TLDR
- Citi upgrades outlook on Nvidia with $270 price target, projecting second-half 2026 outperformance driven by B300 and Rubin platform ramp
- Firm forecasts January-quarter revenue of $67 billion beating Street’s $65.6 billion estimate, with April-quarter guidance at $73 billion versus $71.6 billion consensus
- New data shows Blackwell systems achieve 50 times better throughput per megawatt than Hopper, cutting inference costs up to 35 times
- Susquehanna’s Christopher Rolland holds Positive rating with $250 target, highlighting strong GB300 momentum and rising hyperscale spending
- Next-generation Vera Rubin hardware projected to deliver 10 times higher efficiency than Blackwell for AI inference workloads
Nvidia shares fell 1.6% to $179.91 Tuesday despite bullish analyst commentary ahead of the company’s February 25 earnings report. The stock has declined 2% year-to-date through Friday’s close.
Citi analyst Atif Malik urged investors to add positions before anticipated second-half 2026 strength. His firm projects January-quarter revenue reaching $67 billion, topping consensus estimates of $65.6 billion.
The bank expects April-quarter guidance of $73 billion versus Wall Street’s $71.6 billion forecast. Malik sees 34% sales acceleration in the second half of 2026 compared to 27% growth in the first half.
Continued B300 and Rubin platform ramp will drive the expansion. Citi maintains its Buy rating with a $270 price target.
Investor attention has shifted beyond quarterly numbers to Nvidia’s GTC conference in mid-March. The chipmaker will outline its inference roadmap using Groq’s low-latency SRAM IP during the event.
Blackwell Delivers Major Cost Advantages
New performance metrics from SemiAnalysis revealed Blackwell’s substantial efficiency improvements this week. The latest systems achieve up to 50 times higher throughput per megawatt versus the prior Hopper generation.
These gains translate directly to lower operating costs across all latency levels. For low-latency agentic applications, costs drop by up to 35 times per million tokens compared to Hopper.
Vera Rubin hardware coming next will push performance even further. Nvidia stated Rubin will deliver 10 times higher throughput per megawatt than Blackwell systems.
Susquehanna analyst Christopher Rolland issued separate positive commentary Tuesday. He keeps a Positive rating and $250 target price, citing GB300’s continued first-half 2026 ramp.
Analysts Debate Revenue Potential
Rolland emphasized the critical question facing investors: can Nvidia exceed its $500 billion cumulative revenue target? That projection covered Blackwell and Rubin chip sales from early 2025 through 2026.
The market is watching whether Nvidia maintains dominance as demand shifts toward inference from training. Inference generates AI model outputs and is expected to surge with AI agent adoption.
Citi argued hyperscaler capital spending increases will produce long-term returns. The firm expects Nvidia to lead across training and reasoning-focused inference despite rising competition.
Malik projects fiscal 2027 gross margins around 75% with operating expense growth in the high-30% range. The March GTC conference should provide early 2026-2027 AI sales outlook.
Advanced Micro Devices dropped 4.9% while Broadcom fell 2.4% in early Tuesday trading. Rolland maintains Nvidia has one of the largest opportunity sets in the semiconductor sector.
