Shares of Nokia (NYSE: NOK) are up nearly 9% the past week on another AI king-maker catalyst. Nvidia (NASDAQ: NVDA) announced a $1 billion strategic investment in Nokia on October 28. While the news itself is impressive, looking more closely reveals something interesting though.
Retail investors seem to have been on the case before the deal was announced and well ahead of Wall Street’s change in tune. Sentiment for Nokia were low, at only 41/100 on October 22nd and 23rd, then jumped higher, up to 70-75 4 full days before the news broke.
Someone even appears to have turned $400k into $4m on the trade, bravo.
Sentiment has remained high since then, hovering around 81/100. It seems the market (retail and Wall St. now) view this partnership as transformational and not merely a one-day narrative pop.
Reddit sentiment for Nokia has held steady at 81/100 since the announcement, well above typical baseline for the company and above a completely neutral rating of 50/100. The discussion on Reddit and X have so far been substantial, and moored in fundamentals instead of narratives or memes. A key post titled “Nvidia takes $1 billion stake in Nokia” scooped up 338 upvotes. The post frames the investment as validation of Nokia’s AI infrastructure capabilities.
Investors are excited about the following:
Nokia’s 5G and networking software is critical infrastructure for AI, and new data centres
The company’s Q3 2025 revenue grew 11.6% YoY to $4.8B.
Nvidia’s vote of confidence reduces uncertainty around Nokia’s relevance in the AI era
It looks like, finally, Nokia is ready for a renaissance. Like other older tech companies (looking at you, Intel) it won’t be easy. By Nvidia’s king-maker investment is the best validation they could hope for today.
