Wall Street’s most recognizable stock commentator just made a call. He wants a company to announce the biggest share repurchase in corporate history. That company is already buying back tens of billions of its own stock.
Jim Cramer made the case on “Mad Money” on Sept. 1. He argued that Nvidia should begin a $500 billion buyback and repurchase shares daily. He pointed to Apple as the model, CNBC reported.
What Cramer wants Nvidia to do with its cash
“I’d quintuple the buyback authorization,” Cramer said. “Announce a monster half trillion dollar buyback and repurchase a tenth of the company in a fairly aggressive fashion, every day, clockwork, and get bigger on the down days.”
The proposal would dwarf what Nvidia already has in place.
In May, Nvidia’s board approved an additional $80 billion in share repurchases with no expiration date. In the first two quarters of fiscal 2027, the company bought back nearly $40 billion of stock. That is almost as much as it bought back in all of fiscal 2026.
Nvidia repurchased roughly $34 billion in fiscal 2025. The buyback pace has accelerated sharply.
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Nvidia CFO Colette Kress addressed shareholder returns on the Aug. 26 earnings call. The company had already exceeded its own target.
“Relative to our plan to return 50% or more of free cash flow, we returned 60% on a year-to-date basis,” Kress told investors. “And going forward, we intend to increase and return excess free cash flow net of strategic uses.”
Cramer’s view is that even 60% is not enough. He wants Nvidia to go much further. Not because the company lacks other uses for capital, but because he believes the stock is not being rewarded for its growth.
Why Cramer says Nvidia stock isn’t getting credit
Cramer’s argument rests on a disconnect between Nvidia’s business performance and its share price.
Since its October 2025 GTC conference in Washington, the chipmaker has repeatedly raised its demand visibility. Each earnings cycle has brought higher guidance. The stock has not responded in kind.
Last week, the company issued an outlook for roughly 70% revenue growth in fiscal 2028, compared with the roughly 45% growth Wall Street had expected.
Nvidia shares have given back much of their post-earnings gains. They are up only about 8% since that Oct. 28, 2025, event. The S&P 500 advanced roughly 11% over the same period.
“Whatever Nvidia’s doing, it simply is not being rewarded by Wall Street,” Cramer said.
In his view, a massive buyback would signal management’s confidence. It would reduce the share count and increase the ownership stake of remaining shareholders. It would also give the company a consistent source of demand during volatile periods.
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Why Cramer points to Apple as the model for Nvidia
Apple spent years repurchasing its own shares when management believed the stock was undervalued. Those buybacks reduced Apple’s share count by roughly 40% during Tim Cook’s tenure as CEO.
According to FactSet, Apple bought back more than $800 billion worth of stock during Cook’s 15 years, CNBC reported.
“That’s why they should do like Apple, which also was valued incorrectly, and repurchase a spectacular amount of stock,” Cramer said.
Buybacks increase earnings per share because there are fewer shares outstanding against the same pool of profit. That is the mechanical advantage Cramer is pointing to.
Cramer’s Charitable Trust, the portfolio run by CNBC’s Investing Club, owns shares of both Apple and Nvidia.
What the circular financing debate means for the buyback case
Part of the skepticism around Nvidia’s valuation stems from its growing role in financing AI infrastructure. Nvidia has used its balance sheet to help customers fund purchases of computing infrastructure.
Those arrangements have fueled concerns about circular financing, in which a company provides support to customers that then spend that money on its products.
Cramer pushed back on the concern, arguing that Nvidia has an advantage traditional lenders do not.
“Worst case scenario, they repossess the GPUs, maybe even at the price they sold them for,” he said.
Even so, Cramer said Nvidia could put more of its capital toward something Wall Street would find easier to appreciate than customer financing commitments.
Cramer’s proposal is an opinion, not a company announcement. Nvidia has not authorized a $500 billion buyback, and any such plan would require board approval.
Investors should weigh several things. Would large ongoing repurchases constrain research and strategic investments? How do they compare with acquisitions, partnerships and customer financing programs? Would the market read a $500 billion buyback as confidence in the stock or as a signal that the company has run out of better places to put its money?
A buyback is a powerful tool when a company believes its shares are cheap. But it does not explain underperformance on its own.
Nvidia’s stock may have lagged for reasons a repurchase program would not fix: valuation concerns, circular financing fears, regulatory risk, or broader market sentiment.
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