Key Takeaways

• Nvidia shed more than $279 billion in market value Tuesday in the largest single-day drop in U.S. history.

• Tuesday was the fifth day this year in which Nvidia has lost more than $200 billion in market cap; it is the only U.S. company to fall that much on more than one occasion.

• Nvidia's market cap loss Tuesday was roughly equal to the company's market value on October 14, 2022, shortly before its stock took off on the AI investment boom.

Nvidia (NVDA) shares tumbled 9.5% on Tuesday, their biggest daily decline since April and their fourth largest this decade. The rout erased about $279 billion from Nvidia's market capitalization, breaking the record for the biggest one-day drop in a U.S. public company's market value.

The previous holder of that unenviable title was Meta Platforms (META), which plummeted 26% on February 3, 2022, erasing $232 billion from its market cap after issuing disappointing guidance that the company blamed on privacy policy changes by Apple and fierce competition from rival social media platforms like TikTok.

The only other U.S. company to have ever lost more than $200 billion in value in a single day is Amazon (AMZN), which shed more than $206 billion on April 29, 2022, when it also gave investors disappointing revenue guidance.

Volatile Months for Nvidia Stock

Nvidia's decline on Tuesday also made it the only U.S. company to have lost more than $200 billion of market value on more than one occasion. And it hasn't done so just once; it's happened four other times, all this year: April 19 (-$209 billion), June 24 (-$208 billion), July 17 (-$206 billion), and July 24 (-$205 billion).

The last two months have been a roller-coaster ride for Nvidia stock and its owners, with ascents as dramatic as its drops. On July 31, Nvidia gained $326 billion in market value, making it the only U.S. company to post a single-day gain of more than $300 billion.

How Nvidia's Drop Stacks Up

To put Nvidia’s record-breaking drop into perspective, $279 billion is:

• Equal to Nvidia's market capitalization on October 14, 2022;

• Greater than the individual market caps of Chevron (CVX), PepsiCo (PEP), and its biggest direct competitor, Advanced Micro Devices (AMD);

• More than the market value of all but 26 companies (including Nvidia) in the S&P 500;

• More than the combined value of Tesla's (TSLA) two largest market-cap losses;

• Greater than the gross domestic product of Peru, New Zealand, and Iraq;

• $50 billion more than Costco's (COST) total sales in the first seven months of this year;

• More than the combined market value of the small-cap Russell 2000's 35 largest components, including Abercrombie & Fitch (ANF) and Squarespace (SQSP);

• Equal to the assets under management of the Invesco QQQ Trust (QQQ), America's fifth-largest equity ETF;

• More than one-quarter of the total value of the S&P 500 Materials sector;

• More than the combined value of Walt Disney (DIS), Electronic Arts (EA), Take-Two Interactive (TTWO), Live Nation Entertainment (LYV), and Warner Bros. Discovery (WBD)—five of the six S&P 500 entertainment companies;

• Just shy of the value of the S&P 500's largest entertainment company: Netflix (NFLX; $289 billion)

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