How Much Of Dell Stock Is A Bet On Nvidia?
More on the AI trade: our AI storyline page collects our pieces on AI stocks.
The laptop on your desk at work may be a Dell, but the money is now in the data center. On Monday, Nov 9, Nvidia fell 4.3% and Dell rose 5.4%. On Wednesday, after CoreWeave beat, Dell jumped 11.8% while Nvidia added 2.9%. All this while Nvidia sits 31% below its Oct 6 peak. On Thursday, the day Jensen Huang resigned as CEO, Nvidia fell 4.3% while Dell slipped 0.7%. So how much of Dell is really a bet on Nvidia?
On paper, Dell is deeply tied to Nvidia’s customers. In the quarter to Jul 31, Dell’s server, storage and networking unit sold $31.8 billion of its $47.0 billion of revenue, about two-thirds, up 89% from a year earlier; PCs and other client devices sold $15.0 billion. In the first half of the fiscal year that unit’s sales more than doubled, from $27.1 billion to $60.8 billion. AI servers alone sold $16.4 billion, about 35% of revenue, and Dell expects $74 billion of its $192 billion this year, about 39%. Many of those servers carry Nvidia chips, some AMD’s.
That 39% is easy to miss. For families with seven figures invested, Dell, Nvidia and the AI funds that hold both often add up to one bet on the same build-out. Do you know your total? A Trefis partner firm can add it up with you in a free 30-minute call.
Does The Stock Trade Like Nvidia?
Not much. Over the past year, Dell’s daily moves tracked Nvidia’s loosely, less than Super Micro’s did.
| Stock | Correlation with Nvidia | Beta to Nvidia |
|---|---|---|
| Dell | 0.36 | 0.75 |
| Super Micro | 0.51 | 1.23 |
| HPE | 0.37 | 0.59 |
Source: Trefis, one year of daily total returns through Nov 12. Since the Nov 6 close Nvidia is down 11.0% and Dell up 13.0%; over one year Dell returned 166.6%, Nvidia −14.0%.
The market prices Dell as the AI build-out, not as Nvidia: as the CoreWeaves of the world spend, Dell ships. We set out which stocks do take the hit in 5 Biggest Losers From Nvidia’s $740 Billion CEO Crisis.
What If The Link Is Tighter Than It Looks?
Test the other side. If buyers move some orders to AMD, Dell still builds the server; it sells AI servers on both Nvidia and AMD chips. AMD is up 30.3% since Nov 6, and Dell rose with it. So the risk is the build-out pausing, not who runs Nvidia. But the link is loose, not absent: on Nov 10 Dell fell 3.4% as Nvidia fell 5.5%. And if the leadership change disrupts Nvidia’s supply or pricing, Dell’s delivery timing and its server unit’s margin move with it: that unit kept 11.7% of sales as operating profit last fiscal year, against 5.6% for PCs.
The price already doubts the payoff. Dell trades at 20.2 times trailing adjusted earnings, but about 12 times the $31.03 a share analysts expect for the year to January 2028, at $371.17. Consensus revenue rises from $194.6 billion this year to $235.7 billion next. How Dell stacks up against its closest rival is in Dell vs HPE.
The answer: about two-thirds of Dell’s sales come from the server unit that AI spending doubled, but much less of its stock moves with Nvidia; it moves with AI spending. Watch at the next report, expected late November: new AI orders against last quarter’s $60.9 billion, and the AI backlog, $95 billion against $18.4 billion at the end of October 2025; and whether the server unit holds last quarter’s 15% margin. Strong orders also lift rivals, as in Own Hewlett Packard For AI? Dell’s Order Book Demands A Look.
For education, not a recommendation to buy or sell.
Questions To Keep
- If Nvidia’s next CEO cut chip prices to defend share, would Dell’s margin rise or fall?
- If AI orders pause, how fast does a server unit that doubled in a year shrink?
- How much of your money is in the AI build-out, counting every fund?
Is Your AI Bet Bigger Than You Think?
Dell, Nvidia and your index funds can all be the same build-out. For families with seven figures invested, a count of your total AI exposure takes a free 30-minute call with a Trefis partner firm.
For questions about this article or underlying research, email help@trefis.com.