NVIDIA Leads U.S. Stocks Higher Ahead of Earnings Report

U.S. stocks closed higher on Tuesday, with NVIDIA leading the gains ahead of its earnings report scheduled for Wednesday. The S&P 500 index rose 0.4%, driven by NVIDIA's performance, which is set to release its earnings report. UnitedHealth Group saw a decline, as investigations into the company expanded beyond potential healthcare fraud. Eli Lilly & Co. was the top performer in the S&P 500, with its stock rising nearly 6% after its experimental weight-loss drug showed promising results in clinical trials, bringing the company closer to potential approval. Keurig Dr Pepper Inc. had the largest negative impact on the S&P 500, with its stock falling 6.9% after announcing plans to acquire JDE Peet’s for 180 billion dollars. The decision by the President to remove Federal Reserve Governor Lael Brainard from office was also a topic of discussion among traders. The President indicated that he is prepared to engage in legal battles over the matter, while the Federal Reserve stated that it would comply with any court decisions. The potential removal of Brainard has raised concerns about the independence of the Federal Reserve, with some analysts suggesting that the market may see increased volatility as a result. However, others believe that the Federal Reserve's independence remains a key factor in market stability, and that any potential changes to the Fed's leadership would be closely monitored by investors. The consumer sentiment remains resilient, with retail sales data indicating continued strength in consumer spending. The S&P 500 index closed at 6465.94 points, up 0.41%, while the Dow Jones Industrial Average rose 0.3% to 45418.07 points, and the Nasdaq Composite Index gained 0.44% to 21544.27 points.

NVIDIA is set to release its second-quarter earnings report for the fiscal year 2026 on August 27th, which is highly anticipated by the market. As a key beneficiary of the AI boom and a leading company in terms of market capitalization, its performance is not only crucial for its own development but also serves as a barometer for the investment sentiment in the AI sector and the broader tech stock market. Analysts expect NVIDIA to report revenue of 45.5 billion dollars, a 51.5% increase year-over-year, and non-GAAP earnings per share of 0.99 dollars, a 46.2% increase year-over-year. The market has already priced in the continued high growth in CSP capital expenditures and the successful rollout of Blackwell and Rubin products. However, the slowing improvement in single-card performance and the increasing complexity and manufacturing difficulty of server racks may put pressure on the gross margin. The key focus will be on whether the gross margin can rebound in the current quarter.

In the first quarter, NVIDIA reported revenue of 44.062 billion dollars, a significant increase of 69.18%, and net income of 18.775 billion dollars, a 26.17% increase. The company's Jetson Thor, based on the Blackwell architecture, was officially launched to developers on August 25th. This supercomputer for robots is designed to support various industries, including manufacturing, logistics, transportation, healthcare, agriculture, and retail, by providing computing power for millions of robots. Compared to its predecessor, the Jetson Orin, the Jetson Thor offers a 7.5-fold increase in AI computing power and a 3.5-fold improvement in energy efficiency. It can run a variety of generative AI models, including Cosmos Reason, DeepSeek, Llama, Gemini, Qwen, and Isaac GR00T N1.5. The Jetson Thor developer kit is now available for purchase at 3499 dollars, while the Jetson T5000 module is priced at 2999 dollars for orders of 1000 units or more. NVIDIA's GPU computing platform has expanded its reach to more endpoints, from PCs and data centers to robots, and has accelerated its expansion in recent years. Robots have become an important business line for NVIDIA, and the company has consistently showcased its latest robotics innovations at its events. The Jetson Thor is considered the most powerful "brain" for robots, integrating "large models + real-time sensing + control" at the edge. With its Blackwell GPU and 128GB of memory, the Jetson Thor delivers up to 2070 FP4 TFLOPS of AI computing power, enabling robots to run multimodal models such as vision-language-action (VLA) in parallel on the device itself. This significantly reduces cloud dependency and round-trip latency, allowing robots to handle complex applications such as proxy AI, high-speed sensor data processing, and general robot tasks more efficiently. This means that robots equipped with the Jetson Thor will have an even higher level of intelligence, enabling them to handle complex scenarios such as proxy AI, high-speed sensor data processing, and general robot tasks more efficiently.