Nvidia stock crash saw retail investors dump more than $900 million into the name

Nvidia (NVDA) stock tanked on Monday, falling more than 17% and losing nearly $600 billion off its market cap as investors digested the growing popularity of a new cost-effective artificial intelligence model from the Chinese startup DeepSeek.

But retail investors bought the dip. Data from VandaTrack shows retail investors bought more than $562 million of the name on Monday, the largest single-day inflow into the stock in VandaTrack’s data. On Tuesday, as the stock rebounded and rose roughly 9%, there was once again a large swath of retail buying totaling nearly $360 million. Across the two days of chaotic market action, retail investors sent more than $920 million into shares of Nvidia.

Wall Street strategists largely agreed with retail investors’ bullish outlook on the name.

“We think this is probably going to end up a ‘buy the dip’ Nvidia moment,” Fundstrat head of Research Tom Lee said in a video to clients on Monday night.

Bank of America research analyst Vivek Arya provided similar sentiment in a note to clients on Wednesday, saying the recent drawdown in Nvidia, Broadcom (AVGO), and Marvell (MRVL) provided an “enhanced [buying] opportunity.”

The team behind DeepSeek, the artificial intelligence model maker, claimed that its new AI model uses cheaper chips and less data. Investors grew concerned this could hurt future AI chip sales for a company like Nvidia as well as bring into question the dominance of US hyperscalers in the market. It could also challenge a consistent trend in the bull market of Nvidia and other Big Tech companies seeing their earnings estimates revised higher.

Bernstein’s Stacy Rasgon told Yahoo Finance’s Seana Smith the DeepSeek-driven sell-off was “overblown.” Rasgon added that the new developments don’t spell out “doomsday for AI infrastructure.”