A Key Moment for AI Stocks Comes This Week—and It Has Nothing to Do With Nvidia

Dow Jones
12/09

The artificial-intelligence trade that has fueled the market’s rally can swing in either direction this week, with earnings from Oracle being the pivotal event.

The market’s focus on AI growth has widened from just looking at Nvidia’s chip demand. Wall Street is rightly concerned about how sustainable the growth in data center demand is, and investors are becoming increasingly vigilant of demand signals from a host of key companies.

That high-alert state has dominated the market because AI stocks have become expensive. The tech-heavy Nasdaq Composite has gained about 90% over the past five years, led by more than twofold gains for Meta Platforms, Alphabet, Microsoft, and Oracle; a more than 1,000% advance for Nvidia; a more than 800% rise for fellow chip maker Broadcom; and greater than twofold gains for chip makers Advanced Micro Devices and Micron Technology. The Nasdaq now trades at just over 28 times analysts’ aggregate expected earnings for the coming 12 months, at the high end of its range during the AI era that began in late 2022.

If tech services companies decide to slow down their investments in data centers, shares of chip makers and the many manufacturers that build AI infrastructure could tumble. That would equate to trillions of dollars worth of market value, and it would certainly hit the Nasdaq, a widely held index.

That is why Oracle’s earnings are in the spotlight right now.

The large data storage software provider reports its fiscal second-quarter results on Wednesday. Analysts expect about 15% sales growth, according to FactSet, driven by rapid growth for the company’s cloud and AI software products that customers have adopted because they make their businesses more efficient and cost-effective. The growth numbers are important because Wall Street wants confirmation demand for software remains robust. If that proves to be the case, it would bode well for Microsoft and other software providers.

The market is also jittery about what Oracle says about demand from OpenAI. The companies agreed to a 5-year contract beginning in 2027, under which Oracle will provide software to OpenAI for $300 billion.

The problem is that OpenAI is likely not profitable and has several commitments to buy hundreds of billions of dollars worth of services and chips from other companies. Wall Street questions OpenAI’s ability to make all of these payments over time. If OpenAI can’t, it will hit sales at Oracle and other OpenAI partners and could validate the market’s fear that AI is a bubble that will eventually burst.

To be sure, the fear isn’t that AI spending won’t grow over the very long-term—it almost certainly will—but that spending isn’t growing as quickly as projected.

“Oracle has become the poster child for concerns about overspending and overcapacity in data centers,” writes Sevens Report’s Tom Essaye. “investors will want to see ORCL earnings 1) produce strong financial results on revenue/ earnings, 2) provide aggressive guidance on future orders.”

If Oracle’s earnings and forward-looking commentary affirm growth expectations, tech stocks should move higher. The Nasdaq is two percentage points away from the record high it hit in late October. Solid updates that boost earnings estimates could enable it to return to, or break above, that high.

Anything to the contrary could crush the Nasdaq and potentially bring it below the low it reached this fall, about a 6% drop from its current level. A selloff triggered by Oracle’s report could cause an even bigger drop since the fall drawdown wasn’t triggered by a reduction in profit estimates, a possibility this time around.

After Oracle, there is one more report to watch this week. Broadcom’s earnings report on Thursday will give the market another glimpse of chip demand.

This week is pivotal. Don’t be surprised to see some large moves.

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