Almost one third of respondents in a new Bloomberg Markets Live Pulse Survey said they are turning to tech stocks, not gold, to shield themselves from inflation. And leading that pack is AI chipmaker Nvidia $NVDA.
Nvidia’s stock price has risen more than 200% in the last year, to almost $900 per share. Nvidia exceeded analysts’ earnings expectations in February, reporting revenues of $22 billion in its fourth quarter — up almost 270% from the previous year. The chipmaker’s highly desired H100 GPUs, or graphics processing units, have propelled the company to success amid a race to develop powerful generative AI models. And Nvidia became the first chipmaker to reach a $2 trillion valuation in February. The company counts Microsoft $MSFT and Meta $META as its top customers.
Investors typically buy gold as a hedge against inflation, a practice that (most likely) dates back to 1971 but became popular in lieu of the Great Recession — even though gold prices are volatile and its short-term benefits are unconvincing. Central banks across the globe bought more gold in 2022 than any year since 1967, just as the Federal Reserve began a series of interest rate hikes to bring down inflation. Persistent inflation is a top issue facing Americans in 2024, and elevated prices have delayed anticipated rate cuts from the Fed.
Investors surveyed by Bloomberg are turning to big tech stocks including Facebook parent Meta, Microsoft, Google $GOOGL parent Alphabet, Amazon $AMZN, and Apple $AAPL in addition to Nvidia. But gold is still the inflation safeguard of choice, according to the Bloomberg, with 46% of respondents saying they choose to buy it as a hedge against rising prices.
-Britney Nguyen contributed to this article.