One company that has been hit hard over the DeepSeek narrative is Nvidia (NASDAQ: NVDA). With the company scheduled to report fourth-quarter and full-year 2024 earnings on Feb. 26, investors are anxiously waiting to see just how much DeepSeek may affect Nvidia's business.

When a stock price moves, so does the value of the company. In the case of Nvidia, the company's cratering share price has resulted in as much as $600 billion of lost market capitalization. On the surface, this looks horrific. However, as it often is the case with investments driven by overwhelming emotions, there's more than meets the eye.

Nvidia (NASDAQ:NVDA) stock received quite a shock last week when the Chinese tech company DeepSeek announced that it had successfully developed

The third very specific reason Nvidia stock can underwhelm after reporting its fiscal 2025 operating results on Feb. 26 is historic precedent. History has a flawless track record when it comes to next-big-thing innovations, and that's bad news for the face of the artificial intelligence movement.

An Evercore analyst expects an upbeat earnings report later this month and runs down why DeepSeek fears seem overdone.

Artificial intelligence (AI), especially the rise of generative AI, has provided a massive tailwind for Nvidia in recent years. The stock has delivered a return of nearly 21x since early 2020 and is up more than 80% during the last 12 months.