NVIDIA (NVDA) sinks in semi-final open red after GTC hype fades

Nvidia (NVDA) stock fell 1.37% to $177.93 on March 19, trailing the decline in semiconductor stocks despite Jensen Huang’s bullish GTC keynote speech a few days earlier.

The decline followed an after-hours decline in Micron Technology (MU) and a spike in oil prices related to the escalating war in Iran, adding new headwinds to a chip sector already suffering from “news-selling” fatigue.

Semiconductors break the conventional pattern

CNBC’s Mad Money host Jim Cramer noted that NVIDIA’s price action on March 19 broke a persistent pattern in which the stock would open higher only to fall throughout the session. This time it opened red from the beginning and kept going down.

“NVIDIA broke the pattern of going up and then reversing and going down. Today it started down and then went down… Could it be the other way around today?” Jim Cramer observed.

Cramer said the semiconductor sector is “very oversold” and suggested that traders should expect “at least one or two” attempts to test the moving averages.

Due to the “reverse Cramer” effect, this comment suggests a contrarian view that the current decline may cause a reversal rather than a further decline.

NVIDIA stock price performance. Source: TradingView

Regarding Micron in particular, Cramer pushed back against the bearish view, arguing that rivals like Applied Materials (AMAT), KLA and Lam Research aren’t increasing equipment production, and memory rivals SanDisk, Western Digital (WDC) and Seagate (STX) aren’t expanding capacity.

“When the smoke clears, that’s why we’re buying, not selling,” Jim Cramer said.

Micron’s record quarter sparks news-selling reaction

Micron reported second-quarter sales of $23.86 billion, nearly tripling from $8.05 billion in the year-ago period. Adjusted earnings came to $12.20 per share, beating the consensus estimate of $8.60 by more than 41%. The company also led to third-quarter sales of $33.5 billion, well above Wall Street’s expectations of $24.3 billion.

However, MU stock fell about 4.4% in after-hours trading. The stock was already up 62% year-to-date before the report was released, and investors were focused on the company’s revised outlook for fiscal 2026 capital spending of more than $25 billion, up from the previous $20 billion.

Trader Gareth Soloway cited Micron’s decline as a warning sign, citing oil prices near $100 a barrel and soaring inflation as reasons investors could face another tough trade. He noted that the chart “remains very bearish.”

GTC hype meets geopolitical reality

Jensen Huang’s GTC keynote on March 16 featured important announcements, including a projected $1 trillion in orders for Blackwell and Vera Rubin systems by 2027, a new inference chip based on Groq’s language processing unit technology, and the NemoClaw enterprise AI agent platform.

However, NVIDIA stock has not been able to maintain its rise since the event. TD Cowen analysts noted that NVIDIA’s $4.45 trillion market cap may have crossed a threshold where traditional stock dynamics no longer apply.

Amidst this, capital flow and portfolio construction constraints are holding back upside despite strengthening business fundamentals.

Brent crude oil prices soared above $119 per barrel on March 19, with pressure mounting further following Iran’s attacks on energy facilities in Qatar, Saudi Arabia and the UAE.

The broader conflict has disrupted about 20% of the world’s oil supplies that pass through the Strait of Hormuz, raising inflation expectations and weighing on growth-sensitive sectors such as semiconductors.

Whether Cramer’s “highly oversold” view is correct may depend on whether moving average support holds and whether future trading eases concerns about oil-driven inflation.

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