New York, May 19, 2026, 16:34 EDT
- Nvidia will release its fiscal Q1 numbers after U.S. markets shut on Wednesday, May 20.
- Analysts are looking for revenue of about $79 billion, which would be up nearly 80% from last year.
- Options markets are betting on about a 6.5% one-day swing in Nvidia shares after the results.
Nvidia will deliver its fiscal Q1 results after the close Wednesday. The market’s top-valued firm is again in focus for AI names.
NVIDIA said it will hold its call to go over quarterly results at 5 p.m. ET on May 20. Written remarks from CFO Colette Kress are due out soon after the numbers hit.
Nvidia’s earnings are in focus as the market looks for signs that AI data center spending is speeding up. Wall Street expects revenue to jump about 80% to nearly $79 billion and adjusted profit up 81.8% to $42.97 billion, based on an LSEG poll Reuters cited.
Nvidia shares closed Tuesday at $220.61, slipping about 0.7%. The company’s market cap ended up near $5.4 trillion.
Options pricing points to a 6.5% move either way for the stock on Thursday, which comes out to around $355 billion in market value, Reuters said. Matt Amberson, founder of ORATS, told Reuters investors seem “complacent about AI/capex,” meaning spending on big projects like data centers. Reuters
Nvidia set a tough bar after posting fourth-quarter revenue at $68.1 billion in February, up 73% from last year. Data center revenue also climbed, rising 75% to $62.3 billion. That’s where Nvidia books sales of AI processors to big cloud players.
For investors, the outlook could be more important than Nvidia’s actual quarter. S&P Global’s Visible Alpha consensus puts fiscal first-quarter revenue at $78.5 billion and data center revenue at $72.8 billion. Analysts are divided on the pace of the Blackwell system launch. Blackwell is Nvidia’s latest AI chip.
Competition is picking up. Nvidia still leads in chips for training AI, but more of the action is shifting to inference, where AMD and Alphabet’s custom TPU chips want a bigger slice. John Belton, portfolio manager at Gabelli Funds, said the main thing to watch is if the “Nvidia ecosystem” can keep its edge as inference demand goes up. Reuters
Bullish bets are still strong. Chris Murphy, co-head of derivatives strategy at Susquehanna, said options traders are “paying for upside participation.” Reuters also reported that traders are now hedging gains across semis after a solid stretch. Reuters
The risk isn’t just about whether Nvidia tops estimates. Data center buildouts could slow, which might push back orders. There are still question marks around China. Margins could get hit by higher costs for memory and chip packaging. Chaim Siegel at Elazar Advisors said customers want more GPUs, but some might not have enough room in their data centers to use them.
Bond yields are another pressure, not just tech. Higher yields can weigh on fast-growers since investors price in future profits. Ameriprise chief market strategist Anthony Saglimbene said higher yields and sticky inflation may keep a lid on what people will pay for long-term growth stocks, even if the fundamentals look solid.
Nvidia will report earnings May 20, after the close. The main thing for markets is if Nvidia can grow at a pace strong enough for a stock that’s already trading as the key AI supplier.
