To say 2025 started badly for chip giant Nvidia (NVDA) is an understatement. The shares opened the year rising to an all-time high of $153.13 on Jan. 7.
And then DeepSeek, the Chinese artificial intelligence pricked the bubble, saying it could develop large language models for artificial intelligence at lower costs than Nvidia.
Tariffs became a really big problem.
There were administration crackdowns on sales of Nvidia's not-quite top of the line H20 Graphic Processing Units to Chinese customers.
And, suddenly, Nvidia hit a closing of low of $96.30 on April 8, down 28.3% on the year.
The slump probably had more to do with the market reaction to President Trump's tariff plan than anything Nvidia had done.
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Now, almost six weeks later, Nvidia shares are back up to $131.29. That's up 36% in a bit more than a month but still down 2.2% since Dec. 31 and 14.3% from the Jan. 7 high.
After Wednesday's close, Nvidia, a component of the Dow Jones Industrial Average, will report fiscal-first-quarter results, and they will get plenty of attention.
The consensus estimate is Nvidia will report earnings of 73 cents a share, up 16% from a year ago, and revenue of $43.4 billion, up 66% from a year ago.
The earnings estimate has come down from 93 cents 60 days ago.
But many investors are hopeful that Nvidia has weathered the DeepSeek storm, maybe found a way to create products that will win U.S. government export licenses necessary to sell to customers in China and can get stock moving again.
The company's market capitalization is back to $3.2 trillion, behind Microsoft (MSFT) at $3.25 trillion and ahead of Apple (AAPL) at $2.92 trillion.
Maybe Nvidia will deliver, as the company basically did in the last quarter. And maybe investors will reward their efforts.
A relief rally may be coming
Futures trading late Sunday suggests U.S. stocks will rebound from Friday's slump when trading reopens on Tuesday. U.S. financial markets will be closed Monday for Memorial Day.
The uptick looks like a relief rally after President Trump disclosed Sunday he had agreed to a European request to delay 50% tariffs until at least July 9.
(There is a school of thought making its way through Wall Street that July 9 might not be a hard deadline.)
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Lots of earnings reports to keep up with
In a holiday-shortened week, investors will deal with a broad swath of earnings reports.
Among other tech companies expected to report are:
- Salesforce (CRM) , the big customer relations management company (and a Dow component, like Nvidia), due after Wednesday's close.
- Dell Technology (DELL) , after Thursday's close.
- Marvell Technology (MRVL) , after Thursday's close.
- Cloud security company Zscaler (ZS) after Thursday's close.
- Software company Synopsys (SNPS) .
- HP Inc. (HPQ) , after Wednesday's close.
Costco leads a parade of retailers
The week includes a heavy dose of tech earnings and results from one giant retailer: Costco Wholesale (COST) , due after Thursday's close.
Costco is the third largest retailer by market cap (at $448 billion), behind Amazon.com AMZN (at $2.13 trillion) and Walmart (WMT) (at $771 billion).
Costco is expected to report earnings of $4.21 a share, up 11.4% from a year ago. The revenue projection is $62.9 billion, up 7.4% from a year. The shares are up 10.1% in 2025.
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In addition to Costco, retailers reporting this week include:
- AutoZone (AZO) , before Tuesday's open.
- DICK's Sporting Goods (DKS) , before Wednesday's open.
- Macy's (M) , before Wednesday's open.
- The Gap (GPS) , after Thursday's close.
- Burlington Stores (BURL) , before Thursday's open.
- Ulta Beauty (ULTA) , after Thursday's close.
- Shoe retailer Foot Locker (FL) , before Thursday's open.
Oh, for a calm week
If the tariff rhetoric can be toned down from last week, it might be a decent week.
The S&P 500 was off 2.5% on the week. The Dow and Nasdaq Composite fell 2.5%, and the Russell 2000 Index fell 3.5%.
Interest rates will be a big question. The 10-year Treasury yield ended last week at 4.52%. That keeps mortgage rates relatively high and consumer confidence on edge.
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