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Now what?
NVDA’s earnings report is out of the way. The company crushed it – to no one’s surprise. NVDA beat expectations for revenue and earnings. Management guided numbers higher for next quarter. And, the report confirmed AI spending is accelerating.
Wall Street reacted to “the most important earnings report of all-time” with a giant YAWN.
NVDA shares fell $4 on Thursday – giving up the gains it made on Wednesday, heading into the report. The S&P 500 put up a lackluster performance – up 0.17%. And, the NASDAQ 100, the market’s top performing index in 2026, gained just 0.2%.
Like I said… YAWN.
Which leads me to wonder, if the market can’t pop higher after the poster child for the AI revolution posts blow-out numbers, what’s left?
What’s left, now, to motivate investors to throw fresh money into the market and push stock prices to new highs from here?
Lower interest rates are off the table. Treasury bonds have been selling off recently – causing long term rates to rise to their highest levels in a year. And, the FOMC minutes released Wednesday confirmed the Fed has almost no chance of lowering short-term rates anytime soon.
The end of the military conflict with Iran could be good enough news to motivate investors to “buy, buy, buy” if that event wasn’t already being discounted by the market.
After all, the major market indexes are already higher today than when the conflict began. And, the President seems to comment almost daily that we’re “nearing an agreement” with Iran. Each comment has inspired some buying interest. But, the bounces are becoming less and less enthusiastic. By the time the final agreement is reached, we probably won’t get any upside reaction at all.
Maybe the enthusiasm over the SpaceX and Anthropic IPOs will keep the bullish party going. Or maybe, rather than attracting new money from off the sidelines, those IPOs will be funded by investors selling existing stock holdings and then using the proceeds to buy the new listings. If that happens, then the IPOs will actually be a net drain of liquidity from the market.
Frankly, there really doesn’t seem to be anything between now and the start of the next earnings season that could inspire investors to chase stocks higher. And, absent any good reason to buy, investors might find a few reasons to sell.
So, the path of least resistance is likely to be lower for the next few weeks – until the market starts to discount stellar earnings reports for the current quarter.
There’s not much to gain by chasing stocks higher right here. We’ll likely have a better chance to add exposure to the stock market in the weeks ahead.
Best regards and good trading,
Jeff Clark
Editor, Market Minute