Nvidia Earnings Report: Expectations, Surprises and Where We're Buyers

In last week’s "Stocks & Markets" podcast with Jay Woods, Tuesday's Daily Rundown video and this week’s "Stocks & Markets" podcast with Bob Lang, we touched on Wednesday night's earnings report from Nvidia NVDA.

If that doesn’t tell you how much emphasis the market is likely to put on it, the fact the shares account for 6% of the S&P 500 and more than 11% of the Nasdaq 100 (NDX) should.

We, of course, are very interested in the results and guidance not only because we are NVDA shareholders, but because the comments about AI and data center demand will impact other holdings in the Pro Portfolio, such as Marvell MRVL, United Rentals URI and Eaton ETN, to name a few.

What’s Nvidia Expect to Deliver?

The consensus forecast for Nvidia’s April quarter calls for EPS of $0.75 on revenue of $43.25 billion, up from $0.61 and $26.04 billion in the year-ago quarter. When Nvidia reported last time, we discussed how part of its results and guidance fell short of Wall Street “whisper numbers,” which are simply speculation as to how much a company could beat the market consensus figures. With that in mind, we’ll share the EPS and revenue range for the April quarter, which are $0.71 to $0.95 and $41.84 billion to $45.6 billion.

In terms of guidance for the current July quarter, the market consensus is EPS of $0.99 with a range between $0.89 and $1.10, on revenue of $45.66 billion between a range of $41.47 billion and $49.06 billion. Given the multitude of comments we’ve collected in recent weeks, it’s hard to fathom the lower end of the revenue range for the current quarter compared to the April quarter. However, we can’t rule out a surprise given export curbs to China.

We’d also remind you that, while Nvidia participates in the Gaming and AI PC, Automotive & Robotics, and other markets, Data Center, which accounted for about 90% of total revenue over the last two reported quarters, will be the Wall Street focal point.

What Are We looking For?

When CEO Jensen Huang conducts the earnings conference call, we expect he will reiterate his multi-year outlook for AI and data center demand, the expanding uses for AI and the burgeoning market for robotics.

It would be surprising if he didn’t give the number of signals and announcements we’ve seen, not to mention Big Tech reiterating or upsizing their capex plans. To that, we can also throw in CoreWeave’s sequential revenue increase and capital spending plans. As such, we expect Jensen will once again talk about how strong demand for Nvidia’s Blackwell solutions and likely touch on its pipeline of future chips and software. With that in mind, we look forward to comments on Trump’s Stargate initiative, the Stargate Project for the UAE and those about its China prospects.

Given that expected Blackwell ramp, we will be paying close attention to Nvidia’s margin performance in the quarter, but also expectations for a rebound in 2H 2025 and 2026. We’ll also be interested in what if anything is said about Nvidia’s position in CoreWeave and other publicly-held securities, including Arm Holdings ARM and Applied Digital APLD. Per SEC filings, Nvidia owns 24.18 million CRWV shares, which is worth roughly $2.8 billion based on CRWV’s current share price.

As we discussed when we added SuRo Capital SSSS shares to the Bullpen, the lockup period for CoreWeave’s IPO isn’t until September, but we would like to hear what Nvidia thinks about holding those shares and others. We would argue that few on Wall Street factor those investments into their price target thinking, but if Nvidia intends to be longer-term shareholders, that may need to change.

Where Might We Be Buyers of NVDA Shares?

When Nvidia last reported, its quarterly results fell a wee bit shy of the Wall Street “whisper numbers” for the quarter, and NVDA shares tumbled the following day. While we don’t suspect that will happen, fortune, as they say, favors the prepared, and with that in mind, we see support as well as some gaps in the chart below, and while it may be painful a nice pickup point for new members would be near $115.

What if Nvidia Shares Spike Higher After Earning?

If we need to revisit our current $160 price target we will, but given the Portfolio’s position size near 4.2% of its assets, if Nvidia delivers a blowout beat-and-raise quarter that pops the stocks, some prudent trimming could be called for.

We’ll know much more once we’ve reviewed the earnings press release and digested tonight’s earnings conference call.

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At the time of publication, TheStreet Pro Portfolio was long NVDA, MRVL, URI and ETN.