Live Coverage: Will NVIDIA (NVDA) Soar Today After Earnings?

We’ll be updating this live blog less as the trading day has now settled in. The big story is that after opening up at $135, NVIDIA is now trading for about $127 per share. That’s a nearly 6% intraday decline.

The company’s earnings were good, but it appears trends around investors wanting to get out of the ‘AI trade’ is winning today.

That trend is likely exacerbated by geopolitical issues. A trade war is once again front and center today, which is causing a flight to safety. With investors moving into more stalwart stocks like 3M, NVIDIA is a popular choice to rotate out of.

As we noted earlier, there was a similar dynamic at play last August that proved to be temporary. The big question now is what might work in NVIDIA’s favor in the near-term. One big catalyst could be the company’s GTC event.

At that event in late March, the company will give updates on its product lineup, unveil the next generation of chips beyond its ‘Rubin’ lineup, and also can make a more full-throated ‘sales pitch’ on the potential for AI into coming opportunities like AI agents and physical world areas like manufacturing and robotics.

As we noted earlier, investors are rotating out of technology stocks and into many ‘safer’ stocks in the Dow. That’s a move likely exacerbated by growing economic and political fears.

So, you might be wondering, if NVIDIA is being sold off, what stocks are winning?

• 3M is leading all Dow stocks, up 2.3%
• The next group of leaders includes Visa, UnitedHealth, and Boeing

Overall, the more ‘conservative’ technology stocks like Visa and Cisco are the best performers in the Dow today. Meanwhile Salesforce (which had poor earnings) and NVIDIA are the laggards.

Well, the past week has seen investors fleeing risk and today has turned into a continuation of that trend.

NVIDIA shares are now down 4% today while the Nasdaq has fallen more than 2% from its open, and is now down 1.3%.

Its worth noting that the DOW – which has many stocks that are ‘safe havens’ in a risk-off world – is holding on well. The trading environment in February is starting to strongly resemble last August when investors rotated strongly out of technology stocks.

As we work through some early morning choppiness, let’s take a look at what Wall Street has to say about NVIDIA.

• Bank of America: Earlier we noted that Bank of America raised their price target to $200 per share. The researcher liked NVIDIA’s focus on the next wave of growth (test-time compute, agentic AI, and physical world/robotics) and noted that Blackwell’s $11 billion in revenue is a much faster ramp than the market was expecting (around $4 billion to $7 billion).
• Morgan Stanley: Applauded results in a difficult transition quarter where the majority of revenue is still coming from older Hopper chips. The company maintains a $162 price target.

Well, that didn’t last long. After opening up near $135, NVIDIA shares are now trading closer to $130, down a little more than 1% on the day.

As we noted earlier in our coverage, market negativity around AI infrastructure remains extremely elevated. NVIDIA’s results were very good, but perhaps not good enough to change sentiment that’s been building after the DeepSeek sell-off in January.

Still, with shares trading slightly negative at the moment, there’s plenty of choppiness and NVIDIA could still end the day in the green. As we also noted earlier, political fears may have surpassed NVIDIA’s earnings as the biggest news on the day.

The Nasdaq is now flat on the day after opening solidly in the green.

The market has opened for the day.

NVIDIA initially traded near $135, then saw shares trade for closer to $133, and a few minutes after the opening is up 1.2%.

We’re close enough to even that its results could go either way today. For now, the Nasdaq Composite itself is up .77%.

Beyond NVIDIA, other chip stocks like Intel and Marvell are also gaining.

NVIDIA shares were down heading into its earnings call, but look ready to open up about 3% today. One question is what changed between investors having time to go through their earnings numbers and this morning?

One explanation might be NVIDIA CEO Jensen Huang beginning to lay out a path for the future beyond the current infrastructure buildout. Investors have become weary in recent weeks that the infrastructure buildout from companies like Microsoft, Amazon, and Meta might be reaching its high point.

It’s worth noting that all of these companies are currently projected to spend significantly more on capital expenditures than the market anticipated just a few months ago.

Yet, this has been a space where investors have been looking to take profits, hoping to get out of any announcements of spending cuts that could cause near-term pain.

Last night Huang not only spend time illustrating how new test-time compute methods were leading to 100X the compute intensity of AI models, but illustrated a future where that number hits 100,000X or more.

In addition, he began outlining a future beyond just hyperscalers where AI demand would scale from agents, physical AI, and a future of robotics.

I would expect these were just the beginning outlines that will see significantly more attention next month when NVIDIA hosts its GTC conference. For now, it appears the market is liking that NVIDIA has outlined a future that moves it beyond the current reliance on hyperscaler budgets, albeit one with few details at the moment.

Let’s take another peak at some of the most notable stocks in premarket trading. All returns are as of 9:15 a.m. ET:

• Snowflake: Up 13.4% after trouncing earnings expectations last night. The company continues to broaden its suite of artificial intelligence services which beginning to deliver meaningful revenue gains.
• NVIDIA: Up 2.4% after last night’s earnings. While gross margins disappointed, it appears NVIDIA delivered enough to push past much of the negativity that’s been building in the AI infrastructure space.
• Pure Storage: One of the more notable ‘losers’ in the AI space. Pure Storage is down 12% after announcing earnings last night. The company missed on adjusted EPS, which is adding to negativity today. The company’s subscription ARR grew at 21%.

What is Wall Street saying about NVIDIA’s earnings? Reactions are mostly positive with a few price targets being raised.

• Morgan Stanley: Raised their price target from $152 up to $162 per share
• Bank of America: Raised their price target to $200 from $190
• Bernstein: Also issued a new price target of $185, up from a previous level of $175

Among the more ‘negative’ opinions, DA Davidson maintains NVIDIA at a price target of $135 with a ‘Neutral’ rating. The median price target on NVIDIA has risen to $175 per share.

The Nasdaq was showing stronger gains earlier this morning, but political fears may end up being a larger storyline than NVIDIA today.

Another tariff threat from Donald Trump recently paired back gains in premarket trading. Trump said that tariffs against Mexico and Canada would proceed as planned and threatened additional tariffs on China.

As of 9 a.m, Nasdaq futures are up .46%. That’s still in the green, but a drop from earlier trading. Trump’s proposed tariffs would begin on March 4th unless another delay or agreement is announced.