A view of NVIDIA headquarters in Santa Clara of Silicon Valley, California, United States on August 28, 2024.
Tayfun Coskun | Anadolu | Getty Images
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What you need to know today
The bottom line
It’s the tragedy of the overachieving child: You’re expected not just to ace every examination, but also excel in extracurricular activities.
So, when you’re just like every other academic genius with perfect grades, that’s merely the baseline you should be hitting.
Such is the plight of Nvidia. Despite posting ridiculous revenue growth numbers that would send any other company’s stock straight into the stratosphere, Nvidia’s shares fell about 6% yesterday.
The culprit: For the company’s fiscal second quarter, revenue rose “only” 122% on an annual basis, compared with three quarters of more than 200% year-over-year growth. The chipmaker’s expected gross margins for the full year were also slightly lower than anticipated.
As Ryan Detrick, chief market strategist at Carson Group, wrote, “Death, taxes, and NVDA beats on earnings are three things you can bank on.” In other words, just beating earnings estimates isn’t enough for Nvidia anymore. It’s more about “the size of the beat.”
To be fair, other companies face the same issue too, though perhaps not on the same magnitude as Nvidia.
“When you have 75% or 80% of companies beating their estimates on any given quarter, that tells you it’s not such a special thing anymore,” said Interactive Brokers chief strategist Steve Sosnick. “Beating estimates is no longer a sufficient condition for a post-earnings rally.”
In any case, Nvidia’s loss yesterday may be good for the broader market. Hear me out. Yes, the S&P 500 was mostly unchanged, while the Nasdaq Composite slipped 0.23%. But the Dow Jones Industrial Average, buoyed by gains in technology stocks like Apple and Microsoft, added 0.59% for a new record close.
That suggests the tech sector and, indeed, the broader market is relying less on Nvidia for gains. The family, finally, isn’t pinning all its hope on one child.
CNBC’s Arjun Kharpal, Kif Leswing, Fred Imbert and Lisa Kailai Han contributed to this report.