NEW YORK, Feb 9, 2026, 09:36 ET — Regular session
- Nvidia slipped in premarket trading, following a sharp rebound on Friday.
- Investors are once again sizing up Big Tech’s AI budgets, questioning whether the heavy spending will deliver enough returns to offset the squeeze on profits.
- Nvidia’s results and guidance, set for Feb. 25, are on deck as the next major catalyst. Focus is likely to land on visibility through 2027.
Nvidia shares slipped roughly 0.8% to $183.99 in premarket action Monday, following a previous close at $185.41. 1
A slight drop, but it isn’t nothing. Nvidia’s turned into the go-to ticker for gauging whether the AI rush is still funneling cash into chipmakers, while investors keep pressing on how soon all this massive capex—big checks for gear and data centers—turns into returns. 2
Investors won’t have to wait long: Nvidia is set to release its fiscal 2026 fourth-quarter numbers after the bell on Feb. 25, with a conference call scheduled for later that day. 3
Reuters on Monday highlighted yet another angle to AI funding: Apollo Global Management is nearing the finish line on a loan of about $3.4 billion for an entity set up to acquire Nvidia chips and lease them out to Elon Musk’s xAI, according to The Information. 4
Goldman Sachs analyst Jim Schneider says the investors he’s talked to are already looking past this year, zeroing in on what management can signal about demand in 2027. Expectations had run high ahead of the Feb. 25 report, he noted, pointing to stepped-up spending from U.S. hyperscale cloud players — those are the giants behind sprawling data center operations. 5
Nvidia just snapped back. Shares finished Feb. 6 at $185.41, jumping 7.87% for the session after slipping earlier in the week. 6
Jensen Huang isn’t buying the argument that the buildout is anywhere near done. The CEO told CNBC on Feb. 6 that the AI infrastructure wave still has “seven to eight years to go” and called demand “sky high.” 7
Even so, the tape’s been twitchy. Investors are debating if OpenAI and similar players will keep up their spending spree, and if major clients might move more jobs onto custom chips—potentially trimming their reliance on Nvidia’s general-purpose GPUs. Nvidia’s premarket quote slipped, mirroring lighter premarket moves among other AI chip stocks, Barron’s noted. 8
Nvidia bulls face a clear risk: even a solid quarterly beat might not cut it if the company’s guidance sounds hesitant, or if customers emphasize getting more out of what they already own. Any sign of shaky demand can drag down a stock that investors continue to view as the main “AI hardware” proxy.
Traders this week are zeroed in on the broader AI spending debate, but the real inflection point lands Feb. 25. That’s when Nvidia reports, and, crucially, investors want to hear what management reveals about demand visibility through 2027.
