Nvidia shares fluctuate as investors digest third-quarter earnings

Nvidia shares whipsawed Thursday as investors reacted to the U.S. chipmaker’s third-quarter earnings.

Shares of the tech giant were down 1.5% in late-morning trading, having initially traded higher earlier in the session. The stock had previously fallen in premarket deals.

Investors were reacting to Nvidia’s latest quarterly results, which beat on both the top and bottom lines. Revenue came in at $35.08 billion, up 94% year on year and exceeding the $33.16 billion forecast by LSEG analysts. Earnings per share were 81 cents adjusted, also above analyst expectations.

The broader semiconductor space got a bump from Nvidia turning higher. AMD, one of Nvidia’s closest rivals, dropped about 1%. Qualcomm was up 1%, while Intel rose 1.2%.

Nvidia has largely cornered the market for the high-powered chips driving the world’s most advanced artificial intelligence models, such as OpenAI’s ChatGPT.

Despite nearly doubling sales year on year, Nvidia’s third-quarter results showed a slowdown from previous quarters. Nvidia previously reported growth of 122% in the second quarter, 262% in the first quarter, and 265% in the fourth quarter of 2023.

William de Gale, lead portfolio manager of BlueBox Asset Management’s global technology fund, told CNBC the problem for Nvidia as a stock is that “insane” GPU demand has become the “bare minimum” expected of the company.

“There is a risk here … that Nvidia’s current overearning will begin to come to an end,” de Galehe said. “There’s considerable risk in this name at the moment. But it’s exciting,” he said.

Analysts are looking ahead to the much-anticipated launch of Nvidia’s next-generation chip called Blackwell. On the firm’s earnings call, CEO Jensen Huang said that demand for the chip is exceeding supply.

— CNBC’s Kif Leswing contributed to this report.