Nvidia earnings hit market as AI anxiety peaks

Key topics:Earnings test amid AI demand worries and market volatility.Investors watch margins, Blackwell/Rubin chips, China sales.Stock heavily influences S&P; options signal big swing..Sign up for your early morning brew of the BizNews Insider to keep you up to speed with the content that matters. The newsletter will land in your inbox every morning on weekdays. Register here.Support South Africa’s bastion of independent journalism, offering balanced insights on investments, business, and the political economy, by joining BizNews Premium. Register here.If you prefer WhatsApp for updates, sign up to the BizNews channel here..By Carmen Reinicke.Nvidia Corp.’s earnings report on Wednesday afternoon comes at a critical time for the US stock market with investors increasingly nervous about the outlook for artificial intelligence.While most Wall Street pros are anticipating strong results from the chipmaker amid ballooning spending on computing infrastructure, there is less certainty about how its shares — and others — will respond at a time when fears about AI disruption and the staying power of heavy investments are dominating the tape.“Even if they have tremendous numbers, we know the markets are really fickle,” said Ken Mahoney, president of Mahoney Asset Management. .Read more:.Trump approves Nvidia H200 AI chip sales to China amid security concerns.After powering the market higher for much of the past few years, Nvidia shares have gone cold in recent months, rising about 5% since the start of the fourth quarter — including a more than 2% intraday gain Wednesday — as investors question the hundreds of billions of dollars customers like Alphabet Inc. and Microsoft Corp. are spending on AI. Meanwhile, investors have been fleeing sectors seen as potentially under threat from AI disruption..The selloff is weighing on the S&P 500 with shares of members like Intuit Inc., Gartner Inc. and Workday Inc. down more than 40% since the start of the year. A Bloomberg index tracking the Magnificent Seven, which also includes Apple Inc., Amazon.com Inc., Meta Platforms Inc. and Tesla Inc., has dropped 4.7% in 2026.Nvidia, however, is still the most valuable company in the world with a roughly $4.8 trillion market capitalization as the stock climbs on Wednesday, giving it enormous sway over the S&P 500 Index. The index has fallen less than 1% from a late January peak.Nvidia’s revenue is expected to jump 68% to $65.9 billion in its fiscal fourth quarter, which ended on Jan. 31. Adjusted earnings are anticipated to rise 72% to $1.53 a share, according to the average of analyst estimates compiled by Bloomberg.Another metric investors will be watching closely is gross margin, a measure of profitability that came under pressure last year due to high production costs for Nvidia’s Blackwell chips. The firm’s adjusted gross margin is anticipated to be 75% in the fourth quarter, the highest in more than a year, and is projected to stay around that level in the current fiscal year. Investors want reassurances that such profitability can be sustained amid rising prices for memory chips and other input costs.“Margins are potentially a risk factor,” said Melissa Otto, head of technology, media and telecommunications research at Visible Alpha. “The question’s going to be around that gross margin coming into Q1 and then if they give any color for the rest of the year.” Otto is also looking for updates on the status of Nvidia’s Blackwell and upcoming Rubin chips. Nvidia Chief Executive Officer Jensen Huang said in October that the two chip lines were on track to generate half a trillion dollars in revenue over the next several quarters, a milestone the company said it would reach faster than initially expected. China is also top of mind, even though Nvidia previously said that the fourth quarter won’t include any data center revenue from the country. Still, investors will be looking for any update about the company’s ability to sell into China after the Trump administration cleared sales of its older H200 chips. Still, Nvidia has yet to sell any of those chips to China, David Peters, assistant secretary for export enforcement at the Commerce Department, told the House Foreign Affairs Committee on Tuesday. “What Nvidia says about their guidance is important, what they say about their overseas sales and what they can sell is going to be really important,” said Luke Rahbari, chief executive officer of Equity Armor Investments. The options market is pricing in about a 5% swing in either direction for Nvidia shares the day after earnings. The stock has declined the day after each of its last two reports. Beyond the numbers, Huang’s comments on the earnings call will also be closely monitored. Earlier this month, the CEO called the selloff in software stocks on disruption concerns “the most illogical thing in the world.” Since then, the fear-based selling has spread to dozens of other companies in a wide range of sectors, including wealth management and real estate services.A positive reception for Nvidia could help boost sentiment for the AI pain trade, according to Rahbari. “If Nvidia comes out and says, we’re positive on this entire space, on this structure,” he said, “I think that rising tide lifts all boats, including software.” Tech Chart of the Day.“Equity Insights” are short stories on equity market color, combining key insights from traders, strategists, reporters and more. They can be found by running NI EQINSIGHT, and can be subscribed to here..Read more:.The Economist: Google has pierced Nvidia’s aura of invulnerability.“Before the Bell” is a daily story with all you need to know before the open on Wall Street. On the Terminal, click here to see it and subscribe. The “S&P Week in Review” is a wrap of equity events, published every Friday. On the Terminal, click here to see it and subscribe. The “S&P Month in Review” comes on the last day of the month. Click here to see and subscribe. .© 2026 Bloomberg L.P.

Nvidia earnings hit market as AI anxiety peaks

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