New York, March 1, 2026, 10:15 EST — The market closed.
Nvidia Corp (NVDA.O) finished Friday at $177.19, dropping 4.2%. The AI-chip leader faced renewed selling after its post-earnings tumble, setting up a tense start to the new week.
Nvidia’s rise is front and center these days, with investors zeroing in on a single question: is the big capital push into AI hardware going to pay off quickly enough?
Plenty on the docket for next week: U.S. jobs numbers land Friday, Broadcom’s earnings are in the mix, and traders aren’t letting go of AI headlines. “There is very little definitive right now,” Man Group’s chief market strategist Kristina Hooper said, flagging all the churn over who wins—or loses—when it comes to AI. Reuters
Company news: Reuters, citing the Wall Street Journal, said Friday that Nvidia is gearing up to roll out a fresh processor platform targeting speed boosts for “inference”—the phase where trained AI models spit out results—for clients like OpenAI. That unveiling could land as soon as next month’s GTC conference, according to the report, and may feature a chip from startup Groq. Nvidia and OpenAI didn’t respond to Reuters’ requests for comment. Reuters
OpenAI’s new funding round turned heads, as the company moved to raise $110 billion, putting its valuation at $840 billion. According to Reuters, Nvidia is expected to chip in $30 billion, Amazon is in for $50 billion, and SoftBank is lining up $30 billion as well. Reuters also noted it remains unclear if Nvidia’s $30 billion now replaces the earlier plan—announced back in September—to invest up to $100 billion.
The spending surge isn’t a one-way street. CoreWeave, a cloud infrastructure player with Nvidia’s backing, is projecting capital outlays of $30 billion to $35 billion this year—a figure that comes with a warning about margin pressure in the near term. It’s a sharp illustration: building out AI capabilities can sap cash flow, no matter how strong demand looks. “They are concerned about the long-term economics and how the company plans to fund the investment,” said AJ Bell investment director Russ Mould. Reuters
Headline numbers weren’t Nvidia’s problem. The company reported record quarterly revenue at $68.1 billion on Feb. 25, with data center revenue reaching $62.3 billion. “Our customers are racing to invest in AI compute,” CEO Jensen Huang said. NVIDIA Newsroom
GTC is up next. Nvidia’s event hits San Jose from March 16 to 19, and traders usually watch it closely for fresh details on the product pipeline or demand clues from key customers.
Macro forces haven’t faded. The broader slide on Friday trailed a hotter U.S. producer price print and reignited questions around the Federal Reserve’s timing on rate cuts. “We were reminded there are still some cracks out there,” said Carson Group’s Ryan Detrick. Reuters
Monday’s open will test if Nvidia shakes off its late-week slide or keeps mirroring the ongoing “AI returns” argument. March 16’s GTC keynote marks the next firm marker. NVIDIA
