Nvidia Earnings Preview: What To Expect Ahead of The Big Reveal

NVIDIA reports fiscal Q4 2026 results on February 25 after market close, providing the first full validation of whether Blackwell production and HBM supply constraints have eased enough to sustain the revenue trajectory implied by management’s November guidance.

Consensus sits at $66.23B revenue and $1.54 EPS, approximately 1.6% above the prior $65.0B midpoint, creating minimal buffer for execution shortfall or margin compression.

The setup reflects a market that has already embedded Blackwell’s initial ramp. Street revenue expectations for Q4 rose from $61.66B immediately after the November guide to $66.07B by late February, a $4.4B uplift driven by hyperscaler capex confirmations from Meta, Amazon, and Google. The estimate creep narrows the gap between consensus and guidance to roughly $1B, down from the $3.3B spread that followed the prior quarter’s outlook.

What the result will determine is whether NVIDIA can sustain gross margin near the guided 75.0% non-GAAP level while scaling Blackwell volume, or whether mix and complexity costs force another margin reset. The stock’s 7% pullback from October highs despite continued estimate increases suggests investors are pricing the risk that beats alone no longer suffice without a material guide raise or margin upside.

Consensus Estimates

The consensus-to-guidance gap has compressed materially since November. Management’s $65.0B revenue midpoint (±2%) established a $63.7B-$66.3B range, while the current Street estimate of $66.07B sits just 1.6% above the midpoint. That compares to the post-FQ3 setup, when consensus landed roughly 5.4% above the then-current quarter’s guided midpoint. The narrowing spread reflects both the magnitude of the November guide raise and the Street’s decision to anchor closer to management’s framework rather than extrapolate additional upside.

Management Guidance and Commentary

“We expect fourth quarter revenue to be $65.0 billion, plus or minus 2 percent. We expect GAAP and non-GAAP gross margins to be 73.0 percent and 75.0 percent, respectively, plus or minus 50 basis points.”

Management’s November guidance established the current quarter’s framework. The $65.0B revenue midpoint represented a $11.0B sequential increase from FQ3’s $54.0B guide, the largest absolute dollar step-up in NVIDIA’s history. The magnitude reflected confidence that Blackwell production had cleared initial bottlenecks and that customer demand remained unconstrained by budget or deployment capacity.

The gross margin guide carried more nuance. At 75.0% non-GAAP (±50 bps), management signaled that scale benefits from Blackwell volume would offset the product’s higher bill-of-materials cost and the mix shift toward full rack-scale systems. The 50-basis-point band implies a 74.5%-75.5% range, tighter than the 100-150 bps spreads used in prior quarters, suggesting internal confidence in cost predictability.

Analyst Price Targets & Ratings

Wall Street maintains strong conviction in NVIDIA’s execution capability, with 84% of analysts rating shares a Buy or Strong Buy. The consensus target of $253.99 implies 31.5% upside from current levels, though this premium reflects expectations of sustained Blackwell momentum rather than current quarter execution alone.

Sector & Peer Comparison

NVIDIA trades at a 29.9 forward P/E, a 18% premium to Taiwan Semiconductor’s 25.3 and roughly in line with AMD’s 28.6, despite profit margins more than four times higher than AMD’s 12.5%. The valuation spread reflects the market’s assessment that NVIDIA’s data center GPU franchise carries structural advantages in pricing power and operating leverage that peers cannot replicate at comparable scale.

Earnings Track Record

NVIDIA has beaten adjusted EPS consensus in 18 of the last 20 quarters, maintaining a 90% beat rate with an average surprise of 6.2%. The consistency reflects both conservative Street modeling and the company’s ability to convert demand into incremental revenue within the quarter through allocation management and pricing discipline.

Post-Earnings Price Movement History

NVIDIA’s post-earnings price behavior has shifted from “beat equals rally” to “beat plus guide determines direction.” The average next-day move across the last seven quarters is -1.2%, with a median of -2.8%, despite the company beating EPS consensus in every instance. The pattern reflects a market that has re-anchored expectations around forward guidance rather than backward-looking results.

Expected Move & Implied Volatility

The options market is pricing a 6.0% move in either direction, implying a trading range of $181.79 to $204.57 for the session following earnings. The expected move sits well above the -1.2% average historical outcome but aligns with the 5-6% realized swings observed in the three most volatile recent quarters.

Expert Predictions & What to Watch

Key Outlook: Guidance Will Drive the Trade

Key Metrics to Watch

The interplay between reported gross margin and forward guidance will determine the stock’s trajectory. If NVIDIA delivers GM at the high end of the guided range (75.5%) and guides FQ1 revenue above $72B, it validates both margin sustainability and demand durability, supporting a move toward the $230-$240 bull case target.

The setup heading into this print reflects elevated expectations that have compressed the traditional “beat and raise” dynamic. With consensus already pricing in execution above management’s guided midpoint, NVIDIA faces the challenge of delivering not just solid results, but results that justify the premium valuation and reset growth expectations for the remainder of fiscal 2027.