In what was most likely his final address as Federal Reserve chair at the annual Jackson Hole Symposium, Jerome Powell triggered a market rally with his remarks that a “shifting balance of risks may warrant adjusting our policy stance.”
The comments are a lot less dovish than the “the time has come for policy to adjust” remark that Powell made at the Symposium last year, which was followed by a big 50-basis-points rate cut in September. However, despite the “may” in this year’s remarks, the commentary was more dovish than expected as minutes from the July Fed meeting, released just a few days before the Symposium, showed that the Fed was still worried about inflation.
Powell’s comments were enough to catapult the Dow Jones Industrial Average Index ($DOWI) and the S&P 500 Index ($SPX) to record highs on Friday. With Powell’s speech perhaps the most important event of last week, Nvidia’s (NVDA) earnings are slated to be the most important event of this week.
Nvidia’s earnings hold a lot of sway over broader markets, and especially tech stocks. The upcoming earnings that are scheduled for Aug. 27 are even more important now that the artificial intelligence (AI) trade is back in action after a brief hiatus.
Consensus estimates call for Nvidia’s fiscal Q2 2026 revenues to rise 53.1% year-over-year to nearly $46 billion, $1 billion higher than the midpoint of the company’s guidance. Nvidia’s earnings per share (EPS) are expected to rise 44.6% to $0.94.
Apart from the headline numbers, I will watch out for the following in Nvidia’s Q2 earnings call.
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Q3 Guidance: I will watch out for fiscal Q3 revenue guidance and the overall AI spending environment. While management might not provide any official guidance yet, I will look for comments on the 2026 outlook and whether Nvidia sees the current growth rates continuing next year as well.
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China Business: Nvidia is set to face several questions about its China business. The company has received permission to export its H20 chips to China after agreeing to share 15% of its China revenues with the U.S. government. However, the Chinese government has cautioned local companies against using these chips, which are the most advanced chips that Nvidia is allowed to export to the country. Nvidia might also talk about the new chip, tentatively named B30A, that it is reportedly developing for China. The new chip is said to be based on the company’s Blackwell architecture and would be more powerful than the H20.
