Record Buyback Fails to Save Selloff: Nvidia Rises as Chip Stocks Fall

Monday's close on Wall Street delivered a rare split. Despite a record share repurchase , the indexes finished red while Nvidia stayed green. According to Vittarthi data, the S&P 500 fell 0.55% to 7,700.96 and the Nasdaq lost 0.64% to 26,894.71. As Stockminded analysis puts it, one company's show of force could not carry the whole sector.

The scale is genuinely historic. As Reuters reported, the board approved an extra 150 billion dollar increase to the existing program; the remaining total reached 235 billion dollars for execution through fiscal 2028. The increase tops Apple company's 110 billion dollar authorization from 2024 as the largest single expansion on record. According to the official Nvidia statement, that amount alone exceeds the market value of about 84% of S&P 500 companies.

Why the cash machine is so generous

Jensen Huang's message runs on two tracks: AI platform shift and cash generation . According to the Nvidia announcement, the company has capacity to invest in the transformation and return cash to shareholders at the same time. The numbers back the claim: 22.44 billion dollars in cash at the end of the July quarter and 26 billion dollars returned in fiscal Q2 2027. About 20 billion came through repurchases and 6 billion through dividends, with gross margin near 75%.

The closing numbers show the weight of the pressure. The Vittarthi end-of-day roundup has the Dow down 0.43% at 51,605.33, with the fear gauge VIX up 6% at 15.77. The 10-year yield rose to 5.22% while the dollar index strengthened. Decliners included Meta, Tesla and JPMorgan. The Yahoo Finance flow left Nvidia up about 2% as the lone large winner.

The odd part sits inside chips. Stockminded calculations put the Philadelphia Semiconductor Index about 2.6% lower on the day, with Nvidia positive and the group negative. The Reuters read is that appetite for AI hardware has turned selective. That is also the host's headline thesis: the buyback failed to lift chip stocks.

Oil, bonds and September pressure

Oil and bonds worked against tech. Fading hopes for a near-term US-Iran resolution lifted crude and accelerated the Treasury selloff. The 10-year yield held above 5.22%, raising the discount rate on growth earnings. Even strong cash flow cannot defend multiples in that setting, and chip shares are sold first.

The rehearsal two weeks earlier makes today easier to read. According to Fortune, 14 September brought heavy chip selling: SOXX down 5.5%, memory ETF DRAM down 7%, Nvidia off 3.5%. Alphabet and Microsoft closed higher the same day. The Yahoo Finance close note had the Nasdaq down 0.9% and the S&P 500 down 0.77%. That split was the first signal of the hyperscaler-versus-chipmaker gap.

AI spending sits at the center of the debate. As Fortune reported, Anthropic executive Dario Amodei called for slowing model capability gains, with OpenAI and other lab leaders backing the appeal. D.A. Davidson analyst Gil Luria framed the damage on pick-and-shovel sellers: hyperscalers can pause spending, digest capacity and let cash flow rise. Star analyst Dan Ives countered that China is not slowing, noting Z.AI company's 5 billion dollar raise.

Valuation makes the buyback easier to understand. LSEG data shared via Reuters puts Nvidia at about 16.5 times 12-month forward earnings, the lowest multiple since January 2015 and far below the 15-year average of 30. Emarketer analyst Jacob Bourne reads it as confidence that AI demand has staying power even if the buildout pace cools. Quilter Cheviot executive Ben Barringer compares it to Apple company's mature-phase playbook of supporting the price with repurchases.

Seasonality adds to the load. The Motley Fool compilation shows the S&P 500 lost 1.1% on average in September since 1928, finishing negative most of the time. The Nasdaq fell 0.9% on average in September since 1971, with a similar Dow pattern since 1897. The classic reasons are post-summer rebalancing, tax-loss harvesting and rotation to defense. Fast runners such as AI chip shares feel that pressure hardest.

The host's closing line therefore holds. Nvidia won its own battle with 150 billion dollars, but the semiconductor war is bigger; cash lifts one ticker, not the sector. The company guides about 70% revenue growth for fiscal 2028, yet total buybacks fell 50% between July and September as companies turned cautious. So the headline stays unchanged: indexes lower, chips tired, Nvidia the exception.