Nvidia Grew Revenue 71% and Still Costs 21 Times Forward Earnings. The Market Is Betting the Growth Stops.

Nvidia's trailing-12-month revenue rose about 71% to $253 billion.

Quarterly revenue growth has climbed from 56% a year ago to 85% in the most recent quarter.

Guidance calls for about $91 billion of revenue in the quarter Nvidia reports next, nearly double the year-ago total.

Over the past 12 months, Nvidia (NASDAQ: NVDA) grew revenue 71% to $253 billion and more than doubled its net income, to about $160 billion. The stock, meanwhile, trades at about 21 times forward earnings (the profits the company is expected to produce over the next year) as of this writing.

That's the kind of price tag the market usually puts on a mature business with ordinary prospects -- not on the largest company in the stock market, worth about $5.1 trillion, while its revenue climbs 71% a year. A price like this says the market expects the extraordinary part of Nvidia's growth to end, and to end fairly soon.

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In the quarter Nvidia reported a year ago, revenue grew 56% year over year. In the fiscal first quarter of 2027 (the period ended April 26), revenue grew 85% year over year to $81.6 billion. For perspective, that's more revenue in one quarter than Nvidia generated in its entire fiscal 2024. And management's guidance calls for revenue of about $91 billion in the fiscal second quarter, nearly double the $46.7 billion the company generated in the same period a year earlier.

Guidance is a forecast, not a result, and forecasts can miss. But it's management's most concrete signal about demand, and it points up.