Nvidia's Upcoming Earnings Spark Rating Upgrades, Valuation Debate and Market‑Move Predictions Ahead of Aug 26

NVDA reports fiscal second-quarter results after the close on Wednesday, August 26. Visible Alpha estimates put revenue at a record $92.16 billion and adjusted earnings at $2.09 per share, both roughly double a year ago, with data center revenue expected at $85.67 billion, up 108% year over year. Data center is the line that carries the AI buildout, and it is a materially different number from the company total.

The harder question is what a good print buys. Nvidia shares have fallen the day after each of the last four quarterly reports, and Morgan Stanley told clients it is "not necessarily optimistic that trend reverses", pointing to market share defense and circular financing as the open questions. Options priced a move of up to roughly 6% in either direction by the end of earnings week, which from Thursday's close mapped to about $229 on the upside or below $205 on the downside. The stock is up 16% this year and sits about 8% below its May record just above $236.

Analyst targets are a long-horizon view rather than an earnings-move forecast, and they are widely dispersed: 59 tracked targets span $180 to $500 against a rating split of 59 buy, 2 hold and 1 sell, while Visible Alpha's narrower 13-analyst panel shows a $296 mean. Recent actions include Benchmark maintaining Buy at $335, Oppenheimer holding Outperform at $265 on the Blackwell Ultra and next-generation VR200 ramp, and BMO Capital initiating at Outperform.

The bear case in this week's coverage is not about demand. Barron's argues that Nvidia's use of its balance sheet to blunt competition carries two specific risks: the timing looks odd, because talks with Korean inference-chip designer Rebellions overlap with the $20 billion Groq licensing deal whose combined hardware demand Wall Street has not yet seen, and buying a South Korean government-backed company invites the antitrust scrutiny the Groq deal was deliberately structured to avoid. Nvidia is set to generate more than $210 billion in free cash flow this year, per FactSet. China is unresolved: Nvidia denied a report of a China-specific AI chip in development, while a Reuters item summarized elsewhere in this coverage describes small-batch shipments of a Groq-licensed China variant starting by year end.

The print also lands inside a macro test. The 30-year Treasury yield reached its highest level since 2007 last week, the S&P 500 finished about 2% below its record, and the Philadelphia semiconductor index fell roughly 5%. Jackson Hole runs August 27 to 29, Fed Chair Kevin Warsh's first, with markets pricing a 35% chance of a September rate hike and 66% by December. Watch data center revenue against the $85.67 billion estimate, gross margin guidance, and any detail on inference demand for the Groq-derived hardware.