Nvidia Stock: Price Movements and Earnings Outlook

Nvidia just dropped its Q3 numbers, and they’re a beast. We’re talking about a company that’s not just meeting expectations but blowing past them like a bullet train through a sleepy commuter station. But my job, and what you’ve come to expect, is to look beyond the headline bravado and see what the raw data really tells us. Is this an unstoppable juggernaut, or is there more to the story than Jensen Huang’s "virtuous cycle" soundbites?

The AI Gold Rush: Nvidia's Shovels Are Flying Off the Shelves

On Wednesday, November 20, 2025, Nvidia reported a third quarter that, on paper, cemented its position as the undisputed king of the AI infrastructure game. Earnings per share hit $1.30 on a staggering $57.01 billion in revenue. Wall Street analysts, who’d set their bets at $1.26 EPS and $55.2 billion revenue, were left scrambling to update their models. That’s a solid beat, no question about it. And the forecast for Q4? Another projected $65 billion, give or take 2%, which again sails past the $62 billion consensus. The digital green glow of the stock tickers on every financial news screen, from New York to Singapore, reflected the market’s immediate euphoria, with Nvidia stock surging more than 5% in after-hours trading after closing up 2.85% for the day.

This isn’t just good; it’s a seismic shift from where we were just a year ago. Remember Q3 last year? We were looking at $0.81 EPS on $35.1 billion in revenue. The jump is astronomical—to be more exact, revenue growth clocked in at an eye-watering 62.4% year-over-year. That’s the kind of acceleration that makes you sit up and take notice. The data center business, the engine of this growth, pulled in $51.2 billion, handily beating the $49.3 billion estimate. CEO Jensen Huang wasn’t shy about it, declaring "Blackwell sales are off the charts" and that "cloud GPUs are sold out." He’s pushing the narrative of a "virtuous cycle of AI," a self-reinforcing loop where more AI means more demand for Nvidia’s chips, which means more development, and so on. CFO Colette Kress backed him up, confirming Blackwell Ultra as the top architecture across all customer categories, with continued strong demand for the prior Blackwell architecture.

Now, let’s inject a little perspective, because as an analyst, I’ve seen this movie before. Nvidia is essentially selling the shovels in the AI gold rush. And right now, everyone from tiny startups to tech giants like Amazon, Google, Meta, and Microsoft are buying those shovels in bulk. The fact that AMD stock, Micron, Marvell Technology, Broadcom, and even Intel all saw bumps after Nvidia’s report tells you how much of the market’s sentiment is currently tethered to Nvidia’s fortunes. Even Palantir stock, which saw a recent dip after its own earnings, caught a bit of a tailwind. This isn't just about Nvidia; it’s about the entire AI ecosystem holding its breath for Nvidia’s numbers. My analysis suggests that much of this market reaction isn’t just about Nvidia's individual performance, but a collective sigh of relief that the AI narrative, for now, remains robust.

Reading Between the Lines: The Unanswered Questions and Lingering Doubts

But let’s pump the brakes just a hair on the "unstoppable" rhetoric. While the overall picture is undeniably bullish, a few details from the report, and the broader market context, warrant a closer look. For instance, gaming revenue came in at $4.3 billion, slightly below the $4.4 billion estimate. It’s a minor miss in the grand scheme of things, sure, but it’s a reminder that not every segment is firing on all cylinders, and the AI boom is currently masking other areas.

Here’s where my skepticism starts to itch: the company explicitly stated that revenue from its China-specific H20 chip was "insignificant." This is a crucial data point. Given the geopolitical tensions and export restrictions, the China market is a massive potential revenue stream that Nvidia is effectively locked out of for its top-tier products. How significant would "insignificant" need to be before it becomes a genuine drag on future growth, especially if other markets start to mature or face their own headwinds? And this is the part of the report that I find genuinely puzzling: if the demand for Blackwell and Blackwell Ultra is truly "off the charts" and "sold out," what does the continued strong demand for the prior Blackwell architecture signify? Is it simply a supply constraint, or are some customers opting for older tech, which could signal a future softening in demand for the absolute bleeding edge? We don't have enough granular data to fully deconstruct that.

And let’s not forget the recent market movements that pre-date this stellar earnings report. Peter Thiel's hedge fund sold its entire roughly $100 million stake in Nvidia just prior to this announcement. SoftBank Group also unloaded all of its $5.8 billion in Nvidia stock to fund its own AI investments. These aren’t small players; they’re savvy investors making calculated moves. Were they simply taking profits, or did they see a peak that others are now missing? Michael Burry, the "Big Short" legend, has also been vocal about criticizing the AI trade, suggesting companies like Meta and Oracle might be artificially boosting earnings by understating depreciation of data center equipment. While his critique wasn't directly aimed at Nvidia, it does underscore a broader, lurking concern about the true economic underpinnings of this AI infrastructure gold rush. Nvidia's market capitalization briefly exceeding $5 trillion last month is a staggering figure, but market cap, as we all know, is a forward-looking bet, not a historical certainty.

The Road Ahead: A Trillion-Dollar Question Mark

Nvidia’s target of $0.5 trillion in Blackwell & Rubin sales through 2026 is ambitious, to say the least. It speaks to their confidence in sustaining this growth trajectory, expanding AI infrastructure partnerships as they go. AMD CEO Lisa Su previously projected the entire data center market to be worth as much as $1 trillion by 2030. Nvidia’s current run suggests they aim to capture a significant, if not dominant, share of that.

The question isn't whether Nvidia is doing well right now; the numbers are clear. The question is how long this can run at such an accelerated pace. Are we in a genuine, sustainable "virtuous cycle" where every new AI application fuels proportionate demand for exponentially more powerful chips, or are we witnessing a massive, front-loaded infrastructure build-out that might eventually plateau? The stock market is betting heavily on the former, with nvidia stock price up more than 37% year-to-date, and AMD shares also up 82% over the same period. This isn't just a rally; it's a full-blown stampede. But stampedes, by their very nature, can be unpredictable.

The Math Says "Yes," But the Market Whispers "How Long?