Because Nvidia is still growing its revenue rapidly, using trailing earning metrics can give a false impression of where the company is headed. However, they're also useful in this case because its future had a wrench thrown into it thanks to DeepSeek's breakthrough.

DeepSeek stunned the tech world with the release of its R1 "reasoning" model, matching or exceeding OpenAI's reasoning model for a fraction of the cost.

Nvidia stock surged as the AI chipmaker began to recover from a massive decline the prior day that shaved nearly $600 billion off its market cap.