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Since the beginning of this year, the two main driving forces of the US stock market have always been the Fed's interest rate cut expectations and artificial intelligence (AI). Fed Chairman Powell made it clear at the annual meeting of global central banks held in Jackson Hole, Wyoming last Friday that the time for policy adjustment has come. This statement is basically interpreted as the Fed's historicofThe anti-inflation campaign has come to an end. The market generally expects the Federal Reserve to lower the benchmark federal funds rate at its next policy meeting on September 17-18.

With the prospect of the Fed's interest rate cut basically undoubted, investors' attention this week turned toNvidiaSecond quarter financial report. In addition to affecting its own stock price, the results of this financial report are also considered to be absolutely critical to the overall subsequent trend of US technology stocks and AI concept stocks.

Wall Street raises Nvidia stock price forecasts

Nvidia will release its second-quarter financial report after the market closes on August 28, Eastern Time. Since August, Nvidia's stock price has experienced a roller coaster ride: the stock price fell below $100 on August 5, then rebounded. As of the close of last week, it returned to $129.37, a single-week increase of 3.8%.

According to public data, Wall Street analysts expect Nvidia's second-quarter revenue to be $28.6 billion, a year-on-year increase of 112%. Although it is a significant slowdown compared to the 250% growth a year ago, this will be Nvidia's fifth consecutive quarter of triple-digit growth. Wall Street also estimates that Nvidia's earnings per share (EPS) in the second quarter will be 64 cents, compared with 27 cents in the second quarter of last year. In addition to specific performance, updates on potential delays in the new generation of Blackwell chips will also be the focus of investors' attention.

Overall, Wall Street remains generally bullish on Nvidia stock. As of last Thursday, 66 analysts gave the stock a buy rating, another 7 analysts recommended holding, and only one analyst recommended holding.nameGive a sell rating. KeyBanc, Citigroup,Goldman Sachs, HSBC and others reiterated their optimism about Nvidia before the results were released. Over the past year, Nvidia's stock price has risen by 180%, and over the past five years, it has risen by nearly 2,900%.

Dan Ives, a well-known technology industry analyst at Wedbush Securities, called Nvidia's earnings report this week "the most important revenue for the technology industry in many years." "There is one company in the world that is the foundation of the AI ​​revolution, and that is Nvidia. AI godfather Huang Renxun has the best industry position and favorable position to discuss the overall demand for AI technology and the future demand for Nvidia's AI chips." In his view, Huang Renxun will not disappoint the market and will launch a new "masterpiece."

John Vinh, an analyst at investment bank KeyBanc, also believes that Nvidia is expected to exceed Wall Street expectations and reiterated his "buy" rating on the stock with a target price of $180. "The modest expectations for Blackwell chip shipments in the third quarter have been met with the increase in Hopper orders," he wrote in a recent research report. "We expect Nvidia to report results that exceed expectations or are revised upward, with the upward trend driven by strong demand for Hopper GPUs."

Citi also reiterated its "buy" rating on Nvidia, and the bank's analysts also expected that "Nvidia's comments on Blackwell during the earnings conference will give investors confidence in its strong outlook for 2025 and drive the stock to a 52-week high."

Goldman Sachs analysts not only reiterated their "buy" rating for Nvidia, but also included it in the "strong buy list". The Goldman Sachs analyst team said that Wall Street remains optimistic about AI infrastructure spending by large technology companies, believing that "large cloud service providers and corporate customers have strong demand, and Nvidia's strong competitive position in AI and accelerated computing remains intact."

HSBC analyst Frank Lee also raised Nvidia's target price from $135 to $145 last week and maintained a "buy" rating. He analyzed that driven by potential AI GPU demand, Nvidia's performance will continue to be strong, and the trend of AI hyperscale capital expenditures in 2025 and potential AI demand remain unchanged. Therefore, "any delay in Nvidia's product roadmap will have limited impact on earnings." HSBC expects Nvidia's second-quarter sales to reach $30 billion, higher than market expectations.

This may be the absolute key to the subsequent trend of AI concept stocks

In addition to paying attention to and being optimistic about Nvidia's own performance and stock price prospects, analysts also believe that Nvidia's second-quarter report will drive AI concept stocks as a whole, especially AI hardware and infrastructure companies' stocks out of the trough.

Paul Meeks, a well-known US technology investor, recently commented: "Nvidia's earnings report and performance guidance will be absolutely key to AI infrastructure stock trading." In the past three months, the technology giantAmazon（AMZN）、Microsoft(MSFT) and Alphabet (GOOGL) both recorded declines, with Alphabet falling more than 6%, and Amazon and Microsoft both falling more than 3%. Second-tier AI players are also working hard to reshape their appeal to investors. Since mid-July, AMD's stock price has fallen by more than 16%, and Marvell Technology's stock price has also fallen by nearly 6% during the same period. Industry insiders said that Nvidia's strong second-quarter results and guidance will beBroadcom(AVGO), Nvidia chip makerTSMCThe key to the subsequent performance of Nvidia (TSM) and Arista Networks (ANET). Like Nvidia, these three AI concept stocks are also close to the buy point.

Ives also said that Nvidia's strong performance may reignite some lost momentum. In his view, the AI ​​party has just begun, and the market is or will soon recreate the Internet boom of 1995, rather than the Internet bubble burst in 1999. "Huang Renxun is expected to deliver an outstanding quarterly report, and the time is ripe for technology stocks and AI concept stocks to rise." He added, "In the past few weeks of the earnings season, Microsoft, Amazon andGoogleThe cloud computing data and AI data businesses are very strong, indicating that large-scale enterprise AI demand is taking shape. And for every $1 spent on NVIDIA GPUs, the technology industry can gain an additional $8 to $10 in benefits. "According to public statistics, NVIDIA currently has a market share of 80% to 95% of the high-performance AI chip market.

Ben Snider, an equity strategist at Goldman Sachs, also believes that with the release of Nvidia's second-quarter earnings report, "the short-term volatility of the seven major U.S. stocks will stabilize."apple(AAPL), Alphabet (GOOGL), Microsoft (MSFT), Amazon (AMZN), Meta (META),Tesla(TSLA) and Nvidia. According to his analysis of hedge fund holdings reports at the end of the second quarter, hedge funds cut their exposure to the Big Seven (excluding Amazon and Apple) in the U.S. stock market for the first time since the beginning of 2022 at the end of the second quarter. He said: "This reflects the anxiety faced by investors as they enter the second quarter earnings season. They believe that the Big Seven will benefit from the excitement about the AI ​​boom, but they are also worried that this round of AI investment boom is about to end."

Subsequently, between August 5 and August 19, as stock prices rebounded from previous periods of market turmoil, the combined market value of the Big Seven increased by more than $1.4 trillion. "I recently chatted with clients, including hedge funds, and found that given the recent sell-off, they believe that the opportunity to repurchase their preferred technology stocks at lower valuations is ripe. Therefore, I am cautiously optimistic about the overall prospects of large technology stocks and AI concept stocks." He said, "Admittedly, compared with history, the valuations of the Big Seven are definitely not low, but they are still lower than a few weeks ago, and we will not receive another new financial report in the next few months."