NVIDIA enters the final stretch before its June 24 earnings with its composite score rebounding sharply — but with AMD quietly pulling ahead on the momentum dimension that matters most to near-term price action.
The stock score recovery tells the more optimistic side of the story first. NVDA's total ORTEX score climbed to 82.1 as of May 29, up from a trough of 78.8 in early May — the weakest reading of the past month. The driver was momentum, which crashed below 49 in the first week of May and has since stabilised near 57. Quality remains the bedrock pillar at 89, anchored by a Piotroski F-score of 8, return on assets of 58%, and sustained free cash flow generation. Value, the chronic weak link, has edged up to 42 from a floor of 37 — still firmly in the bottom quartile — with EV/EBIT and price-to-FCF ratios keeping the ceiling low. The recovery is real, but incomplete.
The momentum gap with AMD is harder to dismiss. While NVDA's momentum score has clawed back to 57, AMD's equivalent reading finished May at 85 — a 28-point spread in AMD's favour that has widened steadily over the past three weeks. That gap doesn't reflect a fundamental shift in the AI trade; it reflects relative price performance and earnings-revision momentum where AMD has recently had the cleaner run. NVDA's total score of 82.1 and AMD's 81.6 look close at the headline level, but the composition is very different: NVDA leads on quality and growth by a wide margin, while AMD has reclaimed the momentum leadership it ceded earlier in the year.
Short positioning offers no drama. Short interest edged from 1.211% of the free float last week to 1.273% now — a two-basis-point move that barely registers given NVIDIA's $5.1 trillion market cap. The borrow market is close to fully unconstrained, with availability at the theoretical ceiling. Cost to borrow is just 0.18%. The lending data tells a story of complete short-seller disinterest, consistent with the note from four days ago. That picture has not changed.
The institutional register backs the long-only dominance. BlackRock added 1.8 million shares in April, pushing its stake to 7.93% — the largest reported holder. State Street and Fidelity both added in April as well. CEO Jensen Huang's personal stake has held near 3.56%, with a modest 10 million-share change since March. The ownership structure is dense with index and active managers who have no near-term catalyst to trim; the concentration means the stock's price discovery mechanism is largely a function of forward AI demand estimates, not positioning shifts.
The earnings history deserves attention. The last two confirmed prints both produced negative day-one reactions: -3.3% and -1.0% respectively, with five-day moves of -4.3% and -3.9%. That doesn't indicate structural weakness — NVDA regularly sells off immediately after results and recovers — but it does frame the June 24 setup. EPS momentum at the 72nd percentile suggests estimates are being revised higher ahead of the print; whether the bar is beatable or has moved too far up is the central question into month-end. The factor score for forward EPS year-on-year growth ranks at just the 13th percentile, which reflects how demanding the comparison base has become at this point in the AI cycle.
What to watch: whether momentum continues to close the gap with AMD between now and the June 24 print — and whether any fresh analyst target revisions follow the earnings reaction, given that the current consensus of near-universal Buys leaves very little incremental upside from further upgrades.
See the live data behind this article on ORTEX.
Open NVDA on ORTEX →ORTEX Market Intelligence content is generated by AI from a snapshot of ORTEX's proprietary data. Content is informational only and does not constitute investment advice.