If you have $1,000 to invest, it can be daunting to find the right stock to get started investing. Thankfully, I’m confident the market is handing investors an opportunity at the beginning of 2026 that could be the perfect stock to buy whether you have $1,000, $5,000, or $10,000 or more to invest.
That stock is NVIDIA (NASDAQ: NVDA | NVDA Price Prediction). The name shouldn’t be a surprise, but what might surprise you is how reasonable shares trade for. I’ll also outline the opportunities ahead of NVIDIA in 2026 and why shares could see significant upside in the year ahead.
From Gaming GPUs to AI Infrastructure Backbone
NVIDIA’s transformation is the business story of the AI era. What started as a gaming GPU company pivoted into accelerated computing at exactly the right time. The company went public in 1999, but the real inflection came when cloud companies realized GPUs could train AI models faster than anything else. By the time ChatGPT launched, NVIDIA had already built the CUDA software moat that made switching to competitors nearly impossible.
The numbers tell the story. Over the past ten years, the stock has returned 24,361%. The five-year return stands at 1,164%. Even the one-year return of 35% beats the S&P 500 handily. However, even with all this performance in the rear-view mirror, 2026 is setting up well to be an absolutely epic year for NVIDIA.
Blackwell Is the Catalyst Everyone’s Waiting For
The next leg up hinges on Blackwell, NVIDIA’s latest GPU architecture. CEO Jensen Huang said on the Q3 earnings call: “Blackwell sales are off the charts, and cloud GPUs are sold out. Compute demand keeps accelerating and compounding across training and inference — each growing exponentially. We’ve entered the virtuous cycle of AI.” Data Center revenue hit $51.2 billion in Q3, up 66% year-over-year. Networking revenue alone jumped 162%.
Q4 guidance of $65 billion in revenue suggests momentum isn’t slowing. With earnings scheduled for February 25, 2026, the market will get fresh confirmation that demand is still outpacing supply.
The big picture is NVIDIA’s customers – hyperscalers like Microsoft, Amazon, Meta Platforms, and Alphabet – are all spending massive sums on data centers this year. This comes at a time when NVIDIA’s newest systems (the GB300) have dominated third-party testing and have little competition in terms of computing capabilities relative to cost.
And NVIDIA has its foot on the throttle. The company is already starting limited production of its next-generation Vera Rubin systems. The fact of the matter is while we’re years into the current AI boom, rival companies haven’t really closed the gap with NVIDIA. Meta Platforms (Nasdaq: META) just announced a major partnership with NVIDIA to buy “millions” of Blackwell and Rubin GPUs for a reason: AI is an arms race, and NVIDIA is still the gold standard.
What Kinds of Gains Could NVIDIA See in 2026?
Let’s talk about NVIDIA’s 2026. Currently, the stock trades for about $186 per share. NVIDIA’s current value is roughly $4.5 trillion, and the company had $99 billion in profits in the past year. That’s a trailing P/E of 46X.
On the surface, that looks like an outrageously expensive multiple to pay for a stock as big as NVIDIA.
Yet, looking ahead, we find Wall Street expects NVIDIA to generate $7.76 in profits across the next year, which would be about 65% growth from this year. My bold call, NVIDIA will do closer to $9 per share in profits, and it’s not unimaginable the company could generate $10 in earnings per share.
The math is pretty simple: if NVIDIA does get to $10 per share in profits (my most bullish case), it would be trading at about 18.6X this year’s earnings while more than doubling profits.
Generally, when stocks are experiencing this level of earnings growth, they ‘re-rate,’ that is to say they trade at higher multiples. Applying a 30X multiple to NVIDIA, we’d find the stock would trade at $270 per share if they hit $9 in EPS this year or $300 per share if they hit $10 in EPS.
That means, NVIDIA shares – even after their incredible run the past decade – could still see 45% or more upside potential this year. On a $1,000 buy, that could be worth $450 in profits. On a $10,000 buy, it would be worth $4,500 in profits.
Does all this mean NVIDIA will certainly have a great year? No. Every stock carries risk. However, I also laid out the case how NVIDIA could hit $200 per share back when it was trading at $130 per share (video embedded below) and NVIDIA shares hit that price in less than a year. If you’re thinking NVIDIA’s run is over, the next twelve months could see its most epic performance yet.
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