The bullish thesis on Nvidia remains in place ahead of earnings, but analysts have questions about the company’s path forward. The tech giant is due to post fiscal first-quarter results after the bell. Analysts polled by LSEG expect the chipmaker to report adjusted earnings of 93 cents per share on $43.28 billion in revenue for the quarter that ended in April. Those figures signal year-over-year earnings and revenue growth of 52% and 62%, respectively. Analysts will look for clues on how China restrictions are affecting sales, and whether the artificial intelligence demand that has powered markets in recent years remains strong. Nvidia has said it would take a $5.5 billion charge in the quarter tied to these restrictions. CEO Jensen Huang also noted that the policies have slashed the company’s China market share from 95% to 50%. Still, shares have jumped more than 24% over the past month, as announcements from key hyperscalers have revived the excitement around AI. Alphabet’s Google last week announced several new AI-powered tools at its I/O developer conference and Microsoft launched its Claude 4 AI model . While the stock remains below its January record, analysts polled by LSEG think Nvidia has room to run. The consensus price target suggests roughly 21% upside ahead. Of the 64 analysts covering Nvidia, 56 have a strong buy or buy rating on shares, per LSEG. Take a look at what some major analysts have to say ahead of earnings: Morgan Stanley: remains overweight, $160 price target Analyst Joseph Moore advised clients to continue buying the stock for the long haul ahead of the report. His $160 price target suggests 18% potential upside. “Sell side does not appear to have universally modeled the impact of H20 ban, so there is some downside potential vs. stale consensus. But if mgmt is convincing that supply of racks and non rack Blackwell is improving, and that there is 2h acceleration, it should not matter,” Moore wrote in a Tuesday note. Deutsche Bank: maintains hold rating, $125 price target Analyst Ross Seymore likes Nvidia but thinks it is overvalued after its recent runup over the past month. He still expects the company to deliver a revenue beat, driven by growth in Blackwell and Hopper GPUs with potential for upside if China-driven demand was larger than expected before the H20 ban. “Overall, while geopolitical concerns appear to have lessened and we continue to see NVDA as the undisputed leader in AI processing/ enablement, we believe much of this goodness is fairly reflected in NVDA’s share price,” Seymore wrote in a May 21 note. Bank of America: maintains buy rating, $160 price target Analyst Vivek Arya warned of a “risk of messy Q2 guide” and said that depending on Nvidia’s original timing of its China shipments, the disconnect between consensus estimates on lost sales and investors’ expectations could be magnified. “Despite these near-term headwinds we maintain Buy on NVDA, a top sector pick given its unique leverage to the global AI deployment cycle, and possibility for China sales recovery on new redesigned/compliant products later in the year,” Arya said in his recent note to clients. Wolfe Research: keeps outperform rating, $150 price target Analyst Chris Caso’s price target signals upside of 10% from Tuesday’s close. “What’s important is that we strongly believe the rack issues are temporary (and improving), while the demand trends are secular and durable,” Caso said. “Since the stock has recovered heading into the report, and we’re not expecting upside, we don’t consider this quarter’s guidance to be a catalyst. We also can’t rule out a speed bump due to slower rack production. But there’s also little question that there’s more than adequate demand for Blackwell, as evidenced by customers’ capex commentary, and the need for inference capacity to drive reasoning models … NVDA remains one of our favorite ideas.” Oppenheimer: keeps outperform rating, $175 price target Analyst Rick Schafer’s price target suggests roughly 29.2% potential upside for Nvidia, one of the more bullish forecasts on the Street. “We see upside F1Q (Apr) results and a roughly in-line F2Q (Jul) outlook, despite the loss of H20 sales to China following US govt restrictions. China is now < 5% of sales. Production of flagship GB200 rack-scale systems appears to have moved past their initial “growing pains,” he wrote in a note. “NVDA remains best positioned in AI, in our view, benefiting from full-stack AI hardware/software and unique rack-level approach.” Piper Sandler: maintains overweight rating, $150 price target Analyst Harsh Kumar said he is “looking for tea leaves for a strong back half of the year” rather than putting up high expectations for Nvidia’s latest quarter. This upcoming print is likely the last of negative news for Nvidia this year, he said. “All in all, we think that NVDA is poised to be flat to down into the print this week. We think that April quarter is poised for a miss in revenues largely from macro uncertainty and from the H20 ban … We note that for the most part the factors resulting in a miss are outside the company’s control. Despite this, we see a strong back half of the year given HPC capex coming on strong coupled with macro forces improving driven by sovereign investments following the announcements of several large deals over recent weeks. We advise investors to weather the uncertainty and stay long the stock,” he said in a Tuesday note to clients.
