Nvidia on Wednesday became the first public company to reach a market capitalization of $5 trillion.
The ravenous appetite for the Silicon Valley company's chips is the main reason that the company’s stock price has increased so rapidly since early 2023.
Nvidia carved out an early lead in tailoring its chipsets known as graphics processing units, or GPUs, from use in powering video games to helping to train powerful AI systems, like the technology behind ChatGPT and image generators. Demand skyrocketed as more people began using AI chatbots. Tech companies scrambled for more chips to build and run them.
Nvidia’s journey to be one of the world's most prominent companies has produced some eye-popping numbers. Here’s a look.
The percentage of stock-focused mutual funds and exchange traded funds tracked by Morningstar Direct with exposure to Nvidia. That's 1,435 out of 6,198, and the exposure totaled about $1.3 trillion in market value across all the funds.
Nvidia’s total market capitalization as of the close of trading Wednesday, tops in the S&P 500.
Microsoft at $4.025 trillion and Apple at $4 trillion were next among the most valuable companies in the S&P 500. In all, nine companies in the index have market cap's above $1 trillion.
The number of trading days it took for Nvidia's market cap to grow from $4 trillion to $5 trillion. The market cap had jumped from $3 trillion on May 13, to $4 trillion on July 9 (41 trading days), although Nvidia had crossed and fallen back below the $3 trillion threshold a number of times between June 2024 and May 2025 before making the run to $4 trillion.
The company's contribution to the gain in the S&:P 500 this year as of Sept. 30, according to S&P Dow Jones Indices. Nvidia shares gained 39% in the first nine months of the year.
The net worth of Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang, according to Forbes, putting him eighth on its Real-Time Billionaires List. Elon Musk is No. 1 at $500.2 billion.
The gross domestic product of Japan, the world's fourth largest economy, according to the International Monetary Fund.
The amount of money Nvidia said it returned to shareholders in the form of stock buybacks and dividends in the first half of fiscal 2026.
NVIDIA CEO Jensen Huang speaks on how AI infrastructure and AI factories that generate intelligence at scale are powering a new industrial revolution, at Washington Convention Center, Tuesday, Oct. 28, 2025, in Washington. (AP Photo/Manuel Balce Ceneta)
NEW YORK (AP) — Stocks are rushing higher worldwide, and oil prices are easing Wednesday as hopes build that the war with Iran could end soon. That's even though some of the signals investors saw as hopeful are already under dispute, and several prior bouts of optimism in financial markets quickly got undercut by continued, fierce fighting in the war.
The S&P 500 rose 0.8% and added to its leap from the day before, which was its best since last spring. That followed even bigger gains for stock markets across Europe and Asia, including an 8.4% surge in South Korea, which were catching up to Wall Street’s rally from Tuesday.
The Dow Jones Industrial Average was up 357 points, or 0.8%, as of 10:45 a.m. Eastern time, and the Nasdaq composite was 1.2% higher.
Oil prices also fell back toward $100 per barrel after President Donald Trump claimed shortly before Wall Street began trading that Iran “has just asked the United States of America for a CEASEFIRE!”
“We will consider when Hormuz Strait is open, free, and clear. Until then, we are blasting Iran into oblivion or, as they say, back to the Stone Ages!!!”
Trump had also said the night before that the U.S. military could end its offensive in two to three weeks. That added to optimism following a couple tenuous signals of hope from earlier Tuesday that Wall Street latched onto, including a news report quoting Iran’s president as saying that it has “the necessary will to end the war” as long as certain requirements are met, including “guarantees to prevent a recurrence of aggression.”
The worry on Wall Street has been that the war may last a long time and keep oil and natural gas from the Persian Gulf out of global markets, which could create a brutal blast of inflation.
But hope has been quick to reverse to doubt on Wall Street, triggering manic swings back and forth for financial markets since the war with Iran began. Trump has also made statements that lifted markets, only to see the gains quickly disappear after increasing his military threats against Iran. Investors say Trump’s statements are becoming less impactful for financial markets.
Iran’s Foreign Ministry spokesman, Esmail Baghaei, called Trump’s claim about asking for a ceasefire “false and baseless,” according to a report on Iranian state television.
And oil prices remain high, even if they’ve eased so far this week. The price for a barrel of Brent crude oil, the international standard, was sitting at $101.83 following its declines, which is still up from roughly $70 before the war began.
U.S. gasoline prices rose again overnight to a national average of $4.06 per gallon, according to the auto club AAA.
Iran, meanwhile, hit an oil tanker off the coast of Qatar and Kuwait’s airport on Wednesday while airstrikes battered Tehran as the fighting continued. Iran also continues to hold a grip on the Strait of Hormuz, where a fifth of the world’s traded oil passes during peacetime.
“De-escalation hopes have given markets a lift, but we think the effects of the war would, in many cases, persist even if the war did end soon,” Thomas Mathews, head of markets, Asia Pacific at Capital Economics, said in a research note Wednesday.
“It’s worth thinking through how markets might fare if the war were to end ‘very soon,’” he wrote. “Do markets have further to recover if sentiment continues to improve? The answer is almost certainly yes.”
The White House said Trump will deliver a public address Wednesday evening on the Iran war.
On Wall Street, the majority of stocks rose, with Big Tech powering the move higher. Gains of 2.5% for Alphabet and 1% for Nvidia were two of the strongest forces lifting the S&P 500.
They helped offset a 14.3% drop for Nike, which fell even though it reported a stronger profit for the latest quarter than expected. Analysts said it gave some lackluster financial forecasts.
Hasbro fell 3.8% after the toy company found someone had gained unauthorized access to its computer network and is working to assess the full impact.
In stock markets abroad, indexes leaped more than 1.5% in France, Germany and the United Kingdom. Asian markets had even bigger gains.
Tokyo’s Nikkei 225 jumped 5.2% after a survey by Japan’s central bank showed business sentiment for major Japanese manufacturers improved despite worries about the Iran war.
In the bond market, Treasury yields held relatively steady after a report said U.S. retailers made more money in February than economists expected. A separate report said U.S. manufacturing growth last month was slightly faster than economists expected.
The 10-year Treasury yield rose to 4.31% from 4.30% late Tuesday.
AP Business Writers Chan Ho-him and Matt Ott contributed.
James Conti works on the floor at the New York Stock Exchange in New York, Tuesday, March 31, 2026. (AP Photo/Seth Wenig)
Philip Finale works on the floor at the New York Stock Exchange in New York, Tuesday, March 31, 2026. (AP Photo/Seth Wenig)
Currency traders watch monitors near a screen showing the Korea Composite Stock Price Index (KOSPI), left, at the foreign exchange dealing room of the Hana Bank headquarters in Seoul, South Korea, Wednesday, April 1, 2026. (AP Photo/Ahn Young-joon)
Currency traders watch monitors near a screen showing the Korea Composite Stock Price Index (KOSPI), top center, and the foreign exchange rate between U.S. dollar and South Korean won, top center left, at the foreign exchange dealing room of the Hana Bank headquarters in Seoul, South Korea, Wednesday, April 1, 2026. (AP Photo/Ahn Young-joon)
Currency traders work at the foreign exchange dealing room of the Hana Bank headquarters in Seoul, South Korea, Wednesday, April 1, 2026. (AP Photo/Ahn Young-joon)
A currency trader reacts near a screen showing the Korea Composite Stock Price Index (KOSPI), right, and the foreign exchange rate between U.S. dollar and South Korean won at the foreign exchange dealing room of the Hana Bank headquarters in Seoul, South Korea, Wednesday, April 1, 2026. (AP Photo/Ahn Young-joon)
A screen displays financial information on the floor at the New York Stock Exchange in New York, Tuesday, March 31, 2026. (AP Photo/Seth Wenig)
