NVIDIA (NASDAQ:NVDA) Posts Quarterly Earnings Results, Beats Expectations By $0.08 EPS

Key Points

• NVIDIA posted a record quarter, reporting $1.62 EPS (beat by $0.08) and revenue of $68.13B (up 73% YoY) with data‑center sales of ~$62B, and guided Q1 revenue to about $78B ±2%.
• The company touted strong product momentum — its Blackwell architecture and NVL72/GB300 claim up to 50x performance per watt, it unveiled the Rubin platform and shipped first Vera Rubin samples, and secured multi‑year deals with major cloud providers.
• NVIDIA generated outsized cash (reported $35B free cash flow in Q4 and ~$97B for FY26) and returned $41B to shareholders, but noted unresolved geopolitical/China export risks that could limit China revenue.

NVIDIA (NASDAQ:NVDA - Get Free Report) announced its earnings results on Wednesday. The computer hardware maker reported $1.62 EPS for the quarter, beating the consensus estimate of $1.54 by $0.08, FiscalAI reports. NVIDIA had a net margin of 53.01% and a return on equity of 99.24%. The company had revenue of $68.13 billion during the quarter, compared to the consensus estimate of $65.56 billion. During the same quarter in the prior year, the company posted $0.89 earnings per share. The firm's revenue for the quarter was up 73.2% on a year-over-year basis.

Here are the key takeaways from NVIDIA's conference call:

• NVIDIA reported a record quarter with total revenue of $68 billion (up 73% YoY) and Q4 data center revenue of $62 billion (up 75% YoY), and guided to continued sequential revenue growth into calendar 2026 with Q1 revenue expected at $78 billion ±2%.
• The company highlighted strong inference leadership and power-efficiency gains from its Blackwell architecture and NVL72/GB300 systems — claiming up to 50x performance per watt and materially lower cost-per-token — while networking revenue surged to $11 billion, up >3.5x YoY.
• NVIDIA unveiled the Rubin platform (Vera CPU, Rubin GPU, NVLink‑6, Spectrum‑6, BlueField‑4) and shipped first Vera Rubin samples, targeting production shipments in the second half of the year, which management expects will be widely adopted by cloud model builders.
• Management secured inventory and purchase commitments extending into calendar 2027, generated $35 billion free cash flow in Q4 and $97 billion for FY26, and returned $41 billion to shareholders, supporting capital flexibility and buybacks.
• Geopolitical/china risk remains unresolved — only limited H200 approvals so far with no China revenue yet — and company warned Chinese competitors could disrupt the global AI industry over the long term.

NVIDIA Trading Up 1.4%

NVIDIA stock opened at $195.64 on Thursday. The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.06, a quick ratio of 3.71 and a current ratio of 4.47. NVIDIA has a fifty-two week low of $86.62 and a fifty-two week high of $212.19. The stock has a market cap of $4.75 trillion, a P/E ratio of 48.55, a PEG ratio of 0.58 and a beta of 2.31. The firm's fifty day moving average price is $186.30 and its 200-day moving average price is $183.88.

Insider Buying and Selling at NVIDIA

In other news, EVP Ajay K. Puri sold 200,000 shares of NVIDIA stock in a transaction dated Wednesday, January 7th. The stock was sold at an average price of $187.82, for a total transaction of $37,564,000.00. Following the completion of the sale, the executive vice president owned 3,818,547 shares in the company, valued at approximately $717,199,497.54. This trade represents a 4.98% decrease in their position. The sale was disclosed in a legal filing with the SEC, which can be accessed through this link. Also, Director Mark A. Stevens sold 350,000 shares of the business's stock in a transaction dated Friday, December 5th. The stock was sold at an average price of $181.73, for a total value of $63,605,500.00. Following the transaction, the director directly owned 7,049,803 shares of the company's stock, valued at $1,281,160,699.19. The trade was a 4.73% decrease in their position. Additional details regarding this sale are available in the official SEC disclosure. Insiders sold 1,610,848 shares of company stock valued at $291,619,375 over the last 90 days. Insiders own 4.17% of the company's stock.

Institutional Trading of NVIDIA

A number of hedge funds have recently bought and sold shares of NVDA. Vision Financial Markets LLC lifted its holdings in NVIDIA by 1.2% in the 3rd quarter. Vision Financial Markets LLC now owns 4,640 shares of the computer hardware maker's stock worth $866,000 after buying an additional 53 shares in the last quarter. Terril Brothers Inc. increased its position in shares of NVIDIA by 2.5% during the fourth quarter. Terril Brothers Inc. now owns 2,255 shares of the computer hardware maker's stock worth $421,000 after acquiring an additional 55 shares during the last quarter. LeClair Wealth Partners LLC lifted its stake in shares of NVIDIA by 0.3% in the fourth quarter. LeClair Wealth Partners LLC now owns 20,981 shares of the computer hardware maker's stock worth $3,913,000 after acquiring an additional 60 shares in the last quarter. Widmann Financial Services Inc. lifted its stake in shares of NVIDIA by 0.5% in the fourth quarter. Widmann Financial Services Inc. now owns 13,319 shares of the computer hardware maker's stock worth $2,484,000 after acquiring an additional 60 shares in the last quarter. Finally, Freedom Financial Partners LLC boosted its holdings in NVIDIA by 1.0% in the second quarter. Freedom Financial Partners LLC now owns 6,553 shares of the computer hardware maker's stock valued at $1,035,000 after purchasing an additional 63 shares during the last quarter. Institutional investors own 65.27% of the company's stock.

Analyst Ratings Changes

A number of analysts recently commented on NVDA shares. HSBC set a $310.00 price target on NVIDIA in a research report on Tuesday. Needham & Company LLC reiterated a "buy" rating and set a $240.00 price target on shares of NVIDIA in a research note on Wednesday, February 18th. Argus restated a "buy" rating and issued a $220.00 price objective on shares of NVIDIA in a research note on Thursday, November 20th. Rothschild & Co Redburn increased their target price on shares of NVIDIA from $245.00 to $268.00 and gave the stock a "buy" rating in a research report on Thursday, January 15th. Finally, Tigress Financial reissued a "strong-buy" rating and issued a $350.00 price target (up from $280.00) on shares of NVIDIA in a research report on Thursday, December 18th. Three investment analysts have rated the stock with a Strong Buy rating, forty-seven have assigned a Buy rating and two have issued a Hold rating to the stock. Based on data from MarketBeat, the stock has an average rating of "Buy" and an average target price of $267.73.

NVIDIA News Roundup

Here are the key news stories impacting NVIDIA this week:

• Positive Sentiment: Record Q4 results — NVDA reported $68.1B revenue (up 73% Y/Y) and beat EPS estimates; data center revenue hit a record $62.3B, showing continued hyperscaler demand. NVIDIA Announces Financial Results for Fourth Quarter and Fiscal 2026
• Positive Sentiment: Strong forward guide — management set Q1 FY27 revenue around $78B (±2%), explicitly noting robust demand and excluding assumed China data‑center revenue in the outlook — supports near‑term growth visibility. NVIDIA Announces Financial Results for Fourth Quarter and Fiscal 2026
• Positive Sentiment: Product and partnership momentum — launches and platforms (Blackwell, Vera Rubin/Nemotron) plus multi‑year deals with Meta, AWS, Microsoft and others strengthen NVDA’s moat for both training and inference. Nvidia reports earnings beat as AI boom pushes data center revenue up 75%
• Positive Sentiment: Capital returns and cash generation — the company returned $41.1B in FY26 via buybacks/dividends and retains repurchase capacity, which supports shareholder value. NVIDIA Announces Financial Results for Fourth Quarter and Fiscal 2026
• Neutral Sentiment: Analyst sentiment and price targets remain constructive — multiple firms reiterated buys and raised targets, leaving institutional expectations supportive but varied. Nvidia: Basking In The Glory Of AI CAPEX Windfall
• Neutral Sentiment: Market reaction tone — some outlets note a rally, while options markets priced a relatively small post‑earnings swing, suggesting traders expect continued but less volatile moves. Options traders price Nvidia's smallest postearnings swing three years
• Negative Sentiment: Competitive risk — Meta’s large AMD deal and other hyperscaler diversification plans increase the long‑term competitive backdrop for GPUs and could chip away at sole‑supplier pricing leverage. AMD Strikes $100 Billion Blow To Nvidia, Massive Meta Deal Could Crown New AI King: Analyst
• Negative Sentiment: Geopolitical/China exposure uncertainty — regulators and export/shipments (reports that H200 chips haven’t been shipped to China) and model‑access frictions create execution uncertainty for China revenues. China has not yet received any Nvidia H200 chips, US official said
• Negative Sentiment: Policy and partner risk — tensions around Anthropic’s military-use controls are a potential reputational/regulatory wild card (CEO Jensen Huang downplayed the severity). Nvidia's Huang says any Pentagon–Anthropic rift is 'not the end of the world'

About NVIDIA

NVIDIA Corporation, founded in 1993 and headquartered in Santa Clara, California, is a global technology company that designs and develops graphics processing units (GPUs) and system-on-chip (SoC) technologies. Co-founded by Jensen Huang, who serves as president and chief executive officer, along with Chris Malachowsky and Curtis Priem, NVIDIA has grown from a graphics-focused chipmaker into a broad provider of accelerated computing hardware and software for multiple industries.

The company's product portfolio spans discrete GPUs for gaming and professional visualization (marketed under the GeForce and NVIDIA RTX lines), high-performance data center accelerators used for AI training and inference (including widely adopted platforms such as the A100 and H100 series), and Tegra SoCs for automotive and edge applications.