Nvidia stock was under pressure but remained relatively resilient on Friday as the rest of the chip sector continued what has become one of its worst selloffs in more than a decade.
The stock traded a fraction higher to $217.44 on Friday after a 1.8% fall to $217.23 on Thursday. Shares have declined 9% since the closing bell on Oct. 6, and closed lower in six trading sessions during that time.
The iShares Semiconductor ETF (SOXX) has fallen in all eight of the trading days since that date, its longest losing streak since September 2015. It looked set to extend the run to nine days, falling 2.2% on Friday.
Declines have been exacerbated in recent days by rising fears around the mounting debt required to fund expansions in AI, especially at cloud computing name CoreWeave.
On Thursday, Nvidia stock climbed off its lows as CEO Jensen Huang assuaged investors' fears by saying that the company did not need to backstop CoreWeave -- to which Nvidia is a supplier, customer, and investor.
The rebound, however, was short lived. Peers Advanced Micro Devices and Intel fell 3.5% and 4.1%, respectively, on Friday.
So why is Nvidia stock more resilient?
One factor could simply be that, after an extended period of declines, Nvidia -- the world's most valuable public company and darling stock of the AI trade in recent years -- now looks a bit more attractive to investors, supported by technical market indicators.
In its recent slide, Nvidia stock price fell below both its 50-day and 200-day simple moving averages (SMAs) on October 6, largely languishing below those traditional technical levels of support in the period since.
In Thursday trading, the stock fell to as low as $213, while the 50-day SMA sat at $220 and the 200-day SMA held at $224. After Huang's remarks, that differential narrowed as the stock jumped within a few cents of the 50-day level -- to $217.23 vs $217.37.
More fundamentally, it's likely that Huang's calming words have reassured investors who had fretted about Nvidia's position relative to the widespread debt fears across AI.
That could be enough for Nvidia stock itself -- but it remains to be seen if the Nvidia CEO can inspire enough confidence to spread across the chip sector and stop the widespread bleeding.
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