NEW YORK, Feb 24, 2026, 10:02 (EST) — Regular session.
- NVIDIA shares slip in early trade as investors position for the company’s earnings due Wednesday after the bell.
- A fresh AI-chip supply pact between AMD and Meta highlights how big buyers are widening their supplier lists.
- Traders are watching Nvidia’s guidance, supply signals and any talk of demand shifting toward “inference” workloads.
NVIDIA Corporation (NVDA) shares fell on Tuesday morning as traders positioned for the chipmaker’s earnings later this week. The stock was down about 0.6% at $190.31 by 9:52 a.m. EST, after ending Monday at $191.55. (Google)
The timing matters. Nvidia has become the market’s quickest read on whether Big Tech is still spending heavily on data centers and AI chips, and whether that spending is paying off.
The latest jolt came from rival Advanced Micro Devices, which said it would supply up to $60 billion of AI chips to Meta Platforms over five years, a deal that also gives Meta the option to buy as much as 10% of AMD. “Meta is locking in supply and diversifying away from a single vendor,” said Matt Britzman, a senior equity analyst at Hargreaves Lansdown. AMD jumped more than 10% in premarket trading; Nvidia edged lower while Broadcom slid about 1.5%, Reuters reported. (Reuters)
Investors are also watching whether customers stick with Nvidia’s pricey chips as alternatives spread, including Google’s in-house tensor processing units, or TPUs. Ivana Delevska, chief investment officer at Spear Invest, said this earnings release is a key moment because investors worry about AI spending and “whether we’re in a bubble.” Seaport Research Partners analyst Jay Goldberg warned that “upside” could be limited by Taiwan’s TSMC capacity. (Reuters)
Wall Street has largely kept bullish ratings heading into the report, Barron’s said, with Stifel, J.P. Morgan and D.A. Davidson maintaining $250 price targets. The debate is shifting toward inference — when a trained model answers a user’s question — and how that changes what chips and systems customers buy. (Barron’s)
Nvidia said it will announce results at about 1:20 p.m. PT (4:20 p.m. ET) on Wednesday and hold a conference call at 2 p.m. PT. CFO Colette Kress is due to provide written commentary alongside the release. (NVIDIA Investor Relations)
Separately, Nvidia on Monday outlined a cybersecurity push with Akamai, Forescout, Palo Alto Networks, Siemens and Xage Security aimed at operational technology and industrial control systems. OT and ICS are the networks that run plants, utilities and other critical infrastructure. (NVIDIA Blog)
For traders, the near-term read-through is still the same: guidance for the April quarter and whether the company can ship more of its newest chips without squeezing margins. Comments on customer ordering into the second half, and on China, will be picked over.
But Nvidia does not need to miss estimates to fall. A cautious forecast, or evidence that big customers are spreading orders across rivals and homegrown chips, could hit a stock that still trades like fast growth is the base case.
The next hard catalyst is Wednesday’s after-hours report, followed by the 5 p.m. ET call, when analysts are expected to press management on order visibility and supply into the summer.
