Nvidia short bets rake in over $6 billion in profits after DeepSeek panic

Short sellers of artificial intelligence-related stocks raked in bumper profits after the smashing debut of low-cost AI models from China's DeepSeek spooked Wall Street, with bets against Nvidia yielding record profits totaling more than $6 billion.

Traders betting against AI-darling Nvidia earned profits of about $6.6 billion - the biggest single-day move ever on the stock - according to data analytics firm Ortex.

Nvidia saw $593 billion wiped off its market value on Monday, in the biggest single-session loss ever for any company, after Chinese startup DeepSeek launched AI models that it said are at par or better than industry-leading models in the United States, at a fraction of the cost.

Short sellers of chipmaker Broadcom also earned more than $2 billion in profits.

Other AI-related stocks, such as server-maker Super Micro , data-center operator Equinix and energy provider Vistra, also witnessed heavy losses on Monday, giving investors betting against these firms combined profits of more than $900 million, according to Ortex.