Review & Preview: Nvidia Scores Again

Nov 19, 2025 19:55:00 -0500 by Connor Smith | #Markets #Review & Preview

Hawk Attack. Odds of a December rate cut took a dive on Wednesday, but the stock market still managed to snap its four-day skid.

The S&P 500 rose 0.4%, while the Dow Jones Industrial Average rose 47 points, or 0.1%. The Nasdaq Composite rose 0.6% ahead of Nvidia’s earnings report. More on that below.

Those hoping that the Federal Reserve could opt for another quarter-point rate cut when the Federal Open Market Committee meets in December were hit with a double-whammy of discouraging news today.

First, the Bureau of Labor Statistics said it wouldn’t publish a typical October nonfarm payrolls report. The agency said the household survey data aren’t able to be retroactively collected for October. The current employment statistics survey data will be incorporated into the November jobs report on Dec. 16.

Without the clarity of an October jobs report, those who prefer a December cut may have less of a case. Meanwhile, minutes from the October meeting, released at 2 p.m. today, suggested more members than not were leaning the other direction.

“The minutes of the October 28th — 29th FOMC meeting revealed a wide divide at the Fed, but the hawks looked to have had much more airtime than the doves—and by a wide margin,” writes Rosenberg Research’s David Rosenberg.

Rosenberg counted 12 dovish comments compared with 16 from policy hawks in the minutes.

“Digging deeper into the ‘numbers’ game, as in depicting ‘a few’ and ‘some’ from ‘many and most’ (if not all), it is also clear that the hawks have much more conviction in their view as compared with the doves,” Rosenberg writes. “In fact, when we take all these pronouns and attach a numerical value to them, this document was more hawkish than dovish by more than a factor of two.”

Odds of a December cut sank to 32.7%, which compares to 50.1% on Tuesday and 93.7% on Oct. 17, according to the CME FedWatch Tool. Traders see a roughly two-thirds chance of at least one cut through January. That’s down slightly from 70% on Tuesday.

Company

Last

Chg

Chg%

Dow Jones Industrial Average

46,245.41

493.15

1.08%

S&P 500 Index

6,602.99

64.23

0.98%

NASDAQ Composite Index

22,273.08

195.03

0.88%

Market Data as of

The Hot Stock: Block +7.6%
The Biggest Loser: Eversource Energy -12.5%

Best Sector: Technology +0.7%
Worst Sector: Energy -1.3%

Created with Highcharts 9.0.1Wednesday, Nov. 19Index performanceSource: FactSetAs of Nov. 21, 4 p.m. ET

Created with Highcharts 9.0.1Nov. 21-1.0-0.500.51.01.52.02.5%Dow industrialsS&P 500Nasdaq Composite

AI Is Still Winning

The artificial intelligence rally took a beating in recent weeks, but Nvidia’s latest earnings report was a big win for the bulls.

Nvidia reported adjusted earnings per share of $1.30 for its October quarter, above the FactSet consensus estimate of $1.26, my colleague Tae Kim reports. Revenue of $57 billion also beat expectations at $54.9 billion.

After rising 2.9% during Wednesday’s session, the stock was up another 5% in after-hours trading tonight. Tae described the company’s outlook for the current quarter as “solid,” with a midpoint at $65 billion. The consensus before the report was $62.2 billion. Tae writes:

Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang says the artificial intelligence chip business is robust.

“Blackwell sales are off the charts, and cloud GPUs are sold out,” Huang said in his company’s earnings release on Wednesday. AI “compute demand keeps accelerating and compounding across training and inference—each growing exponentially.”

Inference is the process of generating answers from already developed AI models.

The executive said the ecosystem around AI is expanding as industries find more ways to use the technology.

“We’ve entered the virtuous cycle of AI,” he said. “AI is going everywhere, doing everything, all at once.”

Tae adds that CFO Colette Kress pushed back against questions about the useful life of AI chips and the impact on depreciation costs, which have been in the news after investor Michael Burry, who was featured in The Big Short, called into question whether tech firms are “accurately reflecting the long-term economic value of the hardware by using six-year depreciation schedules for GPUs.”

“The long, useful life of Nvidia’s CUDA GPUs is a significant TCO [total cost of ownership] advantage over [rival] accelerators,” she said on the earnings call.

The executive said the power of Nvidia’s CUDA software has enabled GPU owners to extend the useful life of the company’s AI chips well beyond their original estimated useful life

“A100 GPUs we shipped six years ago are still running at full utilization today,” she said.

You can read Tae’s coverage of Nvidia’s big report here.

The Calendar

Copart, Intuit, Jacobs Solutions, Ross Stores, Veeva Systems, and Walmart report earnings tomorrow.

The National Association of Realtors reports existing-home sales for October.

What We’re Reading Today

What’s Ahead for Markets in 2026? Join Barron’s virtual roundtable on Dec. 11.

From “Liberation Day” tariffs to torrid rallies in AI stocks and gold, this year has been full of surprises. Join us for discussions with investment strategists and money managers about the outlook for the economy and markets in 2026—and how to position your portfolio for success.