Nvidia stock struggles before its first post-DeepSeek earnings: 5 things to watch

It’s no exaggeration to say that Nvidia (Nasdaq:NVDA), to many people, is the most important stock on Wall Street these days. Last year, the company was responsible for more than 20% of the S&P 500’s total return, and it’s a stalwart in a wide swath of 401(k) and IRA investment accounts.

That alone would be reason enough for the company’s fourth-quarter-earnings report to receive widespread interest on Wednesday after the market close. But recent slowdowns in Nvidia’s growth as well as artificial intelligence breakthroughs in China have raised questions about how the tech giant can remain on top.

Analysts expect Nvidia will report revenue of $38.1 million and net income of $19.6 billion for the quarter ended in January. Earnings are expected to come in at $0.85 per share.

NVDA shares, as of midday Tuesday, were trading at about the same level as last October. While Nvidia has seen its NVDA share price jump more than 61% in the past 12 months, the stock is down about 6% so far in 2025. The stock was down 1.8% in midday trading Tuesday.

Investors, analysts, and even casual watchers of the stock market will be combing the earnings results to see if demand for Nvidia’s chips is waning—and, if so, how it plans to continue growth. Barclays called this earnings report a “crucial moment,” and Fundstrat head of research Tom Lee says the earnings will show whether the current market pullback is only a “flesh wound” or something more serious.

Nvidia has become the second-largest company on Wall Street, guiding major market indices, which makes Wednesday’s earnings relevant to many investors, even those who don’t care about AI. Here are some of the things Wall Street will be paying particular attention to once the numbers are released.

Blackwell chip supply

Volume production of Nvidia’s newest chip will be in the spotlight Wednesday. Investors are curious if the manufacturing issues that previously impacted the next-generation Blackwell line (which delivers a lot of power with higher efficiency) are now in the past—as well as how strong demand is looking. Last quarter, Nvidia told the Street it expected “several billion dollars” in revenue from Blackwell this quarter. Analyst firm Jefferies, in a note to investors, said it expects Nvidia will beat expectations and raise projections for future quarters.

Tariff impacts

Nvidia is unlikely to address any impact from Donald Trump’s tariffs in its earnings release, but it’s a topic that could come up on the conference call. Nvidia has said it gets the majority of its products from North America, however it’s looking to widen its sources. A trade war, meanwhile, could hurt sales of Nvidia chips in other countries, especially as Trump considers tariffs of “25% or higher” on chips, which could lead to retribution from trade partners.

Big tech spending

A report from TD Cowen late last week that Microsoft was set to slow its spending on data centers stoked fears that the recent market boom, which has been fueled by AI stocks, could be slowing. If accurate, that could indicate a dip in demand for Nvidia’s chips. (Microsoft, on Monday, said it still plans to spend $80 billion on infrastructure this year.)

CEO Jensen Huang is likely to face questions about orders from key customers, including not just Microsoft, but also Meta, Alphabet and Amazon, despite those companies saying they planned to either stick with preannounced levels or increase their capital expenditures related to AI.

New markets

Most of Nvidia’s chips are currently used in data centers, but investors will be looking for the next growth area. That could come from autonomous vehicles or robots. Currently, both are a drop in the bucket, revenue-wise, but Huang has spoken enthusiastically about autonomous vehicles, saying that revenue will hit $5 billion in annual sales in the next fiscal year.

“We’ve been working on self-driving cars now for some time,” Huang said at his keynote at CES. “If it’s already a $5 billion business for us, imagine how big it’s going to be when we have 100 million new [self-driving] cars per year. This is likely going to be one of the largest robotics industries in the world and one of the largest computing industries in the world.”

The DeepSeek impact

NVDA shares took a steep dive on January 28 (losing $600 billion in market value in a single day) after DeepSeek was revealed, performing ChatGPT-like functions at a fraction of the cost of existing AI models. The maker of the Chinese AI system said it had spent just $5.6 million on the computing power for the chatbot. NVDA shares today remain about 10% below where they stood prior to DeepSeek’s debut.

On Wednesday’s earnings call, Huang will have a window to explain why AI companies will continue to need more of the company’s chips as the market grows.

As Huang "> said in an interview with DDN’s Alex Bouzari last week, “The market responded to [DeepSeek’s model] as in, ‘Oh my gosh, AI is finished’ . . . [that AI doesn’t] need to do any more computing anymore. It’s exactly the opposite,” adding that the need for more computing is “intensive.”

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