(Bloomberg) — U.S. stock futures fell after Nvidia Corp. issued a revenue forecast that fell short of analysts’ highest estimates, potentially heightening concerns about the sustainability of the artificial intelligence boom.
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Futures on the Nasdaq 100 index were down 0.6 percent at 12:34 p.m. in Hong Kong on Thursday, while contracts on the S&P 500 index were down 0.3 percent. Both contracts recovered their earlier losses. Semiconductor stocks pulled down a major Asian stock index.
Despite a recent rebound, the Nasdaq 100 is still below its record high as investors try to gauge whether the massive run-up in AI stocks this year has outpaced the gains the technology will actually deliver. At the same time, expectations of interest rate cuts have helped some investors move out of the technology sector and into sectors that had previously lagged.
Nvidia shares fell more than 8% in after-hours trading, with sentiment also weighed down by the company’s announcement that it was experiencing production issues with its new Blackwell chips.
The market may be disappointed that the chipmaker’s results were not as stellar as previous reports, but “this appears to be just short-term noise” given the continued underlying strength, Vital Knowledge’s Adam Crisafulli wrote in a note. The slower growth is “just a consequence of extremely difficult comparisons and something the whole world is aware of.”
The declines in US stocks on Wednesday ahead of the release of Nvidia’s report show that investors were bracing for negative surprises. The fact that futures slipped from their intraday lows may suggest that further declines are limited by continued optimism about the chipmaker’s prospects.
Nvidia management’s commitment that the Blackwell chip would generate “multi-billion dollars” in fourth-quarter revenue “was important and should dispel most of the arguments that assume a worst-case scenario,” TD Cowen analyst Matthew Ramsay wrote in a note. “But before the debate can truly be settled, formal guidance for the January quarter is likely needed.”
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