Nvidia beats on Q3 earnings but shares still slide

Next generation AI chips

Is Nvidia competing with itself now?

Nvidia third-quarter earnings beat expectations, but shares dropped 2.5% in extended trading.

The company’s revenue surged 94% year on year to $35.08 billion in the quarter ended 27th October 2024.

Net income climbed 109% from a year ago to $19.3 billion. Sales of Nvidia’s next-generation chip Blackwell, will be limited by supply, not demand, the company reportedly said.

Nvidia didn’t disappoint in terms of third-quarter revenue and net income, but it wasn’t enough for Wall Street. The forecast for the fourth quarter indicates a year-over-year growth of approximately 70%, marking a deceleration from the 265% growth experienced in the corresponding period the previous year.

Nvidia has emerged as the main beneficiary of the current artificial intelligence surge. Its shares have almost tripled in 2024, positioning it as the most valuable publicly traded company.

Numerous end-customers of Nvidia, including Microsoft, Oracle, and OpenAI, have begun receiving the company’s latest AI chip, known as Blackwell.

Nvidia one-year share price chart as of 20th November 2024

Nvidia one-year share price chart

The share price decline appears to be due to reserved guidance for Q4, with Nvidia’s management anticipating supply challenges for its next-generation Blackwell GPU. Investors were hoping for a more optimistic forecast, but the cautious outlook was disappointing.

It’s interesting to see how even strong earnings can sometimes lead to a drop in share prices if the future outlook doesn’t meet investor expectations.

UK autumn statement, in a nutshell

UK autumn statement

Some of the main takeaways from the chancellor’s autumn statement November 2023

National Insurance rate cut from 12% to 10% from 6 January, affecting 27 million people.

The 75% business rates discount for retail, hospitality and leisure firms in England extended for another year.

Class 2 National Insurance – paid by self-employed people earning more than £12,570 – abolished from April.

Class 4 National Insurance for self-employed – paid on profits between £12,570 and £50,270 – cut from 9% to 8% from April.

Full tax break permitting companies to deduct spending on new machinery and equipment from profits – now made permanent.

Funding of £4.5bn to attract investment to strategic manufacturing sectors, including aerospace, green energy, aerospace, life sciences and zero-emission vehicles.

Some £500m over the next two years to fund artificial intelligence (AI) innovation centres.

New premium planning services for England, with faster decision times for major business applications and fee refunds when these are not met.

Defence spending to remain at 2% of national income – a Nato commitment.

Overseas aid spending kept at 0.5% of national income, below the official 0.7% target.

Reaffirms previous commitments made last autumn to provide £14.1bn for the NHS and adult social care in England, as well as an extra £2bn for schools, in both 2023‑24 and 2024-25.

All alcohol duty frozen until 1 August next year.

Tobacco products duty increases by 2% above RPI inflation; hand-rolling tobacco rises 12% above RPI.

Fuel duty remains 52.95p per litre for petrol and diesel, after the chancellor announced a 5p per litre cut for 12 months in March 2023

State pension payments to increase by 8.5% from April, in line with average earnings.

Claimants in England and Wales deemed able to work who refuse to seek employment to lose access to their benefits and extras like free prescriptions.

UK autumn statement – art illustration of office worker preparing data

Further £1.3bn to help people who have been unemployed for over a year.

National Living Wage – to increase from £10.42 to £11.44 an hour from April.

Funding of £1.3bn over the next five years to help people with health conditions find jobs.

OBR Stats

Independent Office for Budget Responsibility (OBR) expects the economy to grow by 0.6% this year and 0.7% next year, rising to 1.4% in 2025; then 1.9% in 2026; 2% in 2027 and 1.7% in 2028.

Living standards not expected to return to pre-pandemic levels until 2027-28.

Underlying debt forecast to be 91.6% of GDP next year; 92.7% in 2024-25; 93.2% in 2026-27; before declining to 92.8% in 2028-29. (One to watch)

OBR forecasts that inflation – the rate prices are rising – will fall to 2.8% by the end of 2024, before reaching the Bank of England’s 2% target rate in 2025. (One to watch)

The OBR says higher inflation means real value of departmental budgets will be £19bn lower by 2027/28 compared with March 2023 forecasts.

Borrowing forecast to fall from 4.5% of GDP in 2023-24; to 3% in 2024-25; 2.7% in 2025-26; 2.3% in 2026-27; 1.6% in 2027-28 and 1.1% in 2028-29. (One to watch)

Nvidia’s AI chip boom continues, latest figures show

Nvidia AI chip

Nvidia’s revenue grew 206% from year 2022 during the quarter ending 29th October 2023, according to data from Nvidia.

Net income, at $9.24 billion, or $3.71 per share, was up from $680 million, in the same quarter of 2022.

The company’s data centre revenue came in at: $14.51 billion, up a massive 279% and above consensus of $12.97 billion. Half of the data centre revenue came from cloud infrastructure providers such as Amazon, and the other from consumer internet and large companies, Nvidia said. Healthy uptake also came from clouds that specialized in renting out GPUs to clients.

Earnings: $4.02 per share, adjusted, vs. $3.37 per share expected

Revenue: $18.12 billion, vs. $16.18 billion expected

The gaming segment contributed $2.86 billion, up 81% and higher than the $2.68 billion general consensus. Nvidia’s future guidance suggested $20 billion in revenue for Q4, implying a nearly 231% revenue growth.

Year on year Nvidia share price movement.

Year on year Nvidia share price movement – Nov 2022 – Nov 2023

During the quarter, Nvidia announced the GH200 GPU, which has more memory than the current H100 and an additional Arm processor onboard. The H100 is expensive and in demand. Nvidia said Australia-based Iris Energy, an owner of bitcoin mining data centers, was buying 248 H100s for $10 million, which works out around $40,000 each.

Nvidia’s revenue grew 206% year over year during the quarter ending 29th October 2023, according to data from Nvidia.

Nvidia share price moved down 1% in after-hours trading on Tuesday 21st November 2023 after the reporting fiscal Q3 results that surpassed predictions. But the company called for a negative impact in the next quarter because of export restrictions affecting sales to organizations in China and other countries.

‘We expect that our sales to these destinations decline significantly in the Q4 2024, though we believe the decline will be more than offset by strong growth in other regions’, Nvidia reported.