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# NVIDIA: The Five-Year Numbers Still Compound — the Stock Just Made a New Low
- URL: https://www.altamiraequity.com/nvda-company-insights-2026-11/
- Published: 2026-11-13T18:10:10.000Z
- Updated: 2026-11-13T18:10:10.000Z
- Description: NVIDIA has grown revenue at a 66.90% compound rate since FY2021 and expanded operating margin by 3,320 basis points. The stock closed at a 52-week low today, 46.82% below the one published fair value that has followed it the longest. This note reads the record and the tape side by side.
- Author: Altamira Capital
- Tags: Research, Company Insights, Technology, NVDA, #qc-pass

*Revenue CAGR 66.90% (FY2021–FY2026) · operating margin +3,320 bp to 60.38% · ROIC 62.88% (FY2026), down from 75.28% the year before · close 164.87, a new 52-week low, 46.82% below the Morningstar fair value of 310.00*

### The story in 30 seconds

- The five-year record is one of the fastest compounding stories in the KPI Scorecard universe: revenue grew from $16.68B in FY2021 to $215.94B in FY2026, a 66.90% compound rate, while operating margin expanded 3,320 basis points to 60.38% and free cash flow compounded at 83.13%.
- The price says something else. The stock closed today at 164.87, a new 52-week low, down 5.56% on the day, 25.50% over the past month and 26.78% over three months. It now trades 23.65% below its own 50-day average and 19.32% below its 200-day average.
- The open question is whether the technical score of 13.7 — the weakest cell on an otherwise top-tier scorecard — is pricing a real deceleration (ROIC already fell from 75.28% to 62.88% year over year) or has simply outrun three independent fair-value models that all sit well above the current price.

NVIDIA's fundamental composite on the Altamira KPI Scorecard is 87.4, built from a quality pillar of 92.2, a growth pillar of 100.0 and a moat pillar of 82.9 — among the strongest profiles the scorecard tracks. The same edition scores the stock's technical state at 13.7 and labels it DRIFTING, tier 3, a blended total of 65.3 against a company that just posted its weakest one-day move and a new 52-week low on the same afternoon this note was built. A reader looking only at the fundamentals would call this one of the cheapest top-tier names on the sheet; a reader looking only at the chart would call it broken. Both readings use real numbers, and this note sets out what each one is actually measuring.

NVIDIA sells graphics processing units and the networking and software that go with them, split across gaming (GeForce), professional visualization, data-center compute and automotive — a business that has moved, over five fiscal years, from a $16.68B gaming-and-workstation company to a $215.94B data-center and AI-compute company with the same name. The margin and return-on-capital record below is the data-center transition showing up in the filed statements; the price record is what the market is doing with that transition nine trading sessions before the next print.

In this post: (1) how the business makes money today, from the latest filed quarter; (2) the five-year record across four lenses; (3) what the cash and share-count lines say about the quality of the earnings; (4) what the price already assumes against three published fair-value models; (5) the scorecard's own read, pillar by pillar; (6) the honest counterweight and the Key Issue ahead of the November 17 print.

### How NVIDIA makes money

![NVIDIA Q2 FY2027 income flow: a revenue dollar loses 25 cents to cost of revenue and 9 cents to operating expenses before tax. Source: company filings via FMP.](https://www.altamiraequity.com/content/images/2026/11/NVDA-2026-11-12-income_flow.png)

NVIDIA Q2 FY2027 income flow: a revenue dollar loses 25 cents to cost of revenue and 9 cents to operating expenses before tax. Source: company filings via FMP.

In the latest filed quarter, Q2 FY2027 (period ended July 26, 2026): revenue of $96.22B, up 105.85% year over year and 17.90% sequentially. Cost of revenue was $24.08B (25.02% of revenue), leaving a gross profit of $72.14B (74.98%). Operating expenses were $8,408.0M (8.74%) — R&D of $7,054.0M (7.33%) and SG&A of $1,354.0M (1.41%) — producing operating income of $63.73B, a 66.24% operating margin, up 124.10% year over year. Pre-tax income was $71.51B (74.32%); income tax of $11.82B (12.28%) left net income of $59.69B, a 62.03% net margin, up 125.90% year over year. Free cash flow was $21.40B, 22.24% of revenue.

The swing line quarter over quarter is free cash flow, not the income statement: operating margin was essentially flat sequentially (+64 bp) while free-cash-flow margin fell 3,729 basis points, from 59.53% the quarter before to 22.24% — the subject of the quality-of-earnings section below.

### The long view — FY2021 to FY2026

![NVIDIA, FY2021–FY2026: revenue, operating margin, free-cash-flow margin and ROIC. Source: FMP annual statements and key metrics.](https://www.altamiraequity.com/content/images/2026/11/NVDA-2026-11-12-long_view.png)

NVIDIA, FY2021–FY2026: revenue, operating margin, free-cash-flow margin and ROIC. Source: FMP annual statements and key metrics.

- **Revenue growth.** $16.68B in FY2021 to $215.94B in FY2026, a 66.90% compound rate. The pace has not been linear — FY2023 revenue of $26.97B was essentially flat against FY2022's $26.91B — but the three years since have each more than doubled the one before (FY2024 $60.92B, FY2025 $130.50B, FY2026 $215.94B).
- **Operating margin.** 27.18% in FY2021, a trough of 15.66% in FY2023, then 54.12% in FY2024, 62.42% in FY2025 and 60.38% in FY2026 — 3,320 basis points of net expansion across the five years, with the most recent year down 204 basis points from the FY2025 peak.
- **Cash.** Free-cash-flow margin moved from 28.15% in FY2021 to a trough of 14.12% in FY2023, then to 44.77% in FY2026; free cash flow compounded at 83.13%, faster than the 66.90% revenue rate.
- **ROIC.** 17.14% in FY2021 to a peak of 75.28% in FY2025, then down to 62.88% in FY2026 — the only one of the four lenses where the most recent year moved backward rather than forward, even as revenue and operating income both kept growing.

### Quality of earnings

Net income in the latest quarter grew 125.90% year over year to $59.69B, roughly in line with the 105.85% revenue growth and ahead of it on margin expansion. Free cash flow did not keep pace in the same quarter: $21.40B was 35.85% of net income, down sharply from the 59.53% free-cash-flow margin posted the quarter before, even though operating cash flow of $24.08B was healthy against capital expenditure of just $2,677.0M. The gap between a 62.03% net margin and a 22.24% free-cash-flow margin in the same quarter is the single cell most worth re-checking against the next print's cash-flow statement, since the filed summary does not break out the working-capital or inventory movement behind it.

Diluted share count was 24,285,000,000, down 1.01% year over year and 0.43% sequentially — a business returning capital through buybacks of $19.73B in the quarter and dividends of $6,047.0M, against net income of $59.69B. The balance sheet at July 26, 2026 carried $99.37B of cash and short-term investments against $38.86B of total debt, for net debt of $16.42B — modest leverage against $228.98B of shareholders' equity.

### Valuation — what the price already says

![NVIDIA: the last close against each published fair value. Source: Altamira KPI Scorecard fair-value cells as published; FMP daily close.](https://www.altamiraequity.com/content/images/2026/11/NVDA-2026-11-12-valuation.png)

NVIDIA: the last close against each published fair value. Source: Altamira KPI Scorecard fair-value cells as published; FMP daily close.

At the November 12, 2026 close of 164.87, the stock sits below all three fair-value figures the KPI Scorecard carries for NVIDIA:

| Source                 | Fair value | As of      | Price vs fair value | Fair value vs price |
| ---------------------- | ---------- | ---------- | ------------------- | ------------------- |
| Altamira 10-year DCF   | 218.20     | n/a        | −24.44%             | +32.35%             |
| FMP DCF                | 243.30     | 2026-11-07 | −32.24%             | +47.58%             |
| Morningstar fair value | 310.00     | 2026-08-27 | −46.82%             | +88.03%             |

The published range runs from 218.20 to 310.00 — every model above the current price, with the gap widest against the Morningstar figure (margin of safety 43.96%) and narrowest against Altamira's own in-house DCF. Fair value is stated as published in the dataset; analyst price targets are excluded from this comparison (R7). On a trailing basis the stock trades at a P/E of 20.71 with a free-cash-flow yield of 3.20% and ROIC of 59.50%.

### The scorecard read

![NVIDIA: the six KPI scorecard pillars. Source: Altamira KPI Scorecard.](https://www.altamiraequity.com/content/images/2026/11/NVDA-2026-11-12-scorecard.png)

NVIDIA: the six KPI scorecard pillars. Source: Altamira KPI Scorecard.

The November 12, 2026 edition of the Altamira KPI Scorecard has NVIDIA at a fundamental composite of 87.4 — quality 92.2, growth 100.0, moat 82.9 and health 98.5 all near the top of the pillar scale, value 82.7 and shareholder 64.3 a step behind. The technical score is 13.7, the weakest cell by a wide margin, producing a blended total of 65.3, tier 3, grade B, state DRIFTING, rank 60 with a one-day delta of 0.0\. Five of the six fundamental pillars sit well above the technical pillar's 13.7; that one pillar alone is the reason the blended total sits well below the fundamental composite.

### The honest counterweight

Three cells argue against reading the fair-value gap as simply mispriced.

- **ROIC turned down this year.** Return on invested capital fell from 75.28% in FY2025 to 62.88% in FY2026 — still extraordinary by any peer standard, but the first year-over-year decline in the series, and a genuine data point for anyone arguing the growth rate itself is decelerating.
- **The technical state is DRIFTING, not merely weak.** A score of 13.7 against a 52-week-low close is not a single bad day; the stock is 23.65% below its 50-day average and 19.32% below its 200-day average, and the scorecard's own state label reflects a trend, not a snapshot.
- **Free-cash-flow conversion weakened in the same quarter net income grew fastest.** A 3,729-basis-point sequential drop in free-cash-flow margin, even with a clean explanation available in capital intensity, is the kind of cell that needs to reverse in the next print rather than simply be explained away.

### The Key Issue

Whether the November 17, 2026 print — consensus revenue of $108.84B (+90.93% YoY) and EPS of 2.47 (+90.00% YoY implied against the prior quarter's actual) — shows free-cash-flow margin recovering toward the 45%–60% range the company ran for three of the last five quarters, or confirms the lower conversion seen this quarter as the new pattern. That single cell, more than the share price, is what would resolve the gap between the fundamental composite and the technical score.

![NVIDIA free-cash-flow margin by quarter, last nine quarters: 59.53% in Q1 FY2027, then 22.24% in Q2 FY2027, against a shaded 45% to 60% band](https://www.altamiraequity.com/content/images/2026/11/nvda-2026-11-12-fcf-margin.png)

Free-cash-flow margin by quarter for the last nine quarters, with the 45%–60% band the Key Issue refers to shaded. Q2 FY2027's 22.24% is the lowest of the nine and the 59.53% the quarter before is the highest. Source: FMP quarterly cash-flow and income statements.

### Sources

- FMP /stable/earnings (actuals vs consensus, eight quarters), /historical/earning\_calendar/NVDA (report timing), /historical-price-full/NVDA (daily closes; moving averages, ranges and the day's move computed from them) — pulled November 12, 2026.
- FMP /income-statement, /cash-flow-statement, /balance-sheet-statement (quarterly, nine quarters; the Q2 FY2027 statements filed August 26, 2026) and the annual statements plus /key-metrics for FY2021–FY2026 — pulled November 12, 2026.
- FMP /analyst-estimates and /key-metrics-ttm — pulled November 12, 2026.
- Altamira KPI Scorecard, edition 2026-11-12 (kpi-scorecard-2026-11-12.json): composite, pillar and technical scores, tier, state and fair-value cells as published. Fair value is stated as published in the dataset.
- Guidance, segment detail and management commentary: NOT STATED — the earnings-call transcript is not in the dataset for this edition.

Research for information only — not investment advice; see Disclosures.

### On the data pages

- [NVDA company page](https://www.altamiraequity.com/company-nvda/) — the filed figures, margins, cash flow and the print history, from SEC EDGAR.
- [NVDA vs ADBE, head to head](https://www.altamiraequity.com/compare/#NVDA-vs-ADBE) — the two on the same scorecard cells (top composite in Technology (kpi-scorecard-2026-11-12.json)).
- [Verdict ledger](https://www.altamiraequity.com/verdicts/) — every public call, on the record.
- [Earnings schedule](https://www.altamiraequity.com/earnings/) — who reports next, and how every print this season graded.