New York, March 3, 2026, 07:00 AM EST — Premarket
- Nvidia shares were down about 3% in premarket trading, reversing part of Monday’s roughly 3% rise.
- A sharp drop in U.S. stock index futures weighed on megacap tech as oil jumped on Middle East conflict fears.
- Investors are parsing Nvidia’s new $4 billion photonics push and looking ahead to fresh product updates later this month.
Nvidia (NVDA.O) shares fell about 3% to $177.09 in premarket trading on Tuesday, after ending Monday at $182.48, up 3%. 1
The move came as U.S. futures slid and investors shifted into a risk-off stance after U.S. and Israeli strikes on Iran, with Tehran threatening shipping through the Strait of Hormuz, a key oil route. “Much will depend on the price of oil,” a group of strategists led by Deutsche Bank’s Jim Reid wrote, warning a sustained spike could deepen the selloff. 2
Nvidia’s drop also landed a day after it laid out a $4 billion investment plan in photonics, committing $2 billion each to Lumentum and Coherent as it looks to speed up data-center chips and meet heavier inference demand. The deals include multibillion-dollar purchase commitments and capacity rights, and come as cloud customers explore more custom silicon and rivals push alternative accelerators. 3
In its statement on the Lumentum tie-up, Nvidia said the agreement is nonexclusive and includes future capacity access for advanced laser components, alongside the $2 billion investment to support manufacturing and R&D in the United States. CEO Jensen Huang said “AI has reinvented computing,” while Lumentum CEO Michael Hurlston said the company will invest in a new fabrication facility to expand capacity. 4
The Coherent partnership follows a similar structure: a multiyear, nonexclusive supply arrangement with an Nvidia purchase commitment and access rights for advanced laser and optical networking products, plus a $2 billion investment. “Computing has fundamentally changed,” Huang said, and Coherent CEO Jim Anderson called it an expansion of a long-running relationship aimed at “AI data centers of the future.” 5
Photonics, in plain terms, uses light to move data instead of electrical signals, a shift chip and networking firms are chasing to cut power use and push more bandwidth through crowded AI data centers. The idea is to ease bottlenecks as clusters scale to thousands of GPUs and the traffic between chips becomes as important as the chips themselves. 6
Investors are also positioning ahead of Nvidia’s GTC developer conference, where the company typically sets expectations on its chip roadmap and networking gear after an earnings cycle. 7
But the near-term tape is still about macro shock. If oil stays high and yields push up with it, richly valued tech can get hit hard even when the company news is constructive, and Nvidia has little room for a stumble in demand or supply.
For Nvidia, the next clear catalyst is GTC in San Jose on March 16–19, with CEO Jensen Huang’s keynote slated for March 16. 8
