Ahead of the release of its long-awaited first-quarter earnings report, Nvidia’s stock price fell 0.6% to about $947 on Wednesday morning, after closing at a record high of $953.86 the day before. But the chipmaking giant has seen this before.
Before the chipmaker last reported fourth-quarter earnings in February, he had seen them worst day on the stock market since October 2023 and the day before its earnings report, it has lost $78 billion in market value. Nvidia shares rebounded after it reported revenue of $22 billion, up nearly 270% from the previous year and above expectations. The chipmaker’s stock prices have surged since its fourth-quarter earnings report, and are up 204% over the past year.
After the chipmaker unveiled its newest chip, Blackwellin March, Wall Street expectations for the company’s earnings report are high. However, some analysts fear an interruption in Nvidia’s power orders tokens prior to possible shipment to Blackwell.
Nvidia Tank chips, Blackwell’s predecessor behind some of the world’s most powerful artificial intelligence models, have made the company a leader the first chipmaker to reach a market capitalization of $2 trillion in February and the third most valuable company in the world in March.
Wall Street expects the company to report revenue of $24.5 billion in the first quarter, according to a FactSet survey based on analyst estimates. KeyBanc equity research analyst John Vinh said Nvidia will likely report first-quarter revenue around $26 billion and set second-quarter guidance at around $28.5 billion.
“Despite expectations for next-gen Blackwell GPUs [graphics processing units] we see restricted signs of a demand pause in the second half and expect Nvidia to report first-quarter results and second-quarter guidance well above expectations,” Vinh wrote in a research note last week.
Research analysts at Bank of America Global Research said in a note last week that they expect strength following Nvidia’s earnings report and that the company’s stock will be “volatile” in the near future due to factors including “quarterly slowdown ahead of Blackwell” and greater dependence on China.
Harsh Kumar, an analyst at Piper Sandler, also said investors can expect powerful results from Nvidia’s first-quarter results.
“We continue to see powerful demand for NVDA’s data center products and feel the company is positioned for another quarter of growth and growth,” Kumar wrote in a note last week: by TipRanks. “Demand for Hopper GPUs remains powerful and supply is still struggling to catch up with demand as the product is still in the allocation phase. Our checks indicate that demand for the Blackwell series of GPUs will also be powerful among NVDA’s data center customers.”
Meanwhile, Citi analysts said in a note last week that they expect “lower gains compared to the previous several quarters on higher volumes, faster order fulfillment times in the first half of the year and gross margin normalization ahead of GB200 volume growth in the first half of 2025.” according to Investing.com. Citi analysts also noted a “potential air pocket” in demand for Nvidia chips as the company prepares to launch its fresh Blackwell processorsand Morgan Stanley analysts wrote in a note to clients this week: “there is concern [on Wall Street] about the pause before Blackwell,” reports the Financial Times.