Nvidia earnings right ahead

Nvidia (ticker: NVDA) is set to announce its Q4 FY2025 earnings results after the market closes today. The report will be for the full fiscal year and covers the period between 1 November (2024) and 31 January (2025). 

As the last of the Magnificent Seven stocks to report, Nvidia’s earnings results are a widely anticipated market event. Heading into the earnings release, the Bloomberg Magnificent 7 index – represents an equal-weighted measure of Nvidia, Apple (AAPL), Microsoft (MSFT), Alphabet (GOOG), Amazon (AMZN), Meta Platforms (META), and Tesla (TSLA) – dipped below the 10% threshold to indicate a correction. Furthermore, major US equity markets are on the back foot, with the tech-heavy Nasdaq 100 down nearly 2% this month and crossing south of its 50-day simple moving average.

Analysts’ estimates for NVDA earnings

Nvidia has a consistent history of exceeding estimates and raising expectations. Wall Street forecasts Nvidia’s revenue will reach US$38.1 billion for Q4 FY2025, reflecting an eye-watering 73% year-on-year (YY) rise. Should actual revenue align with expectations, it would surpass the company’s Q3 FY2025 estimate (US$37.5 billion). Nvidia’s bottom line (net income) is also projected to climb to US$21.08 billion, up from US$12.84 billion in the same quarter a year prior. Adjusted Earnings Per Share (EPS) is also expected to increase to US$0.84, which would mark a 62% YY rise.

Regarding current analysts’ ratings (Refinitiv), approximately 54% recommend a ‘Buy’, 37% a ‘Strong Buy’, and 9% suggest a ‘Hold’.

The options implied volatility for the stock suggests the company’s share price could swing 8% in either direction. However, I want to add that although heightened volatility is evident heading into the event, it is important to consider that implied volatility reflects how far options investors anticipate the stock price to move. Consequently, it is not always reliable and has, in the past, fluctuated as high as 16% and as low as 0.5% before NVDA earnings reports.

Blackwell chip supply concerns

Concerns remain high over the Blackwell chip supply. If manufacturing issues regarding this are mentioned in today’s report and the share price drops, some investors may see this as a dip-buying opportunity, given that supply problems are likely temporary. This, coupled with limited evidence of a slowdown in demand, potentially positions the stock well for the future. Of course, while Chinese AI start-up DeepSeek recently carved out a dent in Nvidia’s share price, Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang recently made the headlines, commenting that although DeepSeek’s R1 reasoning model is ‘impressive’, the Artificial Intelligence (AI) space will still need to rely on Nvidia’s chips. I expect Huang to reiterate similar comments today.

Supporting Huang’s latest comments, it is worth acknowledging that all of the key US Hyperscalers – large data centres and cloud service providers that offer computing and data solutions – confirmed capital expenditures on AI data centres. Although Microsoft was recently thrown into the spotlight after reports from TD Cowen noted that it has started to cancel leases from some of its data centre capacity in the US, the company has since stated that they ‘will continue to grow strongly in all regions’. Microsoft also repeated that it would still spend US$80 billion on capital expenditures for the fiscal year.

What do the charts say?

First and foremost, you will note that the stock has not done much this year and is currently trading at similar levels seen in June 2024.

The weekly chart, however, offers some interesting observations. The stock pencilled in an all-time high of US$153.13 at the beginning of the year and established the start of a double-top pattern that was recently completed (the neckline was breached, a horizontal line taken from the low of US$126.86). In addition, the pattern’s profit objective is still calling for attention to the downside at US$105.30.

Therefore, given the break of weekly trendline support and the double-top pattern’s downside target not yet being reached, I feel there is (technical) scope for a push lower to around the US$105ish region. If earnings do surprise to the downside, it will take a 16.7% drop to reach the said level!

Charts created using TradingView