NVDA Stock Has Never Trailed SOXX This Badly In Years — Why CEO Jensen Huang's China Trip With Trump May Fix That

• Huang said he would accompany President Donald Trump on his trip to China if invited.
• The retreat in the Chinese market has been a major challenge for Nvidia and an overhang for the stock.
• NVDA gained 14% in April, compared with over 40% gains in the iShares Semiconductor ETF (SOXX).

Investor sentiment and gains across semiconductor stocks have surged to record highs lately, but the sector’s standout name, Nvidia Corp, has curiously lagged behind. Now, CEO Jensen Huang is widely expected to join Donald Trump on his diplomatic trip to China next week in a potential effort to address one of Nvidia’s biggest challenges: effectively zero sales in China.

Huang told CNBC on Thursday that he would make the trip if invited. “If invited, it would be a privilege — it would be a great honor to represent the United States and to go to China with President Trump,” he said. “We should let the president announce whatever he decides to announce.”

Semafor reported earlier that the White House was planning to invite the Nvidia CEO, along with several other tech executives, to join Trump’s trip to China. The president is scheduled to hold a high-stakes meeting with his Chinese counterpart, Xi Jinping – the visit was previously postponed due to the war in Iran.

Huang recently said Nvidia’s revenue from China has effectively dropped to zero, reiterating the detail from the company’s latest results. Just two years ago, Nvidia was a dominant chip supplier in the region before the U.S. tightened restrictions on advanced technology exports as a geopolitical lever.

At its peak, Nivida clocked $25 billion in sales from the Chinese market in 2024, about 32% of the company’s total revenue that year.

Huang has been pressing the Trump administration to ease the stalemate. While the U.S. approved sales of Nvidia’s China-compliant H200 chips earlier this year, reports suggest both Washington and Beijing are weighing specific conditions, preventing sales from meaningfully resuming so far.

NVDA Underperforms Peers

Among other factors, the China issue has been an overhang for the stock lately. Nvidia shares gained 14% in April. In comparison, the iShares Semiconductor ETF (SOXX) rallied 40.4%, recording its best month on record. Notably, the margin between NVDA and the SOXX was the widest in more than two years on Thursday, according to Barchart.
 

Retail View On NVDA

On Stocktwits, the retail sentiment for NVDA remained ‘bullish’ as of early Friday, unchanged from the previous day. 

“$NVDA Jensen going to China with Trump next week, get ready,” said a user. Another wrote: “$NVDA Many people do not realize that this is the cheapest stock in Mag 7. Way undervalued.”

NVDA stock gained 1.8% on Thursday and rose marginally in the overnight session. Sentiment was influenced by other triggers such as quarterly earnings from Nvidia’s investee companies CoreWeave and IREN Ltd. CRWV stock dropped in overnight trading, while IREN shares rose.

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