NVIDIA's decade in monthly candles: a 274-fold rise with two crashes inside it
- NVIDIA's monthly close went from a split-adjusted $0.73 in January 2016 to $200.75 in July 2026, a 274-fold rise. In May 2026 it became the first company valued above $5.5 trillion.
- The rise contained two crashes that each cut the stock by more than half: 52.5 percent from September to December 2018, and 62.9 percent from November 2021 to September 2022, on monthly closes.
- As of July 2026 the stock sits 15 percent below the record $236.54 it touched in May. At this scale that is a footnote: the chart's worst single month, April 2022, lost 32 percent on its own.
What's happening
The chart draws NVIDIA's share price as one candle per month: the body runs from the month's opening price to its close, the wick spans its high and low, green means the month closed up, red means down. Eighty-four of the 127 months are green. Read left to right, the story is three long climbs separated by two deep red stretches, and that shape is the point: the biggest equity winner of the decade spent years of it going down.
A line chart of the same data would show the destination. The candles show the ride, and the ride is what a holder actually had to sit through.
Two crashes inside the rise
The first break came in late 2018, when the crypto-mining bust left a glut of unsold gaming cards: the close fell 52.5 percent in four months, from $7.03 in September to $3.34 in December. The second was longer and deeper. From the November 2021 close of $32.68 the stock slid to $12.14 by September 2022, down 62.9 percent, as the pandemic tech run unwound and rates rose; April 2022 alone lost 32 percent, the worst month of the series.
What followed the second crash is the part everyone knows. From that $12.14 close, the stock rose more than sixteen-fold in under four years as data-center revenue became the company's engine. Even that stretch was not smooth: it contained pullbacks of 17.4 percent in late 2023 and 21.6 percent between November 2024 and March 2025.
What the candles add
Monthly candles compress each month's argument into one mark. The tall green candle of May 2017, up 38.4 percent, marks the moment data-center revenue first changed the story. The long wicks through 2022 show months that traded in wide ranges before closing near their lows, which is what distribution looks like. And the 2023 to 2026 stretch is a wall of green bodies with short wicks: steady accumulation, little contest. The record itself came in May 2026, when the stock touched $236.54 in the month the company's value passed $5.5 trillion.
What to watch
Whether the pullback that started after May's record stays in the 15 to 22 percent range of the 2023 to 2026 climbs or deepens toward the older 50-percent class. Where the next monthly candles close relative to $236.54, the level that now defines the top of the chart. And Intel's candles over the same months, which tell the other half of the semiconductor decade.
Common questions
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What was NVIDIA's worst crash?
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