The only analyst recommending to sell Nvidia: "No one will be excited"

While Nvidia stock surged in after-hours trading following strong reports and an exceptional annual forecast, one analyst on Wall Street remains in his position: Jay Goldberg, a senior analyst at the investment firm Seaport Research Partners, holds the only "sell" recommendation on the stock.

According to Bloomberg data, about 96% of analysts following Nvidia recommend a "buy," alongside two "hold" recommendations and a single sell recommendation — his. His central argument is not that Nvidia is a bad company, but that it simply cannot surprise the market to the upside anymore.

Goldberg's argument is perhaps the opposite of what we would expect: "Wow, these are impressive numbers — but no one will be excited by this." Why? "Because Nvidia sold everything. Very simply," he explained. "They have been saying this for a long time. They sold all their inventory for this year, and probably for next year too. We all know their capacity, and therefore it is very difficult for them to surprise to the upside."

In other words: when a company is supply-constrained and sells every unit it is capable of producing, it has no "room" to beat expectations dramatically. Goldberg noted that in the current reporting season, many companies surprised massively to the upside — but Nvidia, by the very fact that it received orders for its entire capacity, simply cannot do so.

It is important to be precise: Goldberg himself clarified that his "sell" recommendation is essentially an "underperform" recommendation. "I always positioned my sell rating more as underperform," he said. "Seaport defines it structurally as a 'sell,' but I always presented it to clients as underperform. Other companies will do better than Nvidia."

And the data supports him, at least in the recent term: Nvidia is one of the worst-performing stocks in the semiconductor index (SOX) over the past year. His point touches on the core of an analyst's work: it is not enough for a company to be excellent — the question is whether its stock will achieve better performance than the alternatives. "We care a lot about relative performance," he said, "and it's just not happening here. It's not leading, it's not surprising to the upside."

Beyond the argument about Nvidia's pre-sales, Goldberg lists several concrete risks that could weigh on the stock in the coming year:

1. Delays in data centers. According to him, there is a real chance that significant projects will be delayed next year for political reasons, and the supply chain is "incredibly stressed."

2. Increasing competition. This is perhaps the most important point for the investor. Goldberg notes that Nvidia will face increasing competition next year from AMD, from Google with its TPU chips, and even from key customers like Anthropic and OpenAI, which are developing their own chips (such as the "Jalapeño" chip). "Not all of them will succeed," he admitted, "but enough of them will succeed that one must assume Nvidia will see additional pressure on margins."

Important note: the pressure on margins is not just a theoretical scenario. Nvidia itself announced in the investor call a "reset of expectations" for gross profitability due to a jump in memory prices — so some of Goldberg's concern has already been confirmed by the company itself.

In fairness, Goldberg himself pointed to scenarios where his position might turn out to be wrong: if Nvidia achieves more production capacity, if it starts selling products that are not supply-constrained (like the LPU accelerator from Groq), or if it starts generating significant revenue from software. All three of these could break the "pre-sold" ceiling he describes.

And here is the place to mention the big picture: the forecast that Nvidia gave in the investor call — 70% growth in 2028, with management emphasizing that actual demand is close to 100% — stands in direct contrast to Goldberg's thesis. If the company manages to expand supply as it promises, the "room for surprise" that Goldberg claims does not exist — may actually open up.

Goldberg's minority position is a reminder in a market where almost everyone agrees. Even if you share the optimism around Nvidia, it is worth understanding the counter-argument: a stock can be of an excellent company and still underperform, simply because expectations are already priced in.

For the Israeli investor who holds exposure to Nvidia through index-tracking funds, the risk is not that the company will "fail," but that the growth, impressive as it may be, is already priced in.