Nvidia Earnings Are Tomorrow: What Investors Need To Watch For

Nvidia Corp (NASDAQ:NVDA) shares are trading lower Tuesday morning, extending Monday’s tech-led selloff as investors anxiously await the semiconductor giant’s third-quarter financial results.

The recent tech selloff was primarily triggered by fading hopes for a December Federal Reserve rate cut, as cautious comments from Fed officials regarding inflation prompted a sharp recalibration of interest rate expectations.

This negative sentiment was compounded by anxiety ahead of Nvidia's earnings and concerns that the trade in AI stocks has become overcrowded, causing investors to trim positions in high-growth sectors. Here’s what investors need to know.

• NVDA is in negative territory. Get the complete picture here.

What To Know: Dubbed the “Super Bowl” of the stock market by Wedbush analyst Dan Ives, Wednesday's report is viewed as a critical bellwether for the entire AI sector.

Despite the immediate volatility and fading hopes for a Federal Reserve rate cut, the long-term thesis remains robust. The performance gap between Nvidia and competitors like AMD is also widening, driven by immense demand for upcoming Blackwell chips.

However, Deepwater Asset Management's Gene Munster warns of a potential “Catch-22” for the immediate stock price: strong guidance could trigger fears of overspending, while a modest beat might be interpreted as slowing growth, potentially causing near-term turbulence regardless of the outcome.

What Else: Microsoft Corp (NASDAQ:MSFT) and Nvidia on Tuesday morning also announced a strategic partnership with Anthropic, featuring a combined $15 billion investment in the startup and Anthropic’s commitment to purchase $30 billion of Azure compute capacity

This agreement expands the availability of Claude models on Microsoft Azure and establishes a collaboration to optimize Nvidia’s next-generation Grace Blackwell and Vera Rubin architectures for Anthropic’s workloads.

Consensus Estimates: Wall Street expects Nvidia to report third-quarter revenue of $54.84 billion, a significant surge from $35.08 billion year-over-year. EPS are projected at $1.25, up from 81 cents in the same quarter last year.

Recent Analyst Actions: Sentiment remains overwhelmingly bullish. In the days leading up to the report, Stifel raised its price target to $250, Wells Fargo and Oppenheimer hiked targets to $265 and Keybanc reiterated its Buy rating with a $250 target.

Benzinga Edge Rankings: Reinforcing the company’s fundamental dominance, Benzinga Edge data assigns Nvidia a near-perfect Growth score of 98.63 and a Quality score of 92.92, suggesting strong underlying health even as the short-term price trend flashes a warning signal.

NVDA Price Action: Nvidia shares were down 2.90% at $181.18 at the time of publication on Tuesday, according to Benzinga Pro data.

Read Also: Everyone’s Bullish, Cash Is Gone—What Happens If The Fed Doesn’t Cut?

How To Buy NVDA Stock

By now you're likely curious about how to participate in the market for Nvidia – be it to purchase shares, or even attempt to bet against the company.

Buying shares is typically done through a brokerage account. You can find a list of possible trading platforms here. Many will allow you to buy “fractional shares,” which allows you to own portions of stock without buying an entire share.

If you're looking to bet against a company, the process is more complex. You'll need access to an options trading platform, or a broker who will allow you to “go short” a share of stock by lending you the shares to sell. The process of shorting a stock can be found at this resource. Otherwise, if your broker allows you to trade options, you can either buy a put option, or sell a call option at a strike price above where shares are currently trading – either way it allows you to profit off of the share price decline.

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