Traders work on the floor of the New York Stock Exchange (NYSE) during morning trading in New York on August 23, 2024.
Angela Weiss | AFP | Getty Images
Nasdaq 100 futures fell Wednesday night after Nvidia — the artificial intelligence bellwether that’s up more than 150% this year — posted strong quarterly results that nevertheless failed to live up to investors’ lofty expectations.
Nasdaq 100 futures slid about 1%, while S&P 500 futures fell 0.5%. Meanwhile, Dow Jones Industrial Average futures gained 76 points, or 0.2%.
Nvidia shares dropped 6% in extended trading. In its fiscal second quarter, the AI chipmaker exceeded expectations on the top and bottom lines, and issued a rosy current-quarter sales outlook, but failed to impress traders anticipating a stronger beat.
Nvidia
“Death, taxes, and NVDA beats on earnings are three things you can bank on. Here’s the issue, the size of the beat this time was much smaller than we’ve been seeing. Even future guidance was raised, but again not by the tune from previous quarters,” wrote Ryan Detrick, chief market strategist at Carson Group.
“This is a great company that is still growing revenue at 122%, but it appears the bar was just set a tad too high this earnings season,” Detrick added.
Salesforce shares popped 3% after the business software giant beat fiscal second-quarter estimates on the top and bottom lines, and raised its full-year profit outlook. CrowdStrike also gained 3.5% on the back of an earnings and revenue beat, though it lowered its full-year outlook following the global outage in July.
Wall Street is coming off a losing session after a slump in Nvidia shares ahead of the company’s earnings results weighed on the major averages. The tech-heavy Nasdaq Composite dropped 1.12%, while the S&P 500 fell 0.6%. The 30-stock Dow slid about 159 points, or 0.39%.
Those moves highlight the growing significance of Nvidia to the broader market, as the stock now accounts for roughly 7% of the S&P 500.
Corporate earnings season continues Thursday with some notable consumer names including Dollar General, Ulta Beauty and Lululemon Athletica. Campbell Soup and Best Buy are also on deck.
The July personal consumption expenditures price index is set to release on Friday.