These were the five biggest highlights from Nvidia's earnings

By Britney Nguyen

The stock move notwithstanding, analysts say Nvidia delivered a big beat, posted strong networking growth and indicated a lot of visibility into future business trends

Nvidia's stock reversed course on Thursday and was down more than 1% in afternoon action.

While Nvidia's earnings don't seem to be enough to support the stock market on Thursday, analysts found plenty to like in the latest results.

Shares of Nvidia (NVDA) had been up as much as 5.1% on Thursday, lifting the technology sector and the broad market along with them. But as of midday, the stock had sharply reversed to be down 1.3%.

The selloff builds on pressure experienced in the lead-up to earnings, as investors worried about things like the sustainability of massive capital expenditures from hyperscaler customers and the circular nature of deals recently struck between Nvidia and other players in its ecosystem.

Nvidia earnings weren't the only big event of the past 24 hours, which could help explain the market's sudden change of direction. Joe Mazzola, head trading and derivatives strategist at Charles Schwab, said recent jobs data was "sweet and sour, with downward revisions to prior reports and a mild rise in the unemployment rate."

But macroeconomic factors aside, Nvidia's report struck analysts as a healthy read on artificial-intelligence momentum that could be supportive of rosier sectorwide sentiment. Here were some of the biggest highlights.

Robust demand

Investors were likely expecting "a good guide" from Nvidia given the spending increases telegraphed by its customers, according to Bernstein analyst Stacy Rasgon. Nonetheless, Wall Street still needed some "hand-holding" from Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang, and it got that through commentary like Huang's description of "off the charts" demand.

Rasgon noted that Nvidia also talked up its competitiveness and robust product roadmap, and the company reaffirmed the trajectory of its revenue and gross margins going into next year. Those factors "will probably give investors more confidence to underwrite a 'stronger for longer' outlook for AI demand," Rasgon said in a Thursday note.

Nvidia reported fiscal third-quarter earnings of $57 billion, which solidly beat the consensus for $54.9 billion on FactSet and represented a 62% increase from the previous year. The chip maker guided revenue for the current quarter at $65 billion, which also meaningfully topped the FactSet consensus for $62.17 billion.

See more: Nvidia earnings draw cheers on Wall Street: 'Perhaps the AI trade is not yet dead'

Blackwell Ultra is cooking and Rubin is on track

According to Nvidia Chief Financial Officer Colette Kress, the company's Blackwell Ultra graphics processing units are now its "leading architecture across all customer categories," although its Blackwell predecessor is still seeing strong demand. The company also said a "fast" ramp of its upcoming Rubin platform is slated for the second half of next year.

Susquehanna's Christopher Rolland noted prior to the latest report that Blackwell Ultra came with higher average selling prices.

Strong visibility, strong margins

The company also reiterated its visibility into $500 billion in revenue from its Blackwell and Rubin AI platforms through next year. That "suggests a materially higher run-rate for data-center sales into next year," Rasgon said, noting that he sees revenue of at least $300 billion for that segment. And with Nvidia projecting that its gross margins will stay in the mid-70s range next year, even as prices for its components go up, Rasgon said that eliminates "another potential overhang."

Rasgon raised his price target for Nvidia's stock to $275, representing 47% upside from Nvidia's closing stock price of $186.52 on Wednesday.

Wedbush's Matt Bryson shared a similar perspective that Nvidia's $500 billion revenue projection and mid-70s gross-margins target implies room for upside. With Nvidia not including new deals such as its most recent announcement with Anthropic in its projection, there's opportunity for Nvidia to deliver even beyond that eye-popping half-trillion-dollar figure.

And while costs for memory components and other materials are increasing, his team sees Nvidia "as positioned to sidestep any headwinds."

Nvidia has "pricing power and an ability to pass along increased costs to its customers," added William Blair analyst Sebastien Naji, one reason it's able to predict a steady margin range despite input pressures.

A rising star in networking

Nvidia reported that its data-center networking business saw revenue of $8.2 billion in the October quarter, which represented 162% growth from the previous year. In Bryson's view, growth there and in other data-center products is "particularly important as expanding into adjacencies provides a means for [Nvidia] to outgrow AI spend."

Read: Nvidia earnings have become crucial to the stock market - and this time even more so

Taking a shot at AI-bubble concerns

Jefferies analyst Blayne Curtis said Nvidia's earnings results and subsequent commentary from management "should help steady the ship for the AI trade into the end of the year."

Amid ongoing debates over the depreciation timeline for its GPUs, Curtis said Nvidia's comments that it is sold out of cloud GPUs and that its Blackwell and Hopper chips are being fully utilized "should help put the useful life conversation to bed."

Kress also said that "A100 GPUs we shipped six years ago are still running at full utilization today." That's notable because investors had become worried that Nvidia chips might not have useful lives as long as customers had been modeling through their accounting, adding profit risk to the AI trade.

-Britney Nguyen

This content was created by MarketWatch, which is operated by Dow Jones & Co. MarketWatch is published independently from Dow Jones Newswires and The Wall Street Journal.


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11-20-25 1316ET

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