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As we move closer to the penultimate month of the year, NVIDIA Corporation (NASDAQ:NVDA) sits perilously close to hitting $200, which probably has some owners of NVDA stock pondering a move to $300 or beyond.

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First things first. Nvidia still has to top $200. Why my obsession with that threshold?

Back on May 24, I predicted that NVDA stock would hit $200 by the end of 2017. That claim also included it would do so before Advanced Micro Devices, Inc. (NASDAQ:¶¶Òõ×îаæ) hit $16. 

Barring a poor-earnings backslide when earnings come out Nov. 8, NVDA stock it should hit $200 by New Year’s Eve. The other possible alternative is that ¶¶Òõ×îаæ stock surges over the final 10 weeks of the year which isn’t out of the question.

I’m not saying this to toot my own horn; in the prognostication game, you’re doing well if you’re right more than 50% of the time. That suggests flipping a coin isn’t the worst idea in the world.

But I digress.

A New Obsession

InvestorPlace contributor Luke Lango recently discussed why NVDA stock should be trading over $200 given its secular growth potential. More specifically, Lango puts Nvidia’s fair value at $225.

His math is pretty straightforward.

RBC Capital Markets suggests NVDA earnings in four years will be $10 per share, an annual growth rate of 35%. At the end of those four years, Lango assumes that the growth rate will be about 25%, which implies a multiple of 30 times earnings of $10, for $300. Discount that by 10% annually and he comes to a current fair value of $225. 

So, let’s assume NVDA’s fair value is $225. Truthfully, no one can ever know the actual intrinsic value of a stock, but that’s beside the point. 

Analysts currently expect Nvidia to deliver earnings of , $4.03, and $5.38, respectively, in 2017, 2018, and 2019. That suggests that Nvidia’s earnings in 2020 and 2021 would have to grow by 36.5% each year to meet the $10 target set by RBC.

So, if the RBC analyst is correct, Nvidia will have 35% growth in 2021, not Longo’s 25% estimate. So, if Longo’s earnings multiple of 30 is 1.2 times the growth rate in 2021, it would be 42 times $10 based on a 35% growth rate — or $420.

Bottom Line on NVDA Stock

The NVDA stock price today is $198.68. To get to $350 in 12 months it has to increase by 76%; to do it in two years it has to deliver an annual return of about 34%; 22% to get there in three years and finally, to do it in four years, NVDA stock has to grow by 16% per year.

Since the beginning of 2013, NVDA stock hasn’t had an annual return of . Using this 27% growth for future returns, NVDA stock would hit $350 in 30 months.

The only problem with this scenario is that earnings in 30 months time will be somewhere between $5-$7 per share. At the low end of this range, a multiple of 70 times earnings is almost twice the growth rate.

Something’s got to give.

What I think will give isn’t the earnings growth or the multiples being paid but the actual returns delivered by NVDA stock.

Based on those assumptions, I believe Nvidia stock will return 35% annually over the next two years hitting $350 by the end of calendar 2019.

Unless there’s a dramatic turnaround in ¶¶Òõ×îаæ’s profitability, I see NVDA hitting $350 before ¶¶Òõ×îаæ hits $25.

It’s that simple.

As of this writing, Will Ashworth did not hold a position in any of the aforementioned securities.