Alternative Data Sounds the Alarm: Kalshi Bets Heavily on Nvidia Chip Price Cuts, Pricing Power "Myth" Faces Test

Nvidia's pricing power is facing direct market scrutiny. Trading data from the prediction market Kalshi shows that traders are generally betting that the rental price for Nvidia's flagship GPU chip B200 will not return to its recent highs before the end of Q2. This "alternative data" signal is resonating with Nvidia’s recent lackluster stock performance, making the market more cautious about the AI chip giant’s short-term outlook.

According to Ornn, a real-time GPU power price tracking platform, the hourly price for Nvidia's B200 chip peaked at $6.11 on May 30, the highest in nearly three months, before continuously falling to $4.22 as of June 21, marking a cumulative drop of over 30%. Meanwhile, Nvidia's stock is down about 3% over the past month, while the Philadelphia Semiconductor ETF (SMH) is up 15% during the same period. Memory chip stocks like Micron Technology and Sandisk have each soared nearly 60% over the last month.

The relevant contracts on the Kalshi platform will settle on June 30, using Ornn’s B200 power price as the benchmark. Current trader positioning indicates that the majority believe B200’s price is unlikely to exceed the late May peak before that date. This bearish bet directly targets the core question of whether Nvidia can maintain strong pricing power during the current AI infrastructure build-out cycle.

Although Nvidia is still up about 12% year-to-date, its recent performance now clearly lags the broader semiconductor sector. SMH has surged 84% so far this year, including a 15% increase this month alone—a sharp contrast to Nvidia.

Market attention is shifting. Wall Street is currently focused on the next phase of memory chips and AI infrastructure. Micron Technology and Sandisk have become favored by inflows, both rallying nearly 60% in the past month. Nvidia, on the other hand, has clearly been marginalized in this rally, and investors are becoming increasingly sensitive to its lack of short-term catalysts.

The downtrend in B200’s pricing reflects deep uncertainties on both supply and demand sides of the AI infrastructure market.

Seoyoung Kim, finance professor at Santa Clara University, told CNBC: "Many companies do not know how much computing power they will need in the next year, suppliers do not know how many GPUs to order or at what capacity to purchase, and manufacturers like Nvidia have no clear idea how much to produce." This three-fold information asymmetry makes GPU rental price fluctuations the norm and makes it difficult for the market to form stable revenue expectations for Nvidia.

Most enterprises rent GPU computing power via cloud providers or emerging "neocloud" platforms, with rental costs fluctuating with AI infrastructure demand. The B200’s price drop—over 30% from its peak—suggests that supply is relatively ample in the short term, or that demand growth has somewhat slowed.

Despite the recent weak data, Nvidia still has fundamental support. Earlier this month, Google and SpaceX signed an agreement to pay $920 million per month from October 2026 to June 2029 to rent AI computing power, which will include about 110,000 Nvidia GPUs and related hardware.

Following the deal, RBC Capital Markets expressed optimism about Nvidia’s performance in the second half of 2026 and into 2027, stating Nvidia is "best positioned among its peers." Analysts wrote: "Whatever the specific reasons, these GPU leasing agreements should alleviate ongoing market fears that custom chips (ASICs) might erode Nvidia’s market share—at least in the short term."

The reason Kalshi's betting data has garnered attention is that it offers a market signal independent from traditional sell-side research. The prediction market’s pricing mechanism directly reflects actual positions and probability judgments of trading participants, rather than the subjective forecasts of analysts.

Currently, trader positions on Kalshi are largely aligned with the belief that B200’s power price will not break May’s high before the end of Q2, a judgment corroborated by Nvidia’s recent stock performance. For investors, this means that while long-term optimism from large procurement deals like Google’s abounds, the market is still seeking a balance with short-term pricing pressures on computing power. Whether Nvidia’s pricing power can be validated in the next quarter will be a key indicator to watch regarding its fundamentals.