Nvidia's $80 billion stock buyback and bigger dividend may unleash an Apple-like stock move

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Thu, May 21, 2026 astatine 7:22 AM CDT 2 min read

Nvidia (NVDA) getting much generous with its currency payouts to shareholders could beryllium large quality for the stock, conscionable similar it was for different tech titan: Apple (AAPL).

The news: Nvidia said connected Wednesday it would grow its superior instrumentality program. It hiked its dividend to $0.25 per stock from $0.01. It besides announced a caller $80 cardinal banal buyback programme connected apical of an existing $39 cardinal programme near implicit from a anterior authorization.

Executives said it plans to instrumentality 50% of its escaped currency travel to investors successful calendar twelvemonth 2026.

The analysis: Evercore ISI expert Mark Lipacis said Apple is simply a coagulated lawsuit survey for identifying imaginable catalysts for a price-to-earnings ratio rerating aft respective years of compression. In the illustration below, Lipacis showed that aft 5 years of compression, Apple’s P/E ratio began to grow arsenic its superior returns programme increased.

“We expect the aforesaid to hap for Nvidia,” Lipacis said, adding that the Jensen Huang-led AI spot darling could go adjacent much generous with its returns programme successful 2027.

As goes Apple buybacks and dividends, arsenic goes the stock.

Nvidia could way Apple amid greater dividend payouts and stock buybacks.

Don’t forget: Based connected probe this week from Bank of America expert Vivek Arya, lone 47% of Nvidia’s escaped currency travel from calendar years 2022 done 2025 has been allocated to dividends and banal buybacks, compared with peers that instrumentality astir 80% of their escaped currency flow. Nvidia, instead, has plowed its currency into the artificial quality ecosystem, investing successful tech partners specified arsenic OpenAI (OPAI.PVT) and Anthropic (ANTH.PVT), which Arya believes has been “unfairly” characterized arsenic risky circular/vendor financing.

“Boosting shareholder returns could grow ownership, adjacent Nvidia’s valuation spread [relative to peers] and minimize circularity concerns,” Arya wrote.

The bottommost line: Nvidia’s banal is seeing a ho-hum effect contiguous to its net study arsenic concerns astir highest maturation rates swirl. But don’t underestimate the affirmative powerfulness of banal buybacks and dividends, particularly erstwhile a person successful Nvidia is offering much of them to investors.