After explosive gains in yesterday's session, Nvidia (NVDA -6.31%) stock is seeing big sell-offs in Thursday's session. The artificial intelligence (AI) hardware leader's share price was down 7.5% as of 1 p.m. ET. At the same point in today's trading, the S&P 500 was down 4.5%, and the Nasdaq Composite was down 5.5%.

The stock market saw nearly unprecedented single-day gains yesterday after President Donald Trump announced that goods from all countries except for China would have an import tax rate of 10% and that his administration's higher reciprocal tariffs would be suspended for 90 days. But Trump also announced that tariffs on Chinese products would be increased from 104% to 125%.

Investors concentrated on reciprocal tariffs being paused for all other countries yesterday, but today the market is reacting to the potential impacts of the escalating trade war between China and the U.S. With Thursday's sell-off, Nvidia stock is now down 21% year to date and 29% from its high.

Is Nvidia stock a buy right now?

Nvidia's share price will continue to see big swings amid the rapidly shifting macroeconomic backdrop. Even though the company retains clear leadership in advanced graphics processing units (GPUs) and other AI hardware, investors' focus has understandably shifted to the macro picture. And it makes sense to take a somewhat cautious approach when there's still so much uncertainty on the horizon.

For long-term investors, I think that buying Nvidia stock at today's prices can still lead to impressive returns. But rather than buying into the stock all at once, I would recommend treating pullbacks as investment opportunities as part of a dollar-cost-averaging strategy. The share price has been pushed to a level that looks cheap by conventional metrics, but macroeconomic and geopolitical risk factors open the door for continued sell-offs.