KEY POINTS
- Wall Street expects NVIDIA to report $1.78 EPS on $79.2 billion in revenue when the company reports after the bell on May 20, representing 120% and 79.5% year-over-year growth respectively.
- CEO Jensen Huang's last-minute addition to Trump's Beijing trade delegation, where he secured approval to sell H200 chips to 10 Chinese firms, could reopen a $50 billion annual market for NVIDIA.
- Traders should watch tomorrow's post-close print and guidance call at 5 PM ET closely, as Polymarket implies a 90% probability of a beat but the options market is pricing a 9% move in either direction.
NVIDIA shares traded at $222.32 on Monday, sitting 5.9% below their all-time high of $236.54 set just five days earlier, as the entire semiconductor complex absorbed a rough session driven by memory-chip fears. Micron fell 6% and Seagate tumbled nearly 7% after its CEO said new factory builds would "take too long." But the real event for the AI trade arrives Tuesday after the close, when NVIDIA reports fiscal first-quarter 2026 results that will set the tone for the second half of the year.
Consensus calls for earnings of $1.78 per share, up 120% year over year, on revenue of $79.2 billion, a 79.5% jump from the prior-year quarter. Some desks sit slightly lower at $1.74 and $78.76 billion, but the spread is tight. Data center revenue, which now accounts for the vast majority of the top line, is the number that matters. Analysts want to see whether the cadence of Blackwell shipments is accelerating or hitting manufacturing bottlenecks at a time when helium shortages and Middle East supply-chain disruptions are raising costs across the foundry ecosystem.
The Beijing Variable
The biggest wildcard heading into the print is China. Jensen Huang joined President Trump's trade delegation to Beijing last week after Trump personally called the CEO and asked him to board Air Force One in Alaska. During the trip, Huang secured U.S. government approval to sell NVIDIA's H200 AI chips to 10 Chinese technology companies, including Alibaba, ByteDance, JD.com, and Lenovo. The Chinese AI infrastructure market is worth roughly $50 billion annually, and NVIDIA has been largely locked out since export controls tightened in 2023. Any forward guidance that bakes in even partial China revenue recovery would be a material catalyst.
Wall Street is already positioned bullishly. Polymarket's implied probability of a beat sits around 90%, and NVIDIA carries a track record of clearing sky-high bars in its last several reports. The options market is pricing a post-earnings move of roughly 9% in either direction, implying about $490 billion in market capitalization at stake on a single print.
Supply Chain Headwinds Are Real
Traders should not ignore the cost side. TSMC, NVIDIA's primary foundry partner, flagged during its own earnings that Middle East conflict is raising input costs, particularly for specialty gases and chemicals. The helium shortage — now classified by industry analysts as Helium Shortage 5.0 — stems from damage to Qatar's Ras Laffan LNG facilities, which knocked out roughly 5.2 million cubic meters of monthly supply. Spot helium prices have doubled since early March. NVIDIA does not manufacture its own chips, but higher foundry costs flow downstream, and any margin compression in the guidance would spook a market that has priced in near-perfection.
The broader chip sector is also shifting. A CNBC analysis noted that Wall Street's AI chip enthusiasm is broadening beyond NVIDIA to Intel, AMD, and Micron, a sign that the market is starting to price competition risk more seriously. AMD's CEO Lisa Su recently guided for 35% server CPU growth over the next three to five years, up from 18% previously, and Cerebras Systems just completed the largest U.S. tech IPO in years, raising $5.55 billion at a $95 billion market-cap debut.
What to Watch Tomorrow
The number to circle is data center revenue guidance for the July quarter. A figure above $68 billion would signal that Blackwell demand is outstripping supply, reinforcing the bull case. Commentary on China sales timelines, gross margin trajectory given helium costs, and any update on the Rubin architecture roadmap will all move the stock. With NVIDIA now commanding a $5.46 trillion market capitalization, the earnings call at 5 PM ET on May 20 is the single most important event for the AI trade this quarter.
