Nvidia (NVDA) stock closed at $229.28 on Friday, down $1.20, or 0.52%, marking a fourth consecutive daily decline. The stock now sits roughly 6% below its all-time high of $243.

According to a Saturday report by the Financial Times, Nvidia is in early talks to acquire Reflection AI. The chipmaker could instead choose to raise its existing investment in the startup. People familiar with the matter said a deal could come within weeks, though the discussions are preliminary and could still fall apart. Reuters said it could not verify the report, and neither company has commented — meaning the story rests, for now, on unnamed sourcing rather than confirmation from either side.

Nvidia has several ways to structure a transaction. Options include a full buyout, additional funding, or an acqui-hire in which it brings on the startup's staff and licenses its technology. An acqui-hire can help a buyer avoid the lengthy regulatory reviews that come with a traditional takeover. Nvidia already has skin in the game — the FT reports it has committed $800 million to Reflection so far, so any transaction would extend an existing investment relationship rather than start one from scratchn

What Reflection AI Does

Reflection AI was founded in 2024 by former Google DeepMind researchers Misha Laskin and Ioannis Antonoglou. The company builds tools that automate software development. In April, Laskin told CNBC that Reflection was raising capital at a $25 billion pre-money valuation; a buyout price would likely land well above that figure.

The startup also launched its first open-weight model, Beam, on Monday. Beam targets coding and agent tasks and is designed to compete with cheaper Chinese alternatives such as DeepSeek and Kimi. The launch offers a concrete look at what an acquirer would be buying: a first product positioned against established, lower-cost open-weight rivals.

An acquisition would be the biggest in Nvidia's history, coming just weeks after the company agreed to buy Hugging Face in a deal valued at over $13 billion. The acqui-hire route has drawn heat before: Nvidia used that approach with Groq, and Groq's employees sued last week, saying they were undercut — a reminder that the path that sidesteps a lengthy regulatory review carries its own legal and reputational exposure.

Nvidia's Portfolio Under Pressure

The report lands as several Nvidia-backed stocks struggle — a backdrop that frames Nvidia's willingness to write its largest-ever check. SoundHound AI has fallen to its lowest level since 2014. Marvell has dropped to $275 from a record of $329, and Arm Holdings is down more than 46% from its peak. Neocloud names such as IREN, CoreWeave and Nebius have also declined. Australian firm Firmus postponed its IPO last week after investors balked at its valuation.

OpenAI, another major Nvidia investment, is also behind plan: its annualized revenue of about $50 billion is $20 billion below what analysts expected.

Not every holding is struggling. Lumentum hit a record $1,140 after management said its products are sold out through 2029 — evidence that the weakness is not uniform across the AI trade.

Chart Analysis

Nvidia's daily chart shows a rising wedge, a pattern in which two upward trendlines converge. The stock topped out near $243 at the upper line and has since slipped back toward the middle of the pattern. It still trades above its 50-day and 100-day moving averages, which keeps the longer-term uptrend intact. Support sits near $220, with resistance around $233 to $237.

The relative strength index (RSI) has cooled to about 53 from near 68 in early October, showing that buying momentum has faded without reaching oversold levels. The MACD reads 3.95 against a signal line of 3.82, and the histogram has narrowed to 0.13 — a sign that bullish momentum is close to flipping.

A break below the lower wedge line near $220 could open the door to $210, the September 14 low. Holding above that level keeps the uptrend structure intact, while a move over $243 would point to fresh highs.

What to Watch

Earnings from major Nvidia customers — including Microsoft, Alphabet, Meta Platforms and Amazon — are due over the next few weeks. Those reports will show how aggressively Nvidia's biggest customers are still investing in AI buildouts. On the deal itself, the first hard signal will be whether the preliminary talks advance toward terms or fall apart — until either company comments, the report remains unverified. Nvidia stock ended Friday at $229.28 and edged up to $229.33 in after-hours trading.

This article originally appeared on CoinCentral.