By Daniel Sparks, The Motley Fool
Publication Date: 2026-05-24 01:43:00
Nvidia (NASDAQ: NVDA) rarely has to remind anyone how fast it’s growing. So it was a little surprising when, earlier this week, the chipmaker paired its latest quarterly report with a move that looked borrowed from a mature blue chip: its board approved an additional $80 billion for share repurchases and lifted the quarterly dividend from $0.01 to $0.25 a share — a 25-fold increase.
The backdrop is what makes it notable. This is a business that just grew revenue 85% year over year. Companies growing that fast usually plow every spare dollar back into the business, not into dividends and buybacks. So, it’s fair to ask what Nvidia is really telling investors here.
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A cash cow
The new $80 billion authorization stacks on top of the $38.5 billion Nvidia had left under its prior program at the end of the quarter, giving it roughly $118 billion in repurchasing power with no expiration. And it isn’t sitting on that capacity: in its fiscal first quarter of 2027 (the period ended April 26, 2026), Nvidia returned a record $20 billion to shareholders through buybacks and dividends.
And it’s worth emphasizing here that the company can do this without starving its investments, thanks to its robust free cash flow…
