U.S. stock futures rallied on Thursday as investors cheered Nvidia's market-topping earnings. Nasdaq futures gained 1.75%; S&P futures rose 1.32%; Dow futures rose 0.67%.
Big tech stocks rose in premarket trading. SMCI up over 6%; Nvidia, AMD up over 5%; Micron, Palantir, Oracle, Broadcom up over 3%.
Nvidia Corp. delivered a surprisingly strong revenue forecast and pushed back on the idea that the AI industry is in a bubble, easing concerns that had spread across the tech sector.
The world’s most valuable company expects sales of about $65 billion in the January quarter — roughly $3 billion more than analysts predicted. Nvidia also said that a half-trillion-dollar revenue bonanza due in coming quarters may be even bigger than anticipated.
The outlook signals that demand remains robust for Nvidia’s artificial intelligence accelerators, the pricey and powerful chips used to develop AI models. Nvidia had faced growing fears in recent weeks that the runaway spending on such equipment wasn’t sustainable.
“There’s been a lot of talk about an AI bubble,” Chief Executive Officer Jensen Huang said on a conference call with analysts. “From our vantage point, we see something very different.”
The growing role of AI will help maintain demand for Nvidia’s products, Huang said. The technology is helping speed up existing computing work, such as search. And it’s about to come to the physical world in the form of robots and other devices.
Nvidia’s third-quarter results also topped analysts’ estimates. Revenue rose 62% to $57 billion in the period, which ended Oct. 26. Profit was $1.30 a share. Analysts had predicted sales of $55.2 billion and earnings of $1.26 a share.
Nvidia’s main data center unit had revenue of $51.2 billion in the quarter, compared with an average estimate of $49.3 billion. Chips used in gaming PCs — once the company’s chief source of revenue — delivered sales of $4.3 billion. That compares with an average estimate of $4.4 billion.
The forecast for the latest quarter reflects a staggering run for the company. Sales will be up more than 10-fold from where they were in the same period just three years ago. And Nvidia is on course to deliver more annual net income than two longtime rivals — Intel Corp. and Advanced Micro Devices Inc. — will report in sales.