Nvidia Earnings Preview – Is Its High Performance Sustainable?

AI’s momentum could fuel a rally, but trade tensions and market nerves could trigger a pullback

• Nvidia will report quarterly earnings on May 28 after the market closes.
• The tech giant hasn't missed earnings estimates in a year.
• It’s expected to report earnings-per-share of $0.88 on $43.26 billion in revenue.
• Tariff risk is adding plenty of uncertainty to the company’s future.

So much has happened since we rang in the new year, and yet the price of stock in Nvidia (NVDA) is where it opened trading at the beginning of 2025. It reached a high of $153.13 in January, and bottomed out amid tariff turbulence at $86.62. With the stock around $131 per share, there's still plenty of implied volatility for the earnings announcement and the rest of the year for the chip giant.

Nvidia is set to report quarterly earnings on May 28 after the long holiday weekend, and the expectation is for earnings-per-share (EPS) of $0.88 on $43.26 billion in revenue. The company has exceeded both EPS and revenue estimates four quarters in a row.

In the last earnings call, Nvidia founder and CEO Jensen Huang offered AI insights: “Demand for Blackwell is amazing as reasoning AI adds another scaling law — increasing compute for training makes models smarter and increasing compute for long thinking makes the answer smarter ... We’ve successfully ramped up the massive-scale production of Blackwell AI supercomputers, achieving billions of dollars in sales in its first quarter. AI is advancing at light speed as agentic AI and physical AI set the stage for the next wave of AI to revolutionize the largest industries.”

While we know Nvidia is a direct beneficiary of the AI boom, and there's plenty of positive sentiment around that, we need to dive into the options market to check on implied volatility ahead of the earnings announcement.

Looking at next week's implied stock price move, we can see a +/- $10.99 implied stock price range through the close on Friday. This is about 8% of the notional value of the stock price, which puts Nvidia earnings on the higher end of the range for most tech stocks.

Looking to September, we can see a +/- $28.03 implied stock price range. Next week accounts for about a third of the implied stock price range for the next 120+ days. That means a heavy weight is being placed on this earnings call, with a lot of traders and investors tuning in for any information related to tariffs and US expansion plans.

Nvidia tariff risk – what we know

When it comes to tariff implications, we're truly still in the dark as we wait out the 90-day pause that will be lifted in early July. Nvidia was hit with a $5.5 billion charge for exporting chips to China, like the Nvidia H20. The company is now looking to alter the H20 chip with a release as early as July to avoid such hefty tariffs.

With that said, Nvidis has already made plans to build and test Blackwell chips in Arizona, as well as AI supercomputers in Texas. Bringing production and testing inside of the US could save Nvidia billions in tariff implications.

Jensen Huang, Nvidia CEO, offered comments in a recent press release: “The engines of the world’s AI infrastructure are being built in the United States for the first time ... Adding American manufacturing helps us better meet the incredible and growing demand for AI chips and supercomputers, strengthens our supply chain and boosts our resiliency.”

Over the next four years, the company’s plans call for using partnerships to produce $500 billion in AI infrastructure in the United States. Still, there are plenty of uncertainties and we will have to take the wait-and-see approach because tariff negotiations are ongoing.

Bullish on Nvidia stock for earnings

If you're bullish on NVDA stock for earnings, you believe the tech giant is taking the right steps to avoid massive tariff implications, especially with the announcement of bringing production and testing within the United States. Still, you'll want to see another EPS and revenue beat on May 28 because any sort of miss could scare off investors with the stock trading near 2025 highs.

Bearish on Nvidia stock for earnings

If you're bearish on NVDA stock for earnings, you may think the 90-day tariff pause is just the calm before the storm. NVIDIA still has plenty of external relationships and could be hit hard with tariff turbulence in a few months. If the company misses EPS or revenue estimates, we could see the stock tumble lower.

Tune in to Options Trading Concepts Live at 11am CST on Wednesday, May 28th for a look at options trading strategies for NVIDIA earnings!

Mike Butler, tastylive director of market intelligence, has been in the markets and trading for a decade. He appears on Options Trading Concepts Live, airing Monday-Friday. @tradermikeyb  

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