NVIDIA Insiders Sell: This Is What It Means for the Market
NVIDIA (NASDAQ: NVDA) insiders are selling in Q1 2025, and it poses no threat to the market. The insider selling has not only subsided to a multi-year low, but the sales are small and align with share-based compensation trends.
NVIDIA insiders, including board members, get restricted stock units or RSUs as compensation. Those come with restrictions and vesting schedules, often leading to a slow trickle of selling over time.
Even so, the insiders, including CEO Jenson Huang, own more than 4% of the company and would have little impact on the share price without them unexpectedly dumping massive amounts of shares. That is unlikely for many reasons.
NVIDIA’s Rising SBC Costs Offset by Growth, Repurchases, and Institutional Buying
NVIDIA’s share-based compensation expense topped $1.32 billion in FQ4 2024 and $4.737 billion for the year, up more than 30% annually on performance awards. The cost is about 3.6% of the 2024 revenue, a significant expense, but likely to fall in dollar value and as a percentage of revenue in 2025.
Revenue is forecasted to grow by more than 57%. It will likely outpace the consensus estimates due to underlying momentum in the data center business, expanding AI verticals, and the Blackwell Ultra upgrade cycle.
NVIDIA also repurchases shares, offsetting the impact of SBC dilution. The repurchases in Q4 and FY2024 reduced the count by 0.52% for the year, improving shareholder leverage, and are expected to continue in 2025. The balance sheet details support the argument that share repurchases will accelerate with the cash balance growing 66% annually and a net cash position relative to total liability approaching $11 billion.
Likewise, NVIDIA’s token dividend is also highly safe at less than 2% of earnings and may increase substantially in the coming years.
Contrary to insider activity, which has declined substantially, institutional activity remains robust in Q1. Institutional selling picked up in Q4 2024 and ramped up in Q1 2025, but the buying volume offset it, netting $70 billion in shares for the quarter. That’s worth more than 2.3% of the market cap, with the stock trading near the middle of a long-term trading range, and aligns with the bullish analysts' sentiment.
The Analysts Indicate Broad-Based, Strong Support for NVIDIA
The analysts’ trends indicate strong, broad-based support for NVIDIA. MarketBeat’s data reveals coverage is up 30% in two years, the Moderate Buy rating has a bullish bias with 39 of 42, or 92%, of analysts rating at Buy or higher, and the price target is increasing. The consensus is up 90% in the 12 months preceding April 1, 2025, and 2% in March, with revisions leading to the high-end range. That is significant because the consensus puts this semiconductor stock at $171, a 45% gain from critical support levels and a new all-time high when reached; the high-end range is over $200 and adds 15% to 30%.
Catalysts for NVIDIA include the growing importance of AI and AI-related services across sectors, industries, and verticals. Advances in autonomous vehicles, robotics, and agentic applications are only part of the story.
Acquisitions like Gretel enhance NVIDIA’s value to AI, helping it retain its leadership position and first-mover advantage. Gretel is a multi-modal synthetic data platform that creates data sets for training AI that look like accurate data.
NVIDIA’s Share Price Is Range Bound in 2025
The fear of NVIDIA correcting substantially more than it has since hitting all-time highs in early January has subsided. In its place is the growing acceptance that NVIDIA’s stock is range-bound and may remain that way until a new catalyst emerges.
That may come with the next earnings release or in the news cycle. Not only are Trump’s tariffs a potential problem for NVIDIA, but export restrictions also cut into the outlook.
