Live: Nvidia’s Q1 Earnings Tonight Could Send Shockwaves Across the Market

One of the more important dynamics heading into Nvidia’s earnings is that China’s AI demand still appears heavily tilted toward Nvidia hardware despite government pressure to support domestic players like Huawei.

As soon as restrictions loosened around Nvidia H200 exports, Chinese firms reportedly rushed to secure supply. That aligns with broader signs that Nvidia GPUs remain extremely difficult to obtain globally, with Blackwell availability effectively sold out across many cloud providers.

The longer-term risk is that China is rapidly scaling up power generation and AI infrastructure, potentially giving domestic firms like Huawei an advantage in deploying larger clusters of less-efficient chips. But for now, demand still appears centered on Nvidia’s ecosystem, software stack, and performance leadership.

Investors will also watch CEO Jensen Huang closely for any commentary around China following his recent trade-related visit. Any signs that Nvidia could regain a larger foothold in China’s AI market would likely be viewed as bullish for long-term revenue expectations.

Why Q2 Guidance Will Outweigh A Double-Beat Tonight

NVIDIA‘s (NASDAQ:NVDA | NVDA Price Prediction) pattern is to guide conservatively and then exceed the bar. Each of the last four quarters cleared the prior guide, with Q4 FY26 revenue landing at $68.13B versus a $65.0B guide. Tonight, Wall Street wants a Q2 FY27 revenue outlook in the $82-85B consensus zone.

Bullish Setup

Q2 guidance meaningfully above $85B, non-GAAP gross margin held at 75-76%, networking sustaining triple-digit growth off 263% YoY, and any China Data Center re-inclusion would justify analysts’ consensus price target of $272.94.

Bearish Setup

In-line guidance, margins drifting below 74%, widening supply constraints, or cautious hyperscaler CapEx commentary against the $700 billion 2026 backdrop would likely trigger a sell-off. Across the last 4 earnings beats, NVIDIA has seen an average day-of reaction of –1.54%, highlighting just how important excellent guidance will be for the stock to move higher tonight post-earnings.

Last Quarter Recap: Q4 FY2026

NVIDIA (NASDAQ:NVDA) closed fiscal 2026 with non-GAAP EPS of $1.62, beating the $1.52 consensus by 6.58%. Revenue reached $68.13 billion, up 73.2% YoY. Data Center delivered $62.31B, with Networking surging 263% YoY to $10.98B on NVLink ramp.

Guidance Set the Bar

Management guided Q1 FY2027 revenue to ~$78.0B ±2% at a 75.0% non-GAAP gross margin, explicitly excluding China Data Center compute.

Stock Reaction

Shares closed at $195.95 on report day, then slid to $177.19 the next session, a -4.16% drop that deepened into a -10.67% 30-day drawdown.

Call Takeaways

Jensen Huang declared, “The agentic AI inflection point has arrived.” The Rubin platform debuted with up to a 10x reduction in inference token cost, Meta committed to millions of Blackwell and Rubin GPUs, and supply commitments swelled to $95.2B, setting the bar for tonight.

Why Bulls Stay Aggressive

• Ecosystem lock-in: Lambda just signed 1,000+ Blackwell systems for Hudson River Trading, and CoreWeave reports customer demand remains “overwhelmingly centered on Nvidia GPUs.”
• Analyst conviction: 58 Buy, 2 Hold, 1 Sell ratings with a $272.94 average target.
• Demand visibility: Anthropic on Azure (1 GW initial), plus 10+ gigawatts committed to OpenAI to underwrite multi-year Rubin demand.

Risks Bulls Can’t Ignore

• Beat fatigue: The last three earnings beats produced day-of declines averaging -1.54%, with Q4 sliding -5.46%.
• Optical headwind: Folding stock-based comp into non-GAAP starting Q1 FY27 muddies YoY comparability.
• Fixed obligations: $95.2 billion of supply commitments leave little room for a demand air pocket.
• Reddit risk: Retail sentiment slid to 25 (Bearish) amid rate fears on May 19.

Nvidia’s earnings report tonight may become the market’s biggest AI stress test yet. Bulls see another massive leg higher driven by accelerating AI demand, while bears think expectations and valuation leave little room for error.

Bull Case

• AI infrastructure spending still looks explosive globally
• Nvidia remains the dominant AI hardware and software platform
• Blackwell demand could keep revenue and margins elevated into 2027
• China demand may quietly return and boost future sales
• Valuation still looks reasonable at 26.4x forward earnings relative to growth rates

Bear Case

• Expectations are so high that a beat may not move the stock higher
• Amazon, Google, and others are building competing AI chips
• Gross margins near 75% may eventually compress
• AI spending could slow if ROI fails to materialize
• Rising rates could pressure Nvidia’s premium valuation multiple

Atreides Management CIO Gavin Baker appeared on the popular investing podcast ‘Invest Like the Best’ and had some interesting quotes about demand for NVIDIA’s products.

Baker said, “If Taiwan Semi did what Jensen wanted, NVIDIA could sell $2 trillion of GPUs in 2026 or 2027.”

Baker went on to say that the number could even be as high as $3 trillion. His point here was that demand continues to dramatically exceed the supply of how many chips Taiwan Semiconductor can produce. However, he says this may ultimately be a good thing, as this situation would lead to AI becoming a bubble.

While Baker’s claim of demand in the trillions is eye-popping (NVIDIA is expected to see sales of about $373 billion this fiscal year), there is little question that in the near-term, demand for NVIDIA’s GPUs continues to exceed supply.

If NVIDIA delivers $373 billion in sales this year (history says they’ll top this figure), that will represent about 73% sales growth. That’s an incredible number for a company that’s NVIDIA’s size.

Fresh Wildcards Beyond Tonight’s Consensus

Here are four under-discussed catalysts that could swing Nvidia stock’s reaction post-earnings.

Hyperscaler Competition

Amazon’s Trainium is now positioned as a multibillion-dollar competing chip, and large CSPs already represent ~50% of Data Center revenue. Any softening in custom-silicon commentary matters.

CoWoS & Taiwan Risk

NVIDIA carries $27.0 billion in multi-year cloud R&D agreements tied to TSMC packaging. The first Blackwell wafer produced on U.S. soil in Arizona is a meaningful geopolitical hedge worth quantifying tonight.

Macro Rate Shock

Rate hike odds reportedly jumped from 1% to 45% in a month, pressuring the stock’s 26.4x forward P/E.

Insider Selling

March saw coordinated selling among insiders, including 121,682 shares from Director Stevens at $174.5685, with no open-market buying since.

With Nvidia’s earnings report due tonight at 4:20 PM ET, here’s what Wall Street expects the business to report:

The Consensus Bar

• EPS: $1.77 non-GAAP
• Revenue: $78-79 billion, versus the company guide of $78.0 billion ± 2%
• Data Center: 96.7% odds of clearing $70B, just 8.5% for $80B+
• Gross margin: 74.5% odds the 75-76% band holds

Setup Into the Bell

NVIDIA (NASDAQ:NVDA) is up 9.39% over the past month and 18.3% YTD. Polymarket pegs the probability of a beat at 97.2%, but that might not be enough to send the stock higher as NVIDIA’s last four beats produced an average day-of move of -1.54%.

What Could Trigger a Move Higher

An upside break likely requires Data Center revenue above $70B, gross margins holding 75%, and Q2 revenue guidance near $80B. Anything softer risks another sell-the-news decline.

Even though investors tonight are focused on how growth in China will add to Nvidia’s business, the bigger story may be how strong the business already looks without it.

When adjusting for last year’s China sales, Nvidia’s ex-China business is effectively growing more than 100% year over year. That points to continued aggressive spending from hyperscalers, sovereign AI projects, and enterprise customers building AI infrastructure globally.

Wall Street still expects roughly 80% revenue growth this quarter from Nvidia, even with management’s previous guidance assuming zero China data center compute revenue.

Nvidia trades near 27x forward earnings while analysts expect EPS growth of roughly 120% this quarter. The company trades at a staggering $5.3 trillion market cap, but the stock could still be undervalued relative to the scale of the AI boom.

It certainly ‘feels’ like NVIDIA (NVDA) has been underperforming this year. After all, shares are up about 18% while the broader iShares Semiconductor ETF has grown 65% year-to-date.

Yet, it’s worth noting a couple of facts. First, NVIDIA shares are outperforming major indexes like the Nasdaq (up 13% year-to-date) and the S&P 500 (up 8% year-to-date).

Also, at NVIDIA’s size, an 18% gain adds incredible absolute wealth values. With about 24 billion shares outstanding, NVIDIA adding about $34 to its share price this year pencils out to its market value increasing nearly $820 billion.

That’s roughly the same amount as Costco and Netflix combined.

Options markets currently imply a 6.1% move for NVIDIA’s shares tomorrow. Our guess is the actual move will be less than that. Just remember that at NVIDIA’s size today, a 2% move means its value is swinging by more or less than $100 billion.

With NVIDIA (NASDAQ:NVDA) up 62.77% over the past year, here are some key questions analysts are going to want to see answered in tonight’s quarterly results at 4:20 PM ET and on the company’s earnings call at 5:00 PM ET.

Top 5 Analyst Questions

• Will Q2 guidance re-include any China Data Center compute revenue?
• Vera Rubin production timing into H2 2026 and customer commitments?
• Sustainability of 75.0% non-GAAP gross margin as Blackwell Ultra ramps?
• Hyperscaler concentration versus sovereign and enterprise diversification?
• Networking trajectory after 263% YoY growth?

Red Flags

• Margins slipping below 74%
• Data Center under $70B
• Deeper China cuts
• Any softening in hyperscaler capex commentary against the $700 billion 2026 CapEx backdrop.

Four Wildcards Not Priced Into Consensus

Tonight’s 94.5% beat probability masks four surprises lurking beneath the headline.

China Exclusion

Management’s ~$78.0 billion guide explicitly excludes Data Center compute revenue from China. Any license thaw could unlock material upside; further tightening deepens the hole left after ~$8.0B of lost H20 revenue in Q2 FY26.

Accounting Shift

NVIDIA (NASDAQ:NVDA) is folding $1.9B of stock-based comp into non-GAAP starting this quarter, which could create an optical miss against legacy models.

Supply Commitments

Purchase obligations jumped to $95.2 billion from $50.3B in the last quarter, with Gaming flagged as supply-constrained.

Rubin Ramp

Any yield or timing slip on the Vera Rubin handoff would jolt a stock priced for flawless execution at $222.39.

Investors already expect Nvidia to report strong Q1 numbers, with Polymarket traders pricing a 94.3% probability of an earnings beat and 96.7% odds that Data Center revenue tops $70B.

The bigger focus in tonight’s results will likely be management’s guidance and commentary around Blackwell production ramps, hyperscaler demand, and AI infrastructure spending trends.

The market is looking for signs that AI demand is still accelerating rather than normalizing. Commentary on gross margins will also matter, especially as Nvidia shifts further toward selling full AI systems instead of standalone chips, which could support profitability even as competition increases.

One of the biggest storylines heading into Nvidia’s earnings may be the potential return of China demand.

Reuters recently reported that Chinese firms, including ByteDance, Alibaba, and Tencent, received approval to purchase more than 400,000 H200 chips, potentially representing roughly $10 billion to $16 billion in future sales, assuming an H200 price of $25,000 to $40,000.

NVIDIA’s previous guidance from Q4 assumed no China data center compute revenue contribution. If restrictions continue to ease, investors may start modeling meaningful upside to revenue estimates just as global AI infrastructure spending accelerates again.

Nvidia’s earnings report tonight will likely set the tone for the entire AI infrastructure market. With the stock trading at 26x forward earnings and the broader market still relying heavily on the Magnificent 7, investors need to see both a strong beat and higher guidance to keep the AI momentum intact.

The biggest focus areas will be on data center growth, networking demand, and the company’s gross margins. Any signs of slowing hyperscaler spending or weaker profitability could quickly fuel concerns that AI spending is running ahead of actual returns.

Investors will also closely watch CEO Jensen Huang for commentary on Rubin’s production ramp and long-term AI demand trends. His tone may shape expectations about whether AI infrastructure spending will continue to compound into 2027.