Topic: Growth Stocks

Bitcoin and self-driving cars rely on this stock’s ingenuity

This tech stock has soared as it continues to discover new uses for its chips, including the ‘mining’ of bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies.

The company spends heavily on research, which can depress its earnings, but which also produces chips that are in high demand. At the same time, the stock, which has risen by 113% in the past year, is trading at a very high 53 times its projected earnings for 2018.


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NVIDIA CORP.  (Nasdaq symbol NVDA; www.nvidia.com) is a leading designer of 3D-capable video chips; they make video games run more smoothly and appear more lifelike.

The stock has reached new highs in recent months, as the shares have risen by 113% in the past year. That’s partly because Nvidia continues to find new uses for its graphic chips. Those include powering self-driving cars, data centres and computer systems for artificial intelligence.

As well, the company has gained as its chips greatly speed up the “mining” of cryptocurrencies like bitcoin.

Miners use powerful computers to decode and verify bitcoin transactions. They then add those transactions to the electronic ledger, or “blockchain,” that records all bitcoin transactions. Each cryptocurrency has its own blockchain. Although miners work with more than one currency, they get paid for each transaction they validate in the currency of that transaction—whether it’s bitcoin or otherwise.

Bitcoin surged to a new high in December 2017, but has moved down since then. If its value continues to fall, that could hurt future demand for Nvidia’s chips. New ways to verify bitcoin transactions could also hurt its sales.

Many companies are also choosing Nvidia’s chips to power their self-driving car technology. Last week, the company signed new deals with the Uber Technologies ride-sharing service and German automaker Volkswagen.

So far, over 320 carmakers, auto suppliers, mapping companies and software developers are using the company’s self-driving car products. They’re sold under the Nvidia Drive brand.

Growth stocks: Chinese online giants ready to adopt Volta chips

Nvidia reported record third-quarter revenue of $2.64 billion for the three months ended October 29, 2017. That’s up 32.0% from $2 billion a year earlier and 18.0% from the previous quarter. Per-share profits rose 60.0%, to $1.33 from $0.83 a year earlier.

The company’s research costs in the latest quarter jumped 23.8%, to $462 million from $373 million a year earlier. Thanks to its research spending, Nvidia was able to release its new Volta chip earlier this year. That product is five times faster than the company’s older Pascal chip.

The company recently announced that Chinese online giants Alibaba, Baidu and Tencent will adopt Volta chips, joining Amazon, Facebook, Google and Microsoft.

The company’s balance sheet remains sound. As of October 29, 2017, it held cash and investments of $6.3 billion, or $10.4 a share. Its long-term debt of $2.0 billion is a low 2% of its market cap.

Nvidia announced a dividend increase of 7.0%, to $0.15 a share from $0.14, with the December 15, 2017 payment. The $0.56 annual dividend yields 0.3%.

The stock now trades at 53.2 times the $4.19 a share Nvidia will probably earn in fiscal 2018. What’s more, the recent discovery of security flaws in a wide range of computer chips, including Nvidia’s products, could force the company to delay new shipments while it works on a software fix.

Recommendation in Wall Street Stock Forecaster: Nvidia is still a hold.

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