Another Nvidia earnings week is upon us, but this one will be unlike any other. The chipmaker at the heart of the artificial intelligence boom reports quarterly results Tuesday evening, marking Nvidia’s first earnings report in its 27-year history as a public company without Jensen Huang as CEO. Huang resigned last week amid a widening scandal over alleged affairs. Ever since Nvidia stunned Wall Street with its guidance in May 2023 , the company’s earnings reports and conference calls have been can’t-miss events. They’ve offered a crucial checkup on the health of the AI spending surge and a chance to hear from the visionary executive whose company enabled much of the innovation and created trillions of dollars of shareholder value. Tuesday night will still be can’t-miss, but for different reasons. Gone will be Huang’s big-picture commentary and visions for the future. Instead, interim CEO and longtime CFO Colette Kress will have to make the case for one of the most consequential technology companies of our time. Nvidia will share the spotlight this week with what could be one of the most consequential tech companies in the decades to come, Anthropic. The Claude chatbot creator is set to go public on the Nasdaq on Thursday in a historic IPO that will test investors’ appetite for AI stocks. On top of all this, we will hear from three more companies in our portfolio: Home Depot , TJX Companies and Palo Alto Networks . One saving grace: The economic calendar is fairly light, with retail sales, industrial production, and minutes from the Fed’s October meeting as the main releases. Let’s take a closer look at what to expect: 1. Nvidia earnings: There is so much that could be said to preview Tuesday night’s report. Will it help stabilize Nvidia shares, or unfold in a way that catalyzes further selling? Maybe it will go well, but scandal-related developments away from the earnings report itself will control the stock. The range of outcomes is vast, which underscores why Jim Cramer recommended last week that investors who’ve built up big gains in Nvidia over the years book some profits . We want to focus on some of the biggest questions for the earnings call, though this is far from an exhaustive list. Will Nvidia stand by its 70% revenue growth forecast for fiscal 2028, which starts in February? What is the risk associated with potential tightening of U.S. export controls on chip shipments to China (or the broader Asia Pacific region)? Are there any updates on the monster stock buyback program, in size or implementation strategy How is Kress planning to approach Nvidia’s financial support to other companies in the AI ecosystem going forward? Finally, should we expect any changes to Nvidia’s product roadmap and pace of innovation? Nvidia shares are limping into Tuesday’s report. So far in November, the stock is down 20%, on pace for its worst monthly performance since ChatGPT sparked the AI boom in late 2022. Here’s what analysts are expecting for the quarter, according to LSEG: Revenue: $109.08 billion EPS: $2.47 Conference call starts at 5 p.m. ET NVDA YTD mountain Nvidia’s year-to-date stock performance. 2. Other Club earnings: Home Depot kicks off our week with its report before Tuesday’s opening bell. The once-struggling stock has mounted a strong rebound since early October, coinciding with the recent peak in the 10-year Treasury yield above 5.3%. With Home Depot relying on housing market activity to drive business, its stock is highly sensitive to the interest-rate backdrop. It got hurt as rates rose amid the war in Iran. Now the reverse is playing out. Will Home Depot’s third-quarter results be strong enough to solidify the bounce, or could it open the door to profit-taking? Are they seeing any green shoots in transactions? Key metrics to watch include same-store sales and gross margins, which last quarter benefited from tariff refunds that offset rising incremental costs. Some refund offset is expected again in the third quarter, but what does the fourth quarter look like for magins? We’ll also pay close attention to the performance of its professional distribution arm, SRS , and Home Depot’s Pro business more broadly. Finally, we await an update on the health of CEO Ted Decker, who took a leave of absence in August. Revenue: $42.79 billion EPS: $3.84 Conference call starts at 9 a.m. ET HD YTD mountain Home Depot’s year-to-date stock performance. Off-price retailer TJX Companies reports Wednesday morning. We need to see its Marmaxx division — home to Marshalls and TJ Maxx stores in the U.S. — get back on track after a major letdown in the July quarter. CEO Ernie Herrman attributed the same-store sales shortfall to the company not having “the right goods in the right stores at the right time.” He said TJX was addressing self-inflicted issues and that sales trends had already begun to improve by the time of the Aug. 19 earnings call. So, in the results Wednesday, we need evidence that these better sales trends carried through the October quarter and are reflected in its holiday quarter guidance. While we’ve long viewed TJX as best-of-breed in the discount retail landscape, Ross Stores is a more credible competitor under the leadership of ex-Boot Barn chief Jim Conroy. If TJX is able to right the ship, that will support management’s contention that the hiccup was internal rather than the result of intensifying competition. To protect against a letdown, we trimmed TJX on Friday. “There will be big repercussions if they don’t make a comeback,” Jim said Friday. Revenue: $15.84 billion EPS: $1.34 Conference call starts at 11 a.m. ET TJX YTD mountain TJX Companies’ year-to-date stock performance. Palo Alto Networks rounds out the week of earnings Wednesday night. Shares have cooled off after a blistering April-to-October rally, which may help temper expectations ahead of the print. We have little doubt that AI is driving demand for cybersecurity solutions, but the overarching question is how quickly it shows up in the numbers. Last quarter, it did so impressively, as Palo Alto’s closely watched next-generation security annual recurring revenue (NGS ARR) grew by a better-than-expected 63% year over year. That also marked a sequential acceleration from the 60% growth rate observed in the April quarter. Where will NGS ARR land this time around? Other metrics to watch include net new platformizations — key to Palo Alto’s strategy of customers consolidating their cyber spending — and total remaining performance obligations (RPO), a measure of contracted business not yet converted into revenue. Aside from the actual business performance, will CEO Nikesh Arora be asked about his interest in another top job (at Nvidia)? Revenue: $3.31 billion EPS: $0.97 Conference call starts at 4:30 p.m. ET PANW YTD mountain Palo Alto Networks’ year-to-date stock performance. 3. Anthropic IPO: The fast-growing startup is expected to price its IPO on Wednesday night and begin trading the following day. According to its latest securities filing, the company is looking to raise up to $64.4 billion, alongside a $26 billion private placement from a who’s-who of tech giants. The stakes for the broader AI trade are massive. Jim summed it up nicely on “Mad Money” last week : “Anthropic is important because it is one of just a few companies at the end of the food chain for all of the AI data center investments that we’ve seen, so it is one of the few companies that, ultimately, needs to make money from all of this investment spending. If it can’t do that, or if it cannot convince enough investors that it will do so, then it’s tough to justify all of the AI investments that are being made today.” For now, the good news is that interest in the deal is high, with Bloomberg News reporting that it’s six times oversubscribed. It doesn’t end there. How the stock trades in the days and weeks that follow will be important, especially for other AI-related companies seeking to go public. A final thought: Jim has long warned that new equity supply coming into the market could lead to selling in other names, as investors raise money to buy the hot new issue. It’s a dynamic to monitor across our portfolio and the broader market. Week ahead Monday, November 16 Before the bell: Baidu, Aramark, Tyson Foods After the bell: Aecom Tuesday, November 17 Retail sales at 8:30 a.m. ET Industrial production and capacity utilization at 9:15 a.m. ET Before the bell: Home Depot , Walt Disney, JD.com, Amer Sports, Energizer, Viking Holdings, Klarna, Tencent Music After the bell: Nvidia Wednesday, November 18 Fed meeting minutes at 2 p.m. ET Before the bell: TJX Companies , Target, Lowe’s, Tencent Holdings, Bullish After the bell: Palo Alto Networks , Everpure, Helmerich & Payne Thursday, November 19 Initial jobless claims at 8:30 a.m. ET Before the bell: Walmart, Alibaba, NetEase, Bath & Body Works, Warner Music Group, Valvoline After the bell: Gap, Intuit, Ross Stores, Elastic Friday, November 13 Before the bell: BJ’s Wholesale (Jim Cramer’s Charitable Trust is long NVDA, HD, TJX and PANW. See here for a full list of the stocks.) 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rahulNovember 15, 20266 Mins read0
