People walk past a Nvidia Corp. advertisement board at the Taipei Music Center in Taipei, Taiwan. Photo by I-HWA CHENG/AFP via Getty Images files

U.S. President Donald Trump ’s move to extract a 15 per cent sales tax from Nvidia Corp. on certain semiconductors sold in China did nothing to damp investor enthusiasm for the world’s most valuable company.

A look at balance-sheet math goes a long way to explaining why. In the first quarter, Nvidia said it sold US$5.5 billion in products to China, roughly 13 per cent of its total. The chips exposed to the Trump tax accounted for about 80 per cent of that, or just under US$5 billion.

That means the Santa Clara, Calif.-based firm could send about US$700 million per quarter to the Treasury — hardly chump change. But for a company that ch

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