Risk appetite remains the dominant headwind across asset classes. The relatively muted response in equities following Nvidia's earnings reinforced that cautious tone, and any additional negative catalysts could weigh further on risk assets, including crypto.
The chipmaker delivered better-than-expected results and projected current-quarter revenue above consensus, citing continued robust spending by major technology firms on AI infrastructure. Management emphasised that generative AI represents a structural shift in computing demand and signalled that, despite supply constraints at TSMC, Nvidia was able to secure the components needed to meet demand.
Nvidia posted record quarterly revenue of $68.1bn for October-December 2025, up 20% compared with the third quarter of last year and a sizzling 73% more than a year earlier. The company said sales were being driven by accelerated computing and AI, with customers scrambling to get their hands on its high-powered Blackwell chip.
Nvidia controls the vast majority of the market for GPUs, the chips used to train and run large AI models like ChatGPT and Anthropic's Claude. Its CUDA software platform, which lets developers write code optimized specifically for Nvidia hardware, has become the industry's de facto standard, reinforcing that dominance.
While most Wall Street pros are anticipating strong results from the chipmaker amid ballooning spending on computing infrastructure, there is less certainty about how its shares and others will respond at a time when fears about AI disruption and the staying power of heavy investments are dominating the tape.
The day of truth has finally come for the stock market and the AI/Datacenter/Hyperscaler trade, at least for now. NVIDIA Corp. ( NASDAQ: NVDA) will release perhaps the most anticipated set of quarterly results in the last 25 years or more at 5 PM EST today after the close. Wall Street is looking for earnings per share of $1.25 and a median revenue of $55 billion.
