NVIDIA Call Buying Hits $249M as Jensen Huang Joins Trump to China; NVDA at Record $5.5T

The options market sent a loud signal on May 14 as institutional and retail traders combined to purchase over $249M in bullish call premium across the Magnificent Seven. NVDA alone accounted for a disproportionate share, with TSLA and AAPL making up roughly 46% of total call buying. Spot NVDA broke to a fresh all-time high, becoming the first publicly traded company to reach a $5.5 trillion market capitalization.

The catalyst arrived when news broke that NVIDIA CEO Jensen Huang would travel to Beijing as part of President Trump's state visit delegation, the first by a US leader in nearly a decade. Market participants interpreted Huang's inclusion as a bullish signal on US-China technology dialogue and potential softening of export restrictions on advanced chips. The move also signaled that Beijing views NVIDIA as a negotiating partner worth engaging directly, a stark reversal from the prior two years of escalating sanctions.

Goldman Sachs and other mega-cap strategists had earlier flagged semiconductor supply-chain stress as a risk to 2026 earnings, but China policy uncertainty now offered a two-way option. Institutions that had been defensive rotated long, while retail call buyers chased momentumThe empirical fact that winners keep winning over the medium term. above critical resistance zones. Daiwa, meanwhile, upgraded AMD to Outperform (from Buy) with a $500 PT, citing Q1 strength, though the firm acknowledged a 150% move in 60 days had compressed upside.

The contrarian risk is that Trump-Xi talks yield minimal concrete progress on chip exports, disappointing late-arriving call buyers. Additionally, technical overbought conditions in semiconductor subsectors signal crowded long positioning. Sentiment surveys on NVDA show retail heavily long, a pattern that historically precedes volatility spikes. For now, the near-term path of least resistance remains higher if institutional hedges unwind and if Xi signals willingness to license certain advanced chip sales.