Nvidia (NVDA) unveiled its fiscal 2027 first-quarter earnings after the close on May 20. The chipmaker's quarterly results have become one of the most-anticipated events on Wall Street given snowballing demand and accelerated spending on all things artificial intelligence.
Nvidia reported earnings of $1.87 per share on revenue of $81.62 billion vs a Wall Street forecast for EPS of $1.78 on revenue of $79.2 billion.
The Kiplinger team reported live on Nvidia's first-quarter earnings report, bringing you the news and our expert analysis of what the results could mean for you and your portfolio. Scroll for the latest updates.
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Nvidia stock trades lower to start earnings week
Nvidia stock opened higher Monday morning, but was last seen down 1.4%. The chip stock is still up more than 11% for the month to date, and has gained nearly 20% since the start of the year.
This comes as the broader equities market trades mixed at the start of the week, with the blue-chip Dow Jones Industrial Average up 0.1%, while the broader S&P 500 is off 0.3% and the tech-heavy Nasdaq Composite is down 0.6%.
Nvidia earnings are the "ultimate test" for the stock market, says Questar CIO
Nvidia's upcoming earnings event is "the ultimate test for a stock market that is not only trading at record highs, but one that also had a breathtaking bounce off of the March lows," says Richard Reyle, chief investment officer at Questar Capital Partners.
The chipmaker is the stock market's "shorthand for everything AI," he explains, and in recent years, equity "gains have been driven in large part by AI."
Heading into Wednesday's print, Reyle says the numbers are already expected to be strong given the massive spending on AI initiatives hyperscalers announced this earnings season.
But stellar earnings for the chipmaker don't mean upside for NVDA stock, the CIO warns. "To say that Nvidia is priced for perfection is an understatement."
Indeed, the blue chip stock is up roughly 20% for the year to date to trade near new highs.
As such, Reyle says to "be careful around Nvidia." In addition to a lot of hype around the stock, the CIO has "concerns about the circular spending in the AI space."
He prefers "companies that have true moats in the tech space, such as Taiwan Semiconductor (TSM) and ASML Holding (ASML)," considering it will take at least a decade "for any other company to genuinely match their top-end manufacturing capability."
- Karee Venema
With over a decade of experience writing about the stock market, Karee Venema is the senior investing editor at Kiplinger.com. She joined the publication in April 2021, and oversees a wide range of investing coverage, including content focused on equities, fixed income, mutual funds, ETFs, macroeconomics and more.
What time is Nvidia's earnings release?
Nvidia will release its fiscal fourth-quarter earnings report after the stock market closes this Wednesday, May 20. The results typically come through around 4:20 pm to 4:30 pm Eastern Standard Time.
The release of Nvidia's earnings report will be followed by a conference call, which will begin at 5 pm EST.
Should Nvidia be worried about Cerebras' blockbuster IPO?
Last week, Cerebras Systems (CBRS) pulled off a massive IPO. The semiconductor firm sold shares at $185 each and they ended the first day of trading at $331.07, up 68% from this offer price.
Cerebras raised $5.55 billion in its offering — making it one of the biggest IPOs ever — and gave the company a staggering market capitalization of $95 billion.
Not bad for a company that was founded 10 years ago. Then again, it's a top developer of chips that train and operate AI models. The timing has also been spot on, as investors have an insatiable appetite for chip stocks.
Cerebras' most advanced semiconductor is called the Wafer Scale Engine 3. It is about 50 to 60 times the size of an Nvidia GPU die and has 4 trillion transistors and 900,000 AI cores. Cerebras says it's faster than Nvidia's offerings.
So is this a big threat to the semiconductor giant?
Perhaps. But for now, Cerebras is more focused on niche opportunities. It's not anywhere near the scale of Nvidia's chips. Cerebras' chips are also not as customizable.
Additionally, the competition intense, with startups such as Groq and SambaNova, and mature operators including Advanced Micro Devices (AMD) and Intel (INTC). There are also the hyperscalers: Alphabet's (GOOGL) Google, Amazon (AMZN), Meta Platforms (META) and Microsoft (MSFT).
Finally, CBRS' valuation is at nosebleed levels. While revenue surged 96% in the latest quarter, it was still only about $171 million.
All in all, expectations are extremely frothy for Cerebras.
- Tom Taulli
Tom Taulli has been developing software since the 1980s. He sold his applications to a variety of publications. In college, he started his first company, which focused on the development of e-learning systems. He would go on to create other companies as well, including Hypermart.net that was sold to InfoSpace in 1996. Along the way, Tom has written columns for online publications such as Bloomberg, Forbes, Barron's and Kiplinger. He has also written a variety of books, including Artificial Intelligence Basics: A Non-Technical Introduction.
Does Nvidia pay a dividend?
Nvidia pays a small quarterly dividend of 1 cent per share, which works out to 4 cents per share annually.
Based on the chipmaker's current stock price, this works out to a dividend yield of 0.02%. By comparison, the S&P 500's current dividend yield is 1.1%.
In fiscal 2025, Nvidia paid roughly $834 billion in dividends. It also bought back $33.7 billion in stock.
- Karee Venema
Related: The Kiplinger Dividend 15: Our Favorite Dividend-Paying Stocks
Zacks' Brian Mulberry gives his take on Nvidia's upcoming earnings report
I had a chance to interview Brian Mulberry, chief market strategist at Zacks Investment Management, ahead of Nvidia's upcoming earnings report. Here's what he had to say:
What are you expecting? Our EPS target is $1.51 on $67.38 billion in revenue. That said, the last earnings per share was a beat of 6.6%, making the "whisper number" more like $1.60 in earnings to really move the market.
What were some of the main events during the quarter? We recently heard that the H200 is now going to be made more widely available to Chinese firms, which should help bolster strong revenue growth. Also, demand for Blackwell in data centers is only picking up. Data center revenue was up 75% last quarter and likely to be similar this quarter.
What about the danger signs? The biggest concern would be that demand for compute falls off, and the commitments to build data centers would then fall off as well. There is no indication of that, but it is a risk that needs to be addressed, as it is the single largest source of growth for NVDA.
Secondly, several of the larger orders from hyperscalers are now being financed by issued debt. Google, AMZN, and META have all issued significant new debt over the past year to finance their data center builds. With pressure on free cash flow, it could put stress on future orders, especially if interest rates do not fall as much as expected.
What will investors be looking for in the report? Tough to get in the minds of retail investors, but we are looking for details that show us production targets are being met to satisfy the demand for products.
Also, innovation is key to growth. We're looking to see more about Vera Rubin and its progress, and finally, any comments around AI usage/demand structures impacting Nvidia's forward guidance to the Street.
- Tom Taulli
Hedge funds sold Nvidia stock in Q1
Nvidia shares underperformed the broader market in Q1, falling 6.5% on a total return basis (price change plus dividends) vs the S&P 500's 4.3% drop.
During this December 31 through March 31 time frame, hedge funds were net sellers of Nvidia stock.
According to WhaleWisdom, 66 hedge funds initiated new positions in NVDA in Q1 and 402 increased their stakes. This compares to 66 that closed their positions and 363 that reduced their stakes.
The net change in hedge fund share ownership amounted to -126.6 million shares.
- Karee Venema
Stocks close mixed to start Nvidia week
All three main indexes opened higher Monday, but only one was in positive territory at the close. Tech stocks were the biggest decliners as bond yields continued to climb, while energy stocks outperformed as oil prices jumped to their highest level since early April.
At the close, the tech-heavy Nasdaq Composite was down 0.5% at 26,090 and the broader S&P 500 was off 0.07% at 7,403. The blue-chip Dow Jones Industrial Average was up 0.3% at 49,686.
Nvidia (NVDA) also closed lower today, falling 1.3% ahead of Wednesday's earnings announcement.
"We fully expect the leading supplier of AI silicon will again exceed estimates and guide above Street given continued positive data points through Q1 as well as 1) healthy 2026 AI infrastructure spend (that we believe likely continues through 2027), and 2) superior supply chain certainty in a period plagued by constraints," says Wedbush analyst Matt Bryson.
The real question, Bryson believes, is whether "we finally see a more positive stock reaction after a series of blasé moves following solid prints."
Read more: Nasdaq Drops as Tech Stocks Slide: Stock Market Today
Nvidia is big, full stop
According to Louis Navellier of Navellier & Associates, Nvidia (NVDA) "is now estimated to be as much as 50% of the weight of the S&P performance."
In fact, the semiconductor stock means more to the S&P 500, which is weighted by market cap, than it does to the Dow Jones Industrial Average, which is weighted by price.
On Monday, NVDA closed at $222.32 with a market cap of $5.402 trillion, down from $225.32 and $5.475 trillion on Friday. That's a decline of $73 billion in market cap terms for the Dow Jones stock.
For a little bit of perspective, Florida-based NextEra Energy (NEE), already the biggest utility stock in the U.S., announced on Monday that it intends to buy Virginia-based Dominion Energy (D), overloaded by data center-driven demand, in an all-stock deal valued at $66.8 billion.
Indeed, that math, too, is all about artificial intelligence (AI) and what Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang has said is the most important industrial revolution in human history.
As Navellier also notes, Nvidia "now represents almost 16% of U.S. GDP and may rise to over 20% as the AI revolution continues."
NVDA stock was up 19.2% year to date through the closing bell on Monday vs 8.6% for the S&P 500 and 4.0% for the Dow. Its market cap was $4.533 trillion at the end of 2025.
For a little bit more perspective, Nvidia's year-to-date market-cap move is roughly equivalent to the absolute market cap for Walmart (WMT), the first retail stock to ever reach a trillion-dollar valuation. Walmart takes its place on the earnings calendar before the opening bell on Thursday.
As Navellier concludes about Nvidia's Wednesday evening earnings event, "A bullish outlook will be key to market support until the Iran situation is behind us."
– David Dittman
Nvidia is a top pick at Morgan Stanley ahead of earnings
Morgan Stanley analyst Joe Moore moved Nvidia to a top pick in March on expectations that the stock's technical struggles at the start of the year created an attractive entry point on a primary AI winner.
"It has taken time for investor enthusiasm to return to the story as secondary and tertiary AI beneficiaries continue to outperform," Moore says. And while he feels there's only so much Nvidia can do in its Q1 print and earnings call to ease longer-term worries, he believes "the quarter will be a positive step towards a stock rerating."
Moore expects solid data center revenue, but will be looking for commentary on supply constraints that include powered shell availability, leading-edge wafer capacity and DRAM.
"Nvidia should have the supply to cover much of what they intend to ship
over the next 18 months," he says, though rising costs associated with its Rubin launch could create a headwind down the road.
Still, Moore feels "that frontfootedness to secure supply puts Nvidia in an advantaged position vs the peer group as ASIC and merchant competition will either see greater margin headwinds or need to raise prices by more to offset those impacts."
– Karee Venema
CEO Jensen Huang says China will open up to U.S. chips
"The Chinese government has to decide how much of their local market do they want to protect," Nvidia (NVDA) CEO Jensen Huang said in an interview with Bloomberg TV on Monday. "My sense is that, over time, the market will open."
Huang and several other CEOs of big U.S. companies traveled to China with President Donald Trump last week to talk about global trade.
Nvidia's chief said he didn't discuss his company's AI chips with Chinese officials. Somebody did, though. "President Trump had some conversations with the leaders, and I'm looking forward to what they decide."
Trump approved sales of Nvidia's H200 AI chips to Chinese companies in December, but Beijing continues to block purchases because it wants to prop up domestic chip maker Huawei Technologies.
Huang has said the Middle Kingdom represents a $50 billion opportunity for Nvidia. And China will probably come up again when the CEO takes the mic during Nvidia's conference call on Wednesday evening.
– David Dittman
Nvidia bear is having dot-com flashbacks
As of Tuesday, 61 Wall Street analysts tracked by S&P Global Intelligence follow Nvidia (NVDA). Fifty-eight of them rate the stock a Buy. Two rate it a Hold. One Wall Street analyst says Nvidia stock is a Sell.
In fact, Jay Goldberg of Seaport Research Partners says people are partying like it's 1999, and it's become a problem. “The word I hear a lot is parabolic. Just stock prices going straight up,” Goldberg told Marketplace last week.
The analyst said a six-week gain of more than 50% for the Philadelphia Semiconductor Index stirred flashbacks of the dot-com boom.
“Every time you start to hear people saying, ‘This time is different. This is a new economy,’" Goldberg explained, "I think it's right to sort of be cautious.”
Goldberg's Sell rating is accompanied by a $100 12-month target price. He told Bloomberg ahead of Nvidia's February earnings report that the stock wouldn't deliver much upside.
NVDA was up 13.7% from the closing bell on February 25, when it reported fiscal 2026 fourth-quarter earnings, through May 18. The S&P 500 was up 6.9% for that period.
– David Dittman
Gabelli's John Belton: Nvidia's earnings could be 'amazingly boring' again
Gabelli Funds portfolio manager John Belton thinks Nvidia's (NVDA) earnings will be “amazingly boring as usual.” That is, the company has had a knack to beat expectations. And it should do so again after the closing bell on Wednesday.
Yet Wall Street is somewhat cautious, as semiconductor stocks have come under pressure during the past couple days.
Belton's thesis is that Nvidia will remain the main beneficiary of a massive AI capex spending boom, which could easily last a couple of years.
“Nvidia is now seeing a trillion-dollar order book, at least through 2027, starting in 2025, which was a significant increase from the guidance they gave in October,” said Belton. “It’ll be interesting to see if they update that again this time, but Nvidia isn’t talking about any slowdown in demand.”
For the AI revolutionary's earnings report, Belton's looking for a broadening customer base. The fact is that half the business comes from five mega-cap tech companies. He also wants to see progress in networking as well as standalone CPU racks. Then there's the impact from the Grok acquisition.
Finally, Belton wants to see a change in capital allocation. “They’re expected to generate well over a trillion dollars in free cash flow over the next couple of years,” he notes. “If half of that comes back to shareholders, that can start to meaningfully move the needle for the stock.”
– Tom Taulli
What would you have if you invested $1,000 in Nvidia 20 years ago?
Nvidia's share price has gone through some notable ups and downs over its 27 years as a publicly traded company, but its long-term trend has always been up and to the right.
Indeed, Nvidia has been one of the best stocks to own over that time frame and created more than $309 billion in shareholder value between January 1999 and December 2020, according to an analysis by Hendrik Bessembinder, a finance professor at the W.P. Carey School of Business at Arizona State University.
Over the past two decades, Nvidia stock generated an annualized total return of 37.1%. The S&P 500, with dividends reinvested, returned an annualized 11.2% over the same period.
In dollar terms, a $1,000 investment in Nvidia 20 years ago would be worth more than $1 million today. That same amount invested in the S&P 500 would theoretically be worth $9,400.
– Karee Venema
Read more: If You'd Put $1,000 Into Nvidia Stock 20 Years Ago, Here's What You'd Have Today
Nvidia invests in a hot startup that can replace its chips
AI startup Decart recently announced a $300 million investment round at a $4 billion valuation. Radical Ventures led the funding, with participation from marquee VCs like Sequoia Capital and Benchmark.
Decart says it's "building the infrastructure layer for the next generation of low-latency AI systems." Its platform is called DOS, short for the Decart Optimization Stack.
DOS makes it much easier to switch hardware systems – say, from Nvidia (NVDA), Amazon.com (AMZN) and Google parent Alphabet (GOOGL) – for AI models.
Decart claims its platform is 100 times more cost efficient and eight times faster than alternatives. And it's a full-stack system built specifically for real-time production.
Decart says it's been generating "significant revenue," primarily with AI labs and hyperscalars.
Another interesting nugget in the funding is that Nvidia is among the startup's early investors.
So why would they do this? After all, DOS can essentially weaken Nvidia's moat.
This is true. But as AI gets more sophisticated, there is a need to use different types of hardware for various use cases.
While Nvidia remains dominant, enterprises and hyperscalers increasingly want flexibility, lower costs and optimized performance across multiple systems.
Investing in Decart allows Nvidia to stay closely aligned with this shift while helping support the next generation of real-time AI infrastructure.
– Tom Taulli
Nvidia slips a day ahead of its earnings event
Stocks opened lower and drifted higher through the middle of the trading session on Tuesday, but all three main equity indexes faded into the closing bell as global bond yields continued to rise.
Investors, traders and speculators will turn their attention to Wednesday's post-closing-bell Nvidia (NVDA, -0.8%) earnings event to gauge the health of the market's major trend.
Nvidia "will help set the tone for a stock market that is in need of its next catalyst after an incredible run since the March lows," Granite Bay Wealth Management Chief Investment Officer Paul Stanley writes.
As Stanley sees it, that "next catalyst" is critical now, with the market "a bit tired" after a recent strong run but also facing "renewed worries" about inflation and interest rates.
Both the 30-year and 10-year Treasury yield hit 52-week highs, reaching 5.197% and 4.687%, respectively, while the 2-year Treasury yield ticked up to 4.112% from 4.09% on Monday.
Meanwhile, the front-month West Texas Intermediate crude oil futures contract dipped 0.1% to $104.29.
By the closing bell, the tech-heavy Nasdaq Composite was down 0.8% at 25,870, the broad-based S&P 500 was off 0.7% at 7,353, and the blue-chip Dow Jones Industrial Average was down 0.7% at 49,363.
– David Dittman
Read more: Stocks Struggle With Spiking Bond Yields: Stock Market Today
Nvidia set for a higher open ahead of Q1 results
Nvidia (NVDA) is signaling a higher open ahead on Wednesday, May 20, with shares up X% at last check.
Futures for the main indexes are also in the green this morning, with the blue-chip Dow Jones Industrial Average and broader S&P 500 up 0.4% and the Nasdaq 0.8% higher.
The Nvidia setup is compelling ahead of earnings, says GraniteShares CEO
Nvidia reports earnings after tonight's close and the stock's setup may be more compelling than the market realizes, says Will Rhind, founder and CEO of GraniteShares.
"While the company has become so dominant that beating Wall Street's estimates is almost taken for granted, tonight carries a genuinely new catalyst that hasn't been priced in: Jensen Huang arrives at the earnings call fresh from a trip to Beijing alongside President Trump, with China's $50 billion AI chip market technically reopened and the H200 cleared for sale, meaning any concrete timeline on deliveries would be pure upside to a consensus that currently assumes zero China revenue," he explains.
In addition, Rhind points to Nvidia's Blackwell ramp accelerating rather than slowing, hyperscalers continuing to increase AI capital expenditure commitments, and a next-generation Vera Rubin platform on track for delivery in the second half of the year.
This, the CEO says, is for a company "that Jensen himself believes will generate $1 trillion in revenue from its two flagship processor lines alone across 2026 and 2027."
Rhind feels that a post-earnings bear case "essentially requires multiple things to go wrong simultaneously," while the bull case "requires Jensen to do what he has done every single quarter of this cycle — deliver, and then raise."
- Karee Venema
The key for Nvidia investors is Blackwell, says XFUNDS CEO
"Nvidia must deliver because it has become the market’s AI scorecard," says David Nicholas, CEO and founder of XFUNDs by Nicholas Wealth.
While Nicholas expects the company's results and guidance to come in above the Street's estimates, he believes the bar is set extremely high and investors will demand more than an average beat.
"The key is Blackwell: if management confirms the ramp is on track and demand remains supply constrained, it validates the broader AI capex cycle," notes Nicholas. "Strong Rubin commentary would extend that confidence into the next product generation."
The CEO adds that NVDA stock is a buy ahead of earnings, but the AI bellwether "needs a big number and a stronger guide to satisfy Wall Street."
- Karee Venema
What should you do with all that appreciated NVDA stock?
Nvidia stock is up nearly 20% for the year to date, and that's modest compared to its longer-term returns. Indeed, NVDA has generated an average annual return of more than 70% over the past 10 years, easily outpacing the S&P 500's 13.9% total return (price change plus dividends).
So what's an investor to do with all of their appreciated Nvidia stock? We turned to Charles Lewis Sizemore, CFA, chief investment officer and Kiplinger contributor, for advice.
One option is to take the money and run. "Having a disproportionate share of your portfolio in any single stock — even one as incredibly successful as Nvidia — is risky," says Sizemore. "Selling or at least trimming the position little by little could be smart risk management."
But selling isn't the only route you could take. In this article, Sizemore shares a few other potential scenarios for Nvidia investors who have capitalized on the stock's impressive run.
Futurum Group CEO sees Nvidia earnings as a referendum on the AI infrastructure cycle
Daniel Newman, CEO of the Futurum Group, sees Nvidia's Q1 earnings not as a referendum on this quarter, but as one on whether the trillion-dollar AI infrastructure cycle will keep compounding in fiscal 2028 and beyond.
"Wall Street has pulled itself above the company's own guide for the first time in this cycle, which raises the bar for what counts as a beat," Newman says. "Hyperscaler capex has been revised up to roughly $725 billion for 2026. Sovereign AI tripled to over $30 billion in fiscal 2026. Blackwell is in the meat of its ramp and Vera Rubin samples are already in customer hands."
There are four things Newman is watching for in Nvidia's print:
1. Q2 revenue guidance vs the Street's forecast for $86 billion. "That is the number that matters most. A guide in line or above tells you the AI capex cycle is still accelerating. A guide that lands at $83B to $85B will read as deceleration even on a clean Q1 beat."
2. The Blackwell to Rubin handoff. "The risk in any architecture transition is an air pocket where customers pause Blackwell orders to wait for Rubin. Nvidia's annual cadence is designed to prevent that, but the question on the call is whether Q3 and Q4 Blackwell shipments hold while Rubin ramps in H2 calendar 2026."
3. China and the H200 question. "Washington has cleared roughly 10 Chinese firms to buy H200 chips. Not a single shipment has gone out. Beijing has signaled to its own companies to wait. Jensen has publicly framed the China AI chip market at roughly $50 billion. Any language on the call about timing, framework, or unit economics for a China re-entry path is the single biggest variable for the stock. This is bigger than the headline revenue number."
4. Sovereign AI and customer concentration. "Sovereign AI crossed $30B in FY26, more than triple the prior year, and now represents roughly 14% of total revenue. This matters strategically because it is the cleanest hedge against hyperscaler concentration risk and custom silicon displacement."
"A clean $80B+ print is necessary, but it is not sufficient," concludes Newman. "The reaction function is in the Q2 guide: the gross margin trajectory through the Rubin handoff, and any language Jensen offers on China and the H200 reopening."
- Karee Venema
The market is pricing in a 5.5% post-earnings move for Nvidia stock
Nvidia stock's post-earnings price move isn't dictated by whether the chipmaker beats estimates, but rather by how much, says LPL Chief Technical Strategist Adam Turnquist.
"Investors will be closely watching second quarter guidance, where revenue is expected to approach $87 billion," he adds. "Key areas of focus include data center demand and the ramp of the Blackwell and Rubin platforms, which management has previously suggested could generate $1 trillion in cumulative revenue from 2025 through 2027."
Turnquist says that gross margins will also be in focus as Wall Street looks for signs of increasing price pressures amid growing competition in the AI space.
"In terms of implied expectations [for NVDA stock], the options market is pricing in an approximate 5.5% post-earnings move on an absolute basis," notes Turnquist. "Based on yesterday's close of $220.61, that implies an expected trading range of roughly $208.48 to $232.74 following the earnings release."
But, he explains, "actual post-earnings moves can differ materially from implied option pricing, particularly given Nvidia's history of outsized reactions tied to guidance, margins, and AI demand commentary."
- Karee Venema
Nvidia stock trades higher ahead of its Q1 earnings announcement
With a little over three hours to go until tonight's earnings event, Nvidia stock is trading up 1.7% at last check.
The main indexes are also comfortably higher in early afternoon trading. The blue-chip Dow Jones Industrial Average is up 1.0%, the broader S&P 500 has gained 0.8% and the tech-heavy Nasdaq Composite is enjoying a 1.1% lead.
- Karee Venema
What will Jensen Huang say about Nvidia and China?
Last week, Nvidia (NVDA) CEO Jensen Huang joined President Donald Trump and other big-name C-suite executives at the last minute for a trip to the Middle Kingdom.
"Nvidia Goes to China" was a conscious effort to connect to the historic "Nixon goes to China" summit in February 1972.
Yesterday, I highlighted a Bloomberg interview where the Nvidia CEO expressed optimism that Chinese companies would be allowed to purchase Nvidia chips, eventually.
Noting that President Trump, and not he, engaged Chinese authorities on the issue, Huang concluded, "My sense is that, over time, the market will open."
Meanwhile, here's the Financial Times: "Beijing banned an Nvidia gaming chip while the company's chief executive Jensen Huang was visiting China with Donald Trump last week."
Indeed, as the FT notes, it's "the latest salvo in the superpowers' battle to dominate AI."
So that's one of the big questions I'll bring with me to the conference call this evening: What will CEO Jensen Huang say about Nvidia and China? (And what does "over time" mean?)
– David Dittman
Nvidia, the U.S. economy and a 'levered bet on AI'
Only hours before Nvidia (NVDA) is scheduled to report earnings and just days after his bank helped close the biggest utility merger ever, Lazard CEO Peter Orszag told Bloomberg, "At this point, the U.S. economy is a levered bet on AI."
In fact, Lazard was the adviser for Florida-based NextEra Energy (NEE) on its $67 billion bid to acquire Virginia-based Dominion Energy (D) amid rising demand for power from data centers.
Big banks are also collecting fees from companies borrowing to build out their own artificial intelligence infrastructure.
The stock market is certainly enjoying an uplift from investors seeking exposure to AI. "If you look at the sources of growth in the U.S.," Orszag explained, "it is artificial intelligence and high-income consumers." Indeed, those consumers are benefitting from AI investments.
While the jury's still out on the technology's long-term impact, with projections ranging from 1% to 14% in terms of a GDP boost over the next decade, Morgan Stanley underscores Orszag's point.
"The global economy continues to expand," the bank writes in a midyear outlook, "helped by momentum in the U.S., where AI capital investment and resilient spending by wealthier consumers are driving growth."
– David Dittman
Nvidia beats estimates and boosts its dividend
Nvidia (NVDA) reported fiscal 2027 first-quarter earnings of $1.87 per share (+139.7% year over year) on revenue of $81.62 billion (+85.2%), as gross margin improved to 75.0% from 60.8% a year ago.
Wall Street expected EPS of $1.78 on revenue of $78.98 billion.
Management guided to second-quarter revenue of $91 billion, "plus or minus 2%." Gross margin will be 75.0%, "plus or minus 50 basis points," with opex of approximately $8.3 billion. Nvidia doesn't expect any data center revenue from China.
Nvidia also raised its quarterly dividend from 1 cent to 25 cents per share, and the board authorized an additional $80 billion in stock buybacks.
“The buildout of AI factories — the largest infrastructure expansion in human history — is accelerating at extraordinary speed,” CEO Jensen Huang said in a statement announcing results. “Agentic AI has arrived, doing productive work, generating real value and scaling rapidly across companies and industries."
The CEO added that Nvidia is "the only platform that runs in every cloud, powers every frontier and open source model, and scales everywhere AI is produced — from hyperscale data centers to the edge.”
– David Dittman
Nvidia reports a new reporting structure
In addition to announcing expectations-beating top- and bottom-line results for its fiscal 2027 first quarter, Nvidia (NVDA) said on Wednesday it's "transitioning to a new reporting framework that better reflects its current and future growth drivers."
The AI revolutionary will have two segments: Data Center and Edge Computing. Data Center will include two sub-markets, Hyperscale and ACIE, "which incorporates AI Clouds, Industrial and Enterprise."
Edge Computing will include data processing for agentic and physical AI on devices including PCs, game consoles, workstations, AI-RAN base stations, robotics and automotive.
Data Center compute revenue grew by 77% year over year and 18% quarter over quarter to a company-record $60.4 billion. Data Center networking revenue was up 199% and 35%, respectively, to $14.8 billion.
– David Dittma
CFO Kress describes another 'exceptional' quarter for Nvidia
Nvidia (NVDA) ended the regular trading session with a gain of 1.3%, but the stock was down about 0.6% a few minutes after 5 pm ET, as CFO Colette Kress dug into the details of another "exceptional" quarter.
With AI becoming a "necessity" for companies across sectors and industries, Nvidia posted its 14th straight quarter of sequential revenue growth.
Indeed, as Kress noted, Nvidia's market opportunity exceeds that of any other platform, with demand continuing to expand at "unprecedented" levels and the value of Nvidia infrastructure rising.
Its "vast ecosystem of installed base" positions it well for continuing growth around the world.
– David Dittman
No China data center compute revenue yet for Nvidia
CFO Colette Kress reiterated that Nvidia (NVDA) still isn't seeing any revenue from China, even though the U.S. has authorized shipments of its chips to Chinese customers.
Beijing continues to take active measures to protect its domestic semiconductor manufacturing industry, as detailed by the FT earlier today.
Jensen Huang clarifies dividend increase, reporting framework
CFO Colette Kress misspoke during Nvidia's conference call when she said the semiconductor stock raised its dividend from 1 cent per share to 20 cents.
It's actually 25 cents. "That five cents might mean a lot to our shareholders," CEO Jensen Huang jested as he took the mic to talk about Nvidia's quarter.
Morgan Stanley analyst Joe Moore wondered about the new reporting structure; Huang began his answer by clarifying the dividend math, then launched a long explanation for the new segments.
In short, it's hyperscale clouds. From there, it's acceleration for them as they serve clients.
And then there are "AI natives," which is another platform, pushing toward that "robotic edge," as Huang described it.
"It's the simplest way of understanding our business," Huang said. "Each has their own stack."
– David Dittman
Nvidia should grow 'faster than hyperscale capex'
"We should be growing faster than hyperscale capex," Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang said during the company's conference call. "They're at a trillion dollars this year, and I have every reason to believe that figure will grow from here.
"Compute is profit." The CEO says compute spend is pushing toward $3 trillion to $4 trillion for the hyperscalers.
What Huang describes as the "second" category of hundreds and eventually thousands of companies with "smaller installations" will continue to grow "at incredible pace."
"The second cluster is growing incredibly fast. Our share of that cluster is incredibly large."
Huang says this category is "poorly understood" relative to the hyperscalers.
– David Dittman
Nvidia stock narrows after-hours loss
"Vera-Rubin is off to a tremendous start," CEO Jensen Huang said of Nvidia's key inference infrastructure, noting significant growth driven by its new relationship with Anthropic.
NVDA was down 0.7% about 40 minutes into the call, the stock price rising as Huang explained the Vera-Rubin opportunity.
– David Dittman
Billions and billions of agents...
"The world has a billion users," Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang forecast. "The world will have billions of agents."
And every agent is going to spin off sub-agents. That means more GPUs and CPUs.
"We're accelerating all of the world's tools and data processing," Huang said. "We're going to need a lot more CPUs. And Vera was designed to be an agentic CPU."
– David Dittman
The AI economy is a token economy
"We have to generate and process tokens as fast as possible," Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang says. That requires incredibly great storage, networks, CPUs, security...
"We've got it all covered," he said.
– David Dittman
Nvidia is all about the 'second category'
"I expect the second category to be bigger over time, but both are going to grow incredibly fast," Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang said of companies developing AI capabilities for industrial applications vs those tech companies spending to enhance user experience.
The former requires a higher level of sophistication, as Huang explained, and thus represents greater longer-term growth because of the infrastructure requirements to support the compute.
– David Dittman
Nvidia's next-gen chips to ship in Q3
CFO Colette Kress confirmed Vera-Rubin will ship during Nvidia's fiscal 2027 Q3 and will ramp in Q4.
"These are sophisticated systems to put together," the CFO said. "Q1 of next is certainly going to be very big as well."
– David Dittman
Nvidia sits at the center of everything AI
"Demand has gone parabolic. The reason is simple: Agentic AI has arrived," CEO Jensen Huang said in his closing remarks at the end of Nvidia's (NVDA) fiscal 2027 first-quarter conference call.
In this era, according to Huang, "Compute capacity is profits." The CEO provided five reasons Nvidia is particularly well positioned to maximize its own. According to Huang:
1. Nvidia is the only platform that runs every AI model.
2. Nvidia is in every hyperscale cloud.
3. Nvidia's complete stack and vast ecosystem support all kinds of customers. (This is "the second category.")
4. Nvidia extends all the way to the edge, to physical AI. (This is the third segment.)
5. Vera is the first CPU purpose-built for agentic AI. And it's the first step toward a multitrillion-dollar total addressable market.
"The world is rebuilding computing for agentic AI and robotic AI," Huang said. "And Nvidia sits at the center of it all."
Then the leader of the AI revolution concluded the call: "Look forward to catching up next time."
– David Dittman
Nvidia opens lower after Q1 results
Nvidia (NVDA) stock opened lower on Thursday, down 0.5% at last check, even after the chipmaker's Q1 results and Q2 guidance came in higher than expected.
Kyle Rodda, senior financial market analyst at Capital.com, says this was just "a garden variety beat — a better than expected top and bottom line with guidance above the Street estimate — and one that was well telegraphed following the very strong results from AI-hyperscalers earlier in the earnings season. "
- Karee Venema
Nvidia's $80 billion buyback signals a new phase for the AI giant
As was no surprise, Nvidia posted another standout quarterly report. Sales spiked by 85% to $81.6 billion, ahead of the Street's $78.9 billion consensus. Net income came in at $58.3 billion, compared to analysts' estimate of $42.9 billion.
Yet investors wanted even more, with Nvidia shares down 0.9% at last check in Thursday's session.
Perhaps one of the reasons for this reaction is that Nvidia is actually looking more like a value stock. After all, the company announced an $80 billion stock buyback and a one penny increase to the dividend payout. Nvidia expects to return about half of its free cash flows to shareholders in 2026.
In the meantime, the momentum in the chip sector is primarily with players in storage as well as those that develop CPUs, including Intel.
This also signals more competitive pressures. Mega customers such as Google, Meta and Microsoft are investing heavily in developing their own chips.
Many startups are raising substantial amounts of capital. For instance, AI chipmaker Cerebras Systems last week pulled off a $5.55 billion IPO.
But of course, Nvidia has huge amounts of capital to focus on the growth engine. The company is investing more in inference capabilities, which involve delivering AI services. A big part of this is with the acquisition of Groq's assets for $20 billion. Then there are the Vera CPUs.
And as Nvidia continues to grow at a rapid pace, the valuation on the company’s shares continues to get more compelling.
"There could be a trillion dollars of free cash returned to shareholders over the next four to five years," says John Belton, portfolio manager at Gabelli Funds. "So, that is part of the story for a stock that's trading at sub-20 P/E, or basically a market multiple, that becomes important."
- Tom Taulli
Nvidia closes lower after earnings
Despite its Q1 beat and stronger-than-anticipated guidance, Nvidia closed Thursday down 1.8%. Wall Street doesn't seem overly worried, though.
Speaking for the bulls is Wedbush analyst Dan Ives. "NVDA remains well-positioned on top of the AI mountain as the infrastructure buildout accelerates," he writes in a post-earnings note. "There is one company that is the foundation for the AI Revolution and that is Nvidia with the Godfather of AI Jensen having the best perch and vantage point to discuss overall enterprise AI demand and the appetite for Nvidia's AI chips looking forward."
Ives has an Outperform (Buy) rating on NVDA and a $300 price target, representing implied upside of 37% to current levels.
- Karee Venema