Nvidia’s earnings report shows the problem of being priced for perfection

Nvidia reported its fourth-straight quarter of triple-digit revenue growth on Wednesday, sailing past estimates on the top and bottom line while also issuing a forecast that topped Wall Street expectations. The company even bolstered its buyback program with a plan to repurchase $50 billion in shares. But the stock dropped 7% in extended trading. That’s life for Nvidia, which has ridden the artificial intelligence boom to a $3 trillion market cap, soaring almost nine-fold since the end of 2022 and surpassing every public company other than Apple in valuation. (It topped Apple for a stretch in June.) In addition to reporting 122% annual revenue growth on Wednesday to over $30 billion, Nvidia said sales in the current period will jump about 80% to roughly $32.5 billion. Analysts were expecting close to $32 billion. However, Stacy Rasgon, an analyst at Bernstein, told CNBC before the report came out that “buyside whispers” were closer to $33 billion to $34 billion, meaning Nvidia would have to dramatically surpass analyst estimates in its guidance in order to see a pop. Rasgon, who recommends buying shares of the chipmaker, said there are no indications that demand is waning for Nvidia’s graphics processing units (GPUs), the core infrastructure for developing and running AI models. “There’s still a ton of demand,” Rasgon said on CNBC’s “Closing Bell.” “They’re still shipping everything that they can sell.”