Looking Ahead to Nvidia Earnings Tonight: Your Investment Strategy 8/26/26

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**Kerry Firestone** (0:30)
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**Scott Wapner** (0:43)
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All right, guys, thanks so much. Welcome to the Halftime Report. I'm Scott Wapner, front and center this hour. Only the future of the AI trade, the next leg for Nvidia, the momentum trade, all of it and more. We're setting you up for that Nvidia report with the Investment Committee. Joining me for the hour today, Joe Terranova, Kerry Firestone, Bill Baruch and Rob Seachen. Let's go to the markets. We're right across the board, but of course, none of that seems to matter, does it? Until what happens later today when Nvidia does report. The stock just broke its longest losing streaks in September of 2022 It was down seven straight days, was up a little yesterday. It's down today. What is riding on that? Is it everything that we just suggested? What Nvidia does next? Where the momentum trade and the semis go next? What the hyperscalers do next? Does Jensen Wong hold the key?
One issue, the company usually beats and raises, that's not the problem. The stock, though, usually falls after earnings, declining in each of the last four sessions immediately following the earnings report.
Everybody owns that stock today, that's why you're all booked. Joe, you first.

**Joe Terranova** (2:06)
And over the last eight quarters, the stock has fallen six times. So I think the expectation is you need a blowout quarter. How exactly do you get there this evening? I think the Q3 guidance is going to be critical. The whisper numbers are moving higher. UBS is at 110 billion right now. Jeffries is at 108 billion. How do you get to 115?
How do you get to 120? I think the way you get there is the fact that Nvidia has telegraphed they are going to have to raise prices. Nearly 15%.
Why? Because they're responding to what they're seeing going on in memory. If in fact that's the case, do you pull forward significant demand, getting in front of those price heights, if that in fact is the setup, that Q3 revenue number beats, then I think what you do is you give the shot of adrenaline to the momentum and the AI trade, and you hit the refresh button.

**Scott Wapner** (3:02)
Carrie.

**Kerry Firestone** (3:03)
I think there's very little chance that there'll be a big disappointment. If we're looking at the spectrum of what Nvidia could report, there's a 75% chance that they report what people expect, which is something better than 209, which is the estimate, and they talk about a good third quarter, $110 billion, but they can really talk about the Vera Rubin ship, which is the next one, the next generation, because we hear there's an awful lot of demand for that ship at higher prices. If they can do that, beat the quarter, raise the guidance, and talk about what's coming next, we could have a big move on the stock because people have been waiting on the sidelines.

**Scott Wapner** (3:40)
Farouk.

**Bill Baruch** (3:41)
Yeah, the RubinRAMP initial deliveries, that's obviously there, is the Blackwell, the success, the demand continue to stay there. Watching the margins and what the memory costs have done to the margins, what comments they have on the financing deal. But I think outside the box, non-GPU products, the AI models, the CPU products, I think there's going to be some comments around there that could really shake things up a bit, I think in a positive way.

**Scott Wapner** (4:06)
To give you an idea, Rob, just how dramatically this name has underperformed others in the chip space. Year-to-date, Sandisk, 520%.
Micron, 227%.
Marvell, 185%. Western Didge, 168%. AMD, 126%. Nvidia, 13.5% year-to-date. Remake of that.

**Rob Seachen** (4:35)
And what an opportunity on that relative re-rating, I guess, a relative rating.