Nvidia short sellers make $5 billion from three-day selloff, data shows

Nvidia (NVDA.O) short sellers have raked in nearly $5 billion in paper profits from the AI chip designer’s sharp selloff over just three sessions earlier this week, according to data analytics firm Ortex Technologies.

The stock has slumped 13 per cent and lost $430 billion in market capitalization since June 18, when it briefly became the world’s most valuable company following a meteoric rise.

Short sellers made $2.40 billion off Nvidia’s 6.6 per cent fall on Monday, Ortex said, the highest one-day gain since the start of their data in 2019.

Some market participants have attributed Nvidia’s pullback to investors rotating out of high-flying AI stocks and into other sectors as 2024 approaches the half-way mark.

Despite recent declines, optimism around Nvidia’s role in powering the artificial intelligence boom has driven the stock up 145 per cent this year, the second-best performer on the S&P 500 (.SPX).