NEW YORK, May 20, 2026, 16:55 EDT
- Nvidia posted record first-quarter revenue at $81.6 billion and guided for $91.0 billion in sales for the second quarter.
- The stock finished the session 1.3% higher at $223.47 but lost ground after the report in after-hours trading.
- Options were pricing in a move of roughly 6.5% on Thursday, or about $356 billion in market value as of Wednesday’s close.
Nvidia ended the day up 1.3% at $223.47 on Wednesday ahead of its earnings release, which showed another jump in revenue and an expansion of its share buyback program. But after hours, the stock edged down, trading at $221.90 as of 4:26 p.m. Eastern, with the results coming up against big expectations for AI.
Nvidia’s quarter is in focus as it still stands out as the main way to track what big tech firms are putting into AI infrastructure. Reuters said this week customers like Microsoft and Meta are fueling the rise, and Big Tech’s AI spending could go past $700 billion this year.
Nvidia reported revenue of $81.6 billion for the quarter ended April 26, up 85% from the same period last year. Data Center revenue, which covers chips and networking for big AI server systems, jumped 92% to $75.2 billion.
Wall Street numbers came in under what the company posted, Business Insider reported. Revenue was $81.6 billion, higher than the $79.15 billion expected. Adjusted earnings per share hit $1.87, up from the $1.77 estimate. Data-center revenue of $75.2 billion topped the $73.49 billion forecast. Gross margin read at 74.9%, just shy of the 75.1% Street number.
Nvidia is guiding for second-quarter revenue of $91 billion, give or take 2%. The company said it left out any China data-center compute sales from the outlook. Nvidia also added $80 billion to its buyback program and bumped its quarterly dividend to 25 cents from 1 cent.
Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang said in the company statement that “The buildout of AI factories — the largest infrastructure expansion in human history — is accelerating at extraordinary speed.” Nvidia calls big data centers for AI training and deployment “AI factories.” NVIDIA Newsroom
Visible Alpha consensus expected about $78.5 billion in total quarterly revenue and $72.8 billion from Data Center, based on S&P Global Market Intelligence data cited by TS2. That report also pointed to China, buybacks, and the options-implied earnings move as key market topics.
The competition isn’t just AMD. The bigger test is whether Nvidia’s whole system — both hardware and software — can keep its lead as AI shifts more to inference, which is what happens after models are trained. “It’s less so Nvidia versus TPUs, Nvidia versus AMD,” John Belton, portfolio manager at Gabelli Funds, told Reuters. He put the question as whether the Nvidia ecosystem remains in charge. Reuters
Alphabet’s TPUs and Amazon’s Trainium chips are still in play, as cloud firms look to rely on their own hardware to trim costs or lessen their exposure to Nvidia. Business Insider pointed to new competitive steps from AMD, Amazon, and Google involving AI compute.
Nvidia options are pricing in about a 6.5% swing either way after results on Thursday, according to Reuters. That would mean shares could land somewhere between $209 and $238 based on where they closed Wednesday. The number is an options-based risk gauge, not a target for the stock.
The risk is still there. China is still out of the company’s data-center compute outlook. Profit margins could come under pressure from higher memory and chip-packaging costs. Slower growth from data center construction would weigh on near-term demand. Chaim Siegel of Elazar Advisors told Reuters customers “don’t really have the data centers” to use all the GPUs they want. Reuters
Thursday’s move in the stock is more about the earnings call than the headline beat. Bulls might stick around if they get what they want on supply, margins and China. The $91 billion guide could help. If not, the slip after hours was a sign that traders are quick to drop a report that looked good but was already priced in.
