prediction) and Apple Inc. (NASDAQ: AAPL) are in a race for which will have the higher market cap.
Apple needs modest earnings, but Nvidia needs better.
Also: Dividend legends to hold forever.

When asked why he made more money than U.S. President Herbert Hoover in 1930, Babe Ruth said, “Why not? I had a better year than he did.” Ruth made $80,000 that year. Hoover made $75,000. Hoover went on to lose the 1932 election to Franklin Roosevelt. After hitting the most home runs in baseball history, Ruth went into the Hall of Fame.

Friday morning, Nvidia Corp.’s (NASDAQ: NVDA) market cap moved just ahead of Apple Inc.’s (NASDAQ: AAPL). At the end of the day, Apple had edged ahead by a hair. Each company’s figure sat at just over $3.5 trillion.

Nvidia has clearly had a better year. Its stock has risen 185%, while Apple’s is up 20%, which is about the same as the rise in the S&P 500.

Apple’s earnings for the quarter about to be announced are not supposed to be spectacular. The iPhone 16 was barely released in the third calendar quarter of the year. In the same period last year, Apple had revenue of $89.5 billion and per-share earnings of $1.47. iPhone revenue was $48.3 billion. Apple will need to beat all of those numbers for its stock to continue to rise.

Nvidia has a much higher bar to clear. Last year, its revenue for the quarter about to be announced was $6.7 billion, and earnings were $2.60 per share. If the last quarter reported is any indication, revenue rose 122% year over year to $30 billion, and earnings were up 168% to $0.67 per share. Nvidia will need to match that growth for its stock to continue rising rapidly or perhaps just hold its own.

Based on modest expectations, Apple may be able to hold the top market cap spot. For Nvidia to hold that spot, its earnings must be spectacular.

Nvidia Price Prediction and Forecast

About the Author Douglas A. McIntyre →

Douglas A. McIntyre is the co-founder, chief executive officer and editor in chief of 24/7 Wall St. and 24/7 Tempo. He has held these jobs since 2006.

McIntyre has written thousands of articles for 24/7 Wall St. He is an expert on corporate finance, the automotive industry, media companies and international finance. He has edited articles on national demographics, sports, personal income and travel.

His work has been quoted or mentioned in The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, Los Angeles Times, The Washington Post, NBC News, Time, The New Yorker, HuffPost USA Today, Business Insider, Yahoo, AOL, MarketWatch, The Atlantic, Bloomberg, New York Post, Chicago Tribune, Forbes, The Guardian and many other major publications. McIntyre has been a guest on CNBC, the BBC and television and radio stations across the country.

A magna cum laude graduate of Harvard College, McIntyre also was president of The Harvard Advocate. Founded in 1866, the Advocate is the oldest college publication in the United States.

TheStreet.com, Comps.com and Edgar Online are some of the public companies for which McIntyre served on the board of directors. He was a Vicinity Corporation board member when the company was sold to Microsoft in 2002. He served on the audit committees of some of these companies.

McIntyre has been the CEO of FutureSource, a provider of trading terminals and news to commodities and futures traders. He was president of Switchboard, the online phone directory company. He served as chairman and CEO of On2 Technologies, the video compression company that provided video compression software for Adobe’s Flash. Google bought On2 in 2009.