Nvidia late Wednesday beat Wall Street's targets for its fiscal third quarter, but its sales guidance for the current period was only a tad above views. Nvidia stock slid in extended trading.
The AI chipmaker earned an adjusted 81 cents a share on sales of $35.08 billion in the quarter ended Oct. 27. Analysts polled by FactSet had expected Nvidia earnings of 75 cents a share on sales of $33.17 billion. In the year-earlier period, Nvidia earned 40 cents a share on sales of $18.12 billion.
For the current fiscal fourth quarter, Nvidia forecast revenue of $37.5 billion, edging above expectations for $37.09 billion. In the same quarter last year, Nvidia posted sales of $22.1 billion. Nvidia's fiscal Q4 will be the first to include sales of the company's next-generation AI processor, called Blackwell.
In after-hours trading on the stock market today, Nvidia stock dropped nearly 2% to 143.50. During the regular session Wednesday, Nvidia stock dipped 0.8% to close at 145.89.
The earnings report will be closely watched because Nvidia is a barometer for the artificial intelligence megatrend. "There is one company in the world that is the foundation for the AI revolution … and that is Nvidia," Wedbush Securities analyst Daniel Ives said in a client note Wednesday. "Nvidia's GPUs (are) the new oil and gold in this world."
In October, Nvidia Chief Executive Jensen Huang called Blackwell demand "insane." But production snags threaten to delay sales of Blackwell graphics processing units and data center systems.
Nvidia Stock Is A Recent Breakout
On Oct. 17, Nvidia stock broke out of a 17-week consolidation pattern at a buy point of 140.76, according to IBD MarketSurge charts. Since then, it has been trading in and out of the 5% buy zone, which is based on IBD trading principles. The buy zone extends to 147.80. But buying a stock ahead of earnings can be risky.
Nvidia stock is on five IBD stock lists: Leaderboard, SwingTrader, IBD 50, Sector Leaders and Tech Leaders.
6:08 p.m. ET
Nvidia Call Ends. Stock Down 1.6%
CEO Jensen Huang wraps up call by declaring, "The age of AI is upon us and it is large and diverse."
5:45 p.m. ET
Nvidia Ups Blackwell Outlook
"Blackwell production is in full steam," Chief Executive Jensen Huang said on the conference call. "We will deliver this quarter more Blackwells than we had previously estimated."
Nvidia previously predicted Blackwell sales of "several billion dollars" in fiscal Q4.
Nvidia is working closely with its manufacturing partners to increase the supply of Blackwell chips and systems, Huang said.
He also reassured analysts that the company will continue its rapid pace of developing new AI chips, releasing new models each year.
"We're on an annual roadmap and we expect to continue to execute on that annual roadmap," Huang said.
Meanwhile, Hopper demand will continue into the next fiscal year, with those systems selling alongside Blackwell products, he said.
Nvidia down roughly 2%.
5:12 p.m. ET
Nvidia Earnings: A Non-Event For Market?
After so much anticipation, the market reaction to the AI chip giant's earnings and guidance has been muted. Dow Jones futures rose 0.1%, even with its newest member Nvidia down modestly. S&P 500 futures and Nasdaq 100 futures also rose 0.1% after initially falling modestly.
Meanwhile, on the conference call with analysts, CFO Kress said demand for Hopper products is "exceptional." She noted that cloud service providers accounted for about half of Nvidia's data center sales in the quarter.
Blackwell is in full production after a successful mask change to improve yields, she said.
5:05 p.m. ET
CFO: Strong Demand For Blackwell
Earnings call has started.
In prepared remarks, Chief Financial Officer Colette Kress said production shipments of Blackwell chips are scheduled to begin in the current fiscal fourth quarter and will continue to ramp into fiscal 2026.
"Both (current-generation) Hopper and Blackwell systems have certain supply constraints, and the demand for Blackwell is expected to exceed supply for several quarters in fiscal 2026," Kress said.
Nvidia still down more than 2%.
4:47 p.m. ET
'Age Of AI In Full Steam'
On a year-over-year basis, Nvidia's Q3 earnings rose 103% while sales advanced 94%. The Q3 report marked the sixth straight quarter of triple-digit percentage growth in earnings for Nvidia. However, the company's streak of triple-digit sales gains ended at five consecutive quarters through fiscal Q2.
Nvidia's data center revenue surged 112% from a year ago to $30.8 billion. Sales in the segment were up 17% from the fiscal second quarter.
"The age of AI is in full steam, propelling a global shift to Nvidia computing," Chief Executive Jensen Huang said in a news release. "Demand for Hopper and anticipation for Blackwell — in full production — are incredible as foundation model makers scale pretraining, post-training and inference."
He added, "AI is transforming every industry, company and country. Enterprises are adopting agentic AI to revolutionize workflows. Industrial robotics investments are surging with breakthroughs in physical AI. And countries have awakened to the importance of developing their national AI and infrastructure."
Nvidia stock was last down 2.3%.
4:04 p.m. ET
Nvidia Report Out Soon. Astera Labs Stock Up.
Nvidia ended the regular session down nearly 1%, as investors appeared to discount the AI stock. But in a notable sign, shares of Astera Labs gained more than 2%. Astera, which went public in March and is an Nvidia supplier, has seen its stock jump on expectations that it's poised to gain from the Nvidia juggernaut.
2:04 p.m. ET
Nvidia Still In The Red
Investors were discounting Nvidia stock ahead of its earnings report. The Dow, the Nasdaq and the S&P 500 were also in the red, though hopes are high that Nvidia's report would trigger a rally.
12:15 p.m. ET
Nvidia Touts Latest AI Tools
Meanwhile, Nvidia has been at the SC24 supercomputing conference this week in Atlanta. At the show, Nvidia has been discussing its latest advancements in AI.
At SC24, Nvidia announced new AI tools for next-generation drug discovery, real-time climate forecasting and quantum simulations.
The chipmaker also revealed that it is scaling production to meet demand for AI systems such as Blackwell. Its contract manufacturer Foxconn is building new production and testing facilities in the U.S., Mexico and Taiwan.
11:46 a.m. ET
Nvidia, Other AI Stocks In The Red
Nvidia stock is still down more than 1% ahead of the chip giant's report.
Other AI stocks are also in the red. AMD, Broadcom and TSMC are off nearly 2%.
Microsoft, Google, Apple and Amazon are also down slightly as the broader market retreated.
9:46 a.m. ET
Nvidia Edges Lower In Morning Trades
Nvidia stock shed more than 1% as the trading session began.
Financial analyst Tom Essaye echoed the view that investors will listening closely to Nvidia's forecast. "It's all about the guidance," he told Yahoo Finance. "How enthusiastic and how aggressive [Nvidia is] on the guidance. ... They've got to keep us excited about it via this earnings print."
Follow Patrick Seitz on X, formerly Twitter, at @IBD_PSeitz for more stories on consumer technology, software and semiconductor stocks.
