Nvidia Stock Falls as Record $215.9bn Year Fails to Dazzle Investors
nvidia stock dipped after the company announced record fiscal 2026 revenue of $215. 9 billion and a fourth-quarter haul of $68. 1 billion, even as executives said customers are racing to buy AI compute.
Strong results but muted market reaction
NVIDIA posted $68. 1 billion in revenue for the quarter ended January 25, 2026, up 20% from the prior quarter and up 73% from the year-ago quarter. For fiscal 2026, revenue totaled $215. 9 billion, an increase of 65% from a year earlier. Gross margins for the quarter were 75. 0% (GAAP) and 75. 2% (non-GAAP); for the full fiscal year they were 71. 1% (GAAP) and 71. 3% (non-GAAP).
Nvidia Stock: leadership claims and product names on stage
CEO Jensen Huang said, "Computing demand is growing exponentially, " and added in a separate statement that "the agentic AI inflection point has arrived. " He named Grace Blackwell with NVLink as "the king of inference today — delivering an order-of-magnitude lower cost per token — and Vera Rubin will extend that leadership even further. " Huang also unveiled an open-source platform for self-driving cars called "Alpamayo" at CES in Las Vegas last month and said the model "will bring reasoning to autonomous vehicles. "
Shareholder returns and corporate finance moves
During fiscal 2026 NVIDIA returned $41. 1 billion to shareholders through share repurchases and cash dividends. The company had $58. 5 billion remaining under its share repurchase authorization at the end of the fourth quarter. NVIDIA said it will pay a quarterly cash dividend of $0. 01 per share on April 1, 2026, to shareholders of record on March 11, 2026. Beginning in the first quarter of fiscal 2027, NVIDIA will include stock-based compensation expense in its non-GAAP financial measures.
Geopolitics and China sales remain in focus
The company has been involved in a US-China policy tug-of-war: the Trump administration began allowing NVIDIA to sell H200 chips — described as the company's second-most advanced type — to Chinese customers last month under certain conditions. The company’s outlook did not include expectations about chip revenue in China, and a US Commerce Department official told lawmakers that none of those chips have yet been sold to Chinese customers.
Investor scrutiny and market scepticism
Investors have expressed scepticism about the scale of spending on AI infrastructure and about NVIDIA's expanding web of deals. Critics warned about "circular financing" arrangements in which NVIDIA's investments in other companies might cloud demand signals. Gene Munster, managing partner at Deepwater Asset Management, wrote on X that "AI is accelerating faster than people not using these tools can grasp. " The company also said it has become central to AI infrastructure by providing chips to major model developers, naming OpenAI and Meta.
Conference call and what the company has scheduled next
NVIDIA will conduct a conference call with analysts and investors today at 2 p. m. Pacific time (5 p. m. Eastern time), with a live webcast available on its investor relations website and a recorded replay to remain available until the next scheduled earnings call. The company also set an expected full-year fiscal 2027 GAAP and non-GAAP tax rate range of 17. 0% to 19. 0%, excluding discrete items and material changes to its tax environment. Specific details of NVIDIA's outlook for the first quarter of fiscal 2027 are unclear in the provided context.
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