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Nvidia (NASDAQ:NVDA) obliterated Wall Street expectations for Q2 and full-year revenue guidance as demand for its chips remains sky-high amid the race to adopt generative artificial intelligence.
Shares climbed as high as 6.6% to $502.66 in Thursday’s regular session after the post-close Wednesday print – an all-time high for Nvidia – although the stock retreated to a marginal gain at $471.63 by the end of the day.
The chipmaker recorded earnings of $2.70 per share, $0.67 better than consensus, on revenue of $13.51 billion vs. the $11.13B average analyst estimate. Embedded in the sales number was a 171% surge in its high-margin data center business as businesses transition to accelerated computing and generative AI from general-purpose computing.
The chipmaker also unveiled an additional $25B stock buyback plan.
As AI demand ramps up, Nvidia’s suite of AI-related products has become the dominant option for AI-minded startups and businesses. The chipmaker said it expects supply to rise each quarter through next year, and in particular expects Q3 sales of about $16B, give or take 2%, well above the $12B consensus.
That ebullient guidance, said Wedbush in a note to clients, “will be fuel in the engine to ignite a tech rally we see continuing into the rest of the year despite the recent pullback and Fed jitters.”
Stifel upgraded Nvidia to Buy from Hold with a price target of $600 on the “exceptional” quarter, saying, “we underestimated the opportunity related to the potential shift of $1 trillion of installed data center infrastructure from general purpose compute to accelerated compute architectures.”
Morgan Stanley and Goldman Sachs maintained their buy ratings on the stock, with the former calling Q2 “another exceptional quarter” and Goldman writing, “We expect Nvidia to maintain its status as the accelerated computing industry standard for the foreseeable future.”
And a notable Nvidia bull at Rosenblatt hiked the price target to an eye-popping $1,100 per share, opining, “Nvidia’s epic print and guide two quarters in a row is simply unprecedented and just getting started.”
Elsewhere in tech, investors were deflated when Marvell Technology (NASDAQ:MRVL) posted merely in-line guidance and a slightly better-than-expected fiscal Q2.
Shares were down some 5% in Friday’s premarket following the post-bell Thursday print, extending on a nearly 7% slide in the prior regular session.
Q2 earnings came in at $0.33 per share, a penny better than consensus, and revenue of $1.34B – down 12% from a year earlier – was a hair above the $1.33B Street estimate. For fiscal Q3, Marvell anticipates earnings of $0.40 per share on $1.4B in revenue.
CEO Matt Murphy said the growth implied in those expectations “is being driven primarily by AI and cloud infrastructure.”
Cloud concern Snowflake (NYSE:SNOW), meanwhile, reported earnings of $0.22 per share after the bell Wednesday, more than double the average Street estimate, on far better-than-expected sales of $674 million – up 36% year-over-year.
The company also maintained full-year guidance.
BTIG said Snowflake’s results were solid and that its “long-term story is compelling on multiple levels,” but maintained its Neutral rating on the stock, saying it sees “a balanced risk/reward” at current levels.
Shares foundered Thursday, losing 5.2% to $147.67.
Finally, after the bell Monday, video-chat purveyor Zoom (NASDAQ:ZM) said it earned $1.34 per share in its fiscal Q2, well ahead of the $1.06 average estimate, on better-than-expected sales of $1.14.
Fiscal Q3 EPS guidance of $1.07 to $1.09 was ahead of the $1.03 consensus, and sales are expected at an in-line $1.115B to $1.12B.
Needham & Company maintained its Hold rating on the stock, writing, “we are cautious on meaningful re-acceleration until product diversification improves.”
Zoom shares were down more than 2% Tuesday.
Ulta Beauty (NASDAQ:ULTA) beat on its Q2 print and full-year guidance after the bell Thursday: EPS totaled $6.02 on $2.53B in sales, whereas analysts were looking for $5.83 per share on $2.5B, while comparable-store sales climbed 8% – a slowdown from 14.4% the prior year. And the full-year profit forecast comes to $25.10 to $25.60 per share on $11.05B to $11.15B, with comps expected to rise 4.5% to 5.5%.
Ulta shares were up 1.3% to $428.08 premarket Friday.
Also up in Friday’s premarket were Gap (NYSE:GPS) shares, which were recently climbing 1.4% to $9.66 after the casual-clothing retailer said Q2 adjusted earnings totaled $0.34 per share, $0.25 better than consensus, on a slightly lower-than-expected top line of $3.55B. Comparable store sales were down 6% over its brands, including Gap, Banana Republic, Old Navy, and Athleta, and Q3 sales are seen down in the low double-digits range.
Finally, Nordstrom (NYSE:JWN) reiterated its full-year guidance Thursday and reported Q2 adjusted EPS of $0.81, crushing the $0.45 average Street target, on better-than-expected revenue of $3.77B. Still, sales suffered a 275-basis-point hit from its wind-down of Canadian operations, as well as a 12.9% fall in online sales due to elimination of store fulfillment for Nordstrom Rack digital orders in the prior year and the closing down of Trunk Club.
Nordstrom shares were ticking down fractionally to $16.75 in recent premarket trading Friday.
(Yasin Ebrahim, Davit Kirakosyan, Liz Moyer, and Senad Karaahmetovic contributed to this report.)
