Nvidia ‘s first-quarter earnings report on Wednesday afternoon could set the tone for Wall Street heading into June, but only if investors can agree on what the results truly mean about the artificial intelligence boom. The chip juggernaut has jumped 22% over the past month, even as Wall Street analysts are cautioning clients that the quarterly report likely won’t be clean and could include misses on key metrics. NVDA 1M mountain Shares of Nvidia have gained more than 20% over the past month. Part of that murky outlook is due to the ways in which Nvidia is caught up in the geopolitical tensions around trade and national security. The chipmaker has already announced that it would take a $5.5 billion charge in the quarter related to U.S. government export restrictions on so-called H20 integrated circuits, but the full impact of that is still not known, which could lead to a miss on revenue guidance. Morgan Stanley analyst Joseph Moore said in a note to clients that the impact of those restrictions is “messy” but probably not enough to hurt the long-term positive story for the stock. “Sell side does not appear to have universally modeled the impact of H20 ban, so there is some downside potential vs. stale consensus. But if [management] is convincing that supply of racks and non rack Blackwell is improving, and that there is 2h acceleration, it should not matter,” Moore said. The quarterly report, which shows results through April 27 , will also not reflect the latest excitement around artificial intelligence. This month, Alphabet rolled out a slew of new AI initiatives and product ideas at its I/O developer conference , and Microsoft debuted its Claude 4 AI model . “The quarter doesn’t matter; the qualitative commentary does + so does the building demand for ‘more AI.’ The previews and buyside conversations have been pretty consistent this quarter … slight beat and a guide that will be likely BELOW consensus,” said a Bank of America sales desk note. “Saying the ‘quarter’ and guide don’t matter is obviously a little extreme — but if one can’t see that the usage/adoption of AI has hit an explosive inflection in the past 2 months … I don’t know what to tell you,” the note continued. Nvidia is still solidly below its record high from late last year, but that doesn’t mean the bar isn’t high. The stock still has buy or strong buy ratings from 56 of 64 major analysts, according to LSEG. “We advise investors to weather the uncertainty and stay long the stock as this is likely largely the last wave of negative news for NVDA this year,” Piper Sandler analyst Harsh Kumar said in a note to clients. — CNBC’s Michael Bloom contributed reporting.
