Can Nvidia's GTC conference give the stock a boost? One analyst thinks a bigger catalyst might be simply psychological.
NVIDIA Corp.'s earnings reports used to be blockbuster events that drove dramatic moves for the stock - and the broader market.
U.S.-listed shares of the company fell 8% in Thursday trading.
But Nvidia's latest earnings have been met with somewhat of a shrug from Wall Street, as shares fell 2% in morning trading Thursday, potentially reflecting factors such as gross-margin pressure and a smaller-than-usual beat with its outlook.
With the subdued post-earnings move, Nvidia's stock is still in its monthslong funk. Shares are trading essentially where they were back in mid-June, and analysts are debating the next big catalyst.
Could it be GTC, the company's developer event that kicks off on March 17? Some analysts see potential there, as the conference could underscore Nvidia's strong positioning and offer confidence about the product roadmap going out for years.
"With a solid quarter behind us, investor focus now shifts to GTC in mid-March, which we expect to serve as a catalyst for the stock," Rosenblatt analyst Kevin Cassidy wrote. "We anticipate updates on Nvidia's technology roadmap and new AI inference use cases to drive further excitement."
And while Nvidia has already talked about its plans to roll out Blackwell Ultra and then unveil a chip called Rubin, investors could soon glean what comes after that. On Nvidia's earnings call Wednesday, Chief Executive Jensen Huang "even suggested updates on platforms beyond Rubin," Susquehanna's Christopher Rolland noted.
Mizuho desk-based analyst Jordan Klein doesn't think that GTC is the answer to Nvidia's stock doldrums. There is "no institutional investor telling me GTC [is] a big catalyst or they have to be max long into that event," he wrote on Thursday.
But Klein sees other factors that could be stock drivers. For one, investors simply had been telling him that they were waiting to buy a "real" post-earnings dip. Klein said that sort of sentiment is usually encouraging.
"It generally leads to buyers coming in faster than you would expect," he wrote. "Any move up in the stock creates a bit of FOMO" - or the fear of missing out - "and sometimes ignites a quick chase."
He also thinks investors want to see bigger beats or an expansion in gross margins. That could happen in the July quarter and beyond, as Nvidia gets ready to ramp up its Blackwell Ultra offering. He added that Wall Street is waiting to see more signs that Nvidia can gain traction with sovereign buyers or other customers beyond the major cloud providers.
"If they can show and do that, [Nvidia] goes a lot higher later in [the year]," he wrote.