It’s the biggest day of the quarter for market-watchers. Will you be attending a watch party for Nvidia earnings?

If you end up going to one, be sure to walk in armed with the five charts from today’s newsletter.

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Wall Street’s Super Bowl

Wall Street’s called Nvidia the most important stock in the world for so many quarters in a row that it’s become a cliché. 

The stock is up nearly 200% year-to-date, and it’s the only company in history to achieve a $3.6 trillion market capitalization. Prospects of tax cuts and deregulation under a second Trump administration have helped fuel Nvidia’s November rally. 

Traders remain bullish as ever, shrugging off a report earlier this week about overheating issues with Nvidia’s new Blackwell chips.

Nvidia reports earnings after the closing bell today. As usual, expectations are startling: 

• Estimated earnings per share: $0.74, up 85% from a year ago

• Estimated third quarter revenue: $33.2 billion, up 81% from a year ago

In addition to those numbers, markets are looking for the chipmaker to announce a $37 billion revenue forecast for the fourth quarter. 

A decade of dominance

While Nvidia has enjoyed the momentum of the AI boom, it’s seen outsized returns even compared to its top competitors like AMD and Intel, which are flat and negative on the year, respectively. 

The VanEck Semiconductor ETF has fared better, but still comparatively low returns versus Nvidia.

That dominance holds even when you compare it to its peers in the Magnificent Seven. 

Keep in mind Nvidia is a 31-year-old company. It’s been refining its products and capturing market share over a very long stretch of time.

That said, business has ramped up over the last decade — and particularly in the last two years since OpenAI launched ChatGPT. 

That 29,000% stock appreciation over the last decade has coincided with steady and strong growth in headcount, according to hiring data from Live Data Technologies shared with Opening Bell Daily. 

Another notable detail: Nvidia is poaching staffers from Intel at a rapid rate.

It’s hired roughly five times more from its competitor than Intel has from Nvidia over the last decade, per Live Data Technologies.

Great expectations

Hiring and stock appreciation aside, Nvidia has operated a meteoric business over the last several years. 

“Revenue growth has been astronomical for NVDA over the last couple of years, but with a market cap of more than $3.5 trillion and expected full-year sales of $127 billion in 2025, the company trades with an estimated 2025 price to sales ratio of 27.9x,” strategists from Bespoke Investment Group wrote in a note Tuesday.

“That is not cheap!”

While revenue growth is seen increasing more than 100% year-over-year in 2025, Bespoke noted that those annual estimates slow down beyond that:

• 49% in 2026

• 19.5% in 2027

• 18% in 2028 and 2029

• 10% in 2030

Granted, Nvidia is used to lofty expectations by now.

Plus, who else will Big Tech companies buy their chips from? 

“We expect Nvidia to report strong earnings on Wednesday,” said Gaurav Mallik, chief investment officer at Pallas Capital Advisors.

“We believe that Nvidia's next earnings report will help to confirm that the AI story is still intact, especially as investors are understandably anxious about how AI adoption will help drive profits.” 

Comments or feedback? Reply directly to this email or let me know on X @philrosenn.

Elsewhere:

🔺Gold climbed to its highest in a week as markets reacted to escalating war between Ukraine and Russia. On Tuesday, Russian President Vladimir Putin signed a revised nuclear doctrine, lowering the threshold for the country’s use of nuclear weapons. That followed a decision by the Biden administration to allow Ukraine to use US missiles to strike inside Russia. (Yahoo Finance)

📈 Goldman Sachs turned more bullish. Goldman Sachs chief US equity strategist David Kostin initiated a 2025 year-end S&P 500 target of 6,500, about 11% higher from current levels. That’s in line with Morgan Stanley’s forecast, and just under BMO Capital Markets’ prediction for 6,700. (Reuters)

👀Bitcoin keeps climbing. The world’s largest cryptocurrency set another record high Tuesday, fueled by news that Trump Media & Technology is in talks to buy the digital-asset marketplace Bakkt Holdings. Nasdaq’s listing of options for a bitcoin ETF also stoked the rally. (Bloomberg)

Rapid-fire:

• President-elect Trump nominated billionaire Howard Lutnick for commerce secretary and he tapped Dr. Oz to lead Medicare centers (AP)

• Bitcoin hit a fresh record high at $94,000 as ETF options began trading (CoinDesk)

• BlackRock acquired the sandwich chain Jersey Mike’s for $8 billion (AP)

• Early estimates show global oil inventories declined about 1.16 million barrels a day, larger than the IEA projected (Bloomberg)

• The Bank of Japan affirmed that further rate hikes are on the table (WSJ)

• Pfizer loses its bid to recoup $75 million left over from an SEC settlement with billionaire Steve Cohen’s hedge fund (Reuters)

Last thing:

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