It’s the biggest earnings report in the world…
And it only happens 4 times per year.
NVIDIA Corporation (NASDAQ: NVDA) just announced its Q4 earnings after the bell on February 25.
The numbers are out.
But whether it beat, missed, or met expectations almost doesn’t matter at this point.
What matters is what comes next.
At this point, NVDA’s earnings are like a Fed announcement: it’s a market-wide event.
When the most important company in the AI arms race reports, every fund manager, every algorithm, and every options desk on Wall Street recalibrates at the same time.
The synchronized reaction creates perfect volatility for traders.
Think about the scale of what we’re dealing with here…
Just nine days ago, on February 17, NVDA announced a multiyear, multigenerational partnership with Meta Platforms Inc. (NASDAQ: META).
It includes orders for millions of Blackwell and Rubin GPUs across a full-stack infrastructure buildout spanning multiple data centers, cloud technology, and AI.
Jensen Huang and Mark Zuckerberg essentially announced they’re building the backbone for the next decade of AI together.
And it makes NVDA far more than a chip company. It’s now a main toll booth on the AI highway.
Every major player: hyperscalers, defense contractors, social platforms, sovereign governments, etc. They have to go through NVIDIA to stay competitive and up-to-date.
That kind of indispensability means one thing for traders: when NVDA moves, it drags the whole market with it.
The volatility this earnings report unleashed will bleed into today, Friday, and next week.
Earnings Data
The numbers are staggering.
Total quarterly revenue came in at $68.1 billion. That’s up 20% from last quarter and up 73% from a year ago.
Full-year revenue hit $215.9 billion, up 65%.
The Data Center segment alone pulled in $62.3 billion for the quarter. Up 22% from Q3. And up 75% year-over-year.
The company returned $41.1 billion to shareholders over the course of fiscal 2026 through buybacks and dividends.
And that’s not all… the foreword-looking guidance is just as aggressive:
NVDA is projecting $78 billion in revenue next quarter.
Enterprise adoption of AI agents is accelerating faster than almost anyone anticipated. And every single one of those agents needs NVDA hardware to run.
Jensen Huang said it himself, “The agentic AI inflection point has arrived.”
- Gaming revenue was $3.7 billion, up 47% year-over-year.
- Professional Visualization hit $1.3 billion, up 159% from a year ago.
- Even Automotive came in at $604 million, continuing a steady climb as self-driving platforms gain traction.
There isn’t one soft spot in this report.
When a company this size grows this fast across this many segments, the market won’t sit still.
There will be volatility.
Get ready…
NVDA Trade Setups
You might see a massive earnings report and freeze.
Not knowing whether to chase the gap, wait for the pullback, or try to play the potential pullback.
So you do nothing, watching the opportunity pass you by.
But you shouldn’t waste opportunity cost while there are simple trades at your fingertips.
First, identify a direction in the market.
After such a widely-watched catalyst, NVDA and the stocks in its orbit will find new support and resistance levels.
Solve the earnings season puzzle.
Ride the wave of these massive earnings shifts without getting bogged down by the crazy IVs and premiums associated with “the one stock everyone’s watching…”
Enter my go-to strategy…
The ‘Earnings Sympathy Play.’
Instead of direct bets on the company reporting earnings, I hunt for deals in correlated names.
This means grabbing more affordable options while still riding sector moves.
I may buy contracts in Advanced Micro Devices, Inc. (NASDAQ: AMD) or Intel Corporation (NASDAQ: INTC) as a sympathy play to NVDA
A surge or drop from a sector heavyweight can trigger big moves in related stocks, without the extra-high premium associated with recent earnings.
Post-earnings momentum creates volatile price swings faster than almost any other market condition.
Institutions are repositioning. Algorithms are recalibrating. For the next few days, it’s a free-for-all as everyone readjusts.
And the entire tech market is under revision right now. Not just NVDA.
That’s why I’m also watching moves on the S&P 500 ETF Trust (NYSE: SPY) and the Invesco QQQ Trust (NASDAQ: QQQ).
They’re both tech-heavy indexes. And they both have a lot at stake after NVDA’s earnings announcement yesterday.
Here’s a chart of the SPY just before the NVDA earnings announcement yesterday. It’s trading in a tight channel near the all-time highs:
Pay attention to those support and resistance levels.
NVDA’s earnings could be the catalyst that shocks the market out of its multi-month consolidation.
Stay Street Smart,
Jeff Zananiri
*Past performance does not indicate future results, Not typical.
