📈 Nvidia Beats Again, Stock Yawns

Good Morning…

When a $4 trillion company beats earnings expectations by 4% and revenue estimates by 1.5%, yet still manages to disappoint traders hungry for perfection, you know we've entered the rarified air where excellence becomes ordinary.

🔎 Market Trends → 'More room to run' for AI-related stocks, market expert says

🖥️ Market Movers from Fintech.tv → [WATCH] Ethereum’s Historic Milestone: A Deep Dive into Its $500 Billion Market Cap

And now…

⏱️ Your 5-minute briefing for Thursday, August 28, 2025:

MARKET BRIEF
Before the Open 

Pre-Market

Fear & Greed

Markets in Review

S&P Hits Record as Wall Street Awaits Nvidia

The S&P 500 closed at a record 6,481.40 (+0.24%). The Nasdaq gained 0.21% to 21,590.14. The Dow climbed 147 points (+0.32%) to 45,565.23.

The Big Picture:

U.S. stocks notched fresh highs Wednesday as traders kept their eyes on Nvidia’s (NVDA) earnings, set to drop after the bell. The AI bellwether now makes up ~8% of the S&P 500 — meaning its report could swing the entire index.

Markets continue to look past the Fed drama in Washington. Trump’s firing attempt of Fed Governor Lisa Cook drew headlines but did little to dent risk appetite. Investors remain locked on the bigger drivers: easing inflation, falling rates, and resilient earnings.

Commodities were stable: oil held above $75 a barrel, while gold ticked higher as a hedge. The dollar weakened slightly, further supporting equity risk-taking.

Market Movers:

• MongoDB (MDB): Soared 38% on earnings and upbeat AI-driven demand outlook.

• Okta (OKTA): Gained 1%+ after beating forecasts and raising guidance, a sign enterprise AI adoption is boosting cloud security.

• Laggards: Paramount Skydance (PARA) slipped 5%, and J.M. Smucker (SJM) fell after soft earnings — reminders that not all consumer plays are insulated from tariff-driven cost pressures.

What They’re Saying:

“Interest rates are on the cusp of being lowered, and earnings are trending higher. In aggregate, that supports a risk-on bias,” said Terry Sandven, chief equity strategist at U.S. Bank Asset Management.

WHAT WE’RE WATCHING
Events

• Today: Bureau of Economic Analysis - Prelim Gross Domestic Product (GDP) q/q - 8:30am

  Why You Should Care: It's the broadest measure of economic activity and the primary gauge of the economy's health;

• Today: Department of Labor - Unemployment Claims - 8:30am

  Why You Should Care: Although it's generally viewed as a lagging indicator, the number of unemployed people is an important signal of overall economic health because consumer spending is highly correlated with labor-market conditions. Unemployment is also a major consideration for those steering the country's monetary policy;

Earnings Reports

• Today: Best Buy, Dollar General, Gap, Bath & Body Works, Dick’s Sporting Goods, Ulta Beauty, Burlington, Hormel Foods, Brown-Forman

• Tomorrow: Alibaba

MARKET INSIGHTS
Leading News 

Nvidia's Beat-and-Raise Playbook Continues to Defy Gravity

Why it matters:

The chip giant delivered another 56% revenue surge to $46.7 billion while earnings jumped 54%—proving that two years into the AI boom, the infrastructure buildout still has room to run.

Zoom Out:

History suggests that when a company consistently beats estimates for nine consecutive quarters, the market eventually stops rewarding perfection and starts hunting for cracks. Nvidia reported earnings of $1.05 per share versus the $1.01 consensus, with revenue of $46.7 billion topping the $46.0 billion estimate. Yet shares dipped in after-hours trading, reminding us that even flawless execution can disappoint when expectations reach stratospheric heights.

The underlying fundamentals remain robust. Data center revenue climbed 56% year-over-year, with Blackwell sales rising 17% sequentially. More tellingly, management guided to over 50% growth again next quarter, suggesting the $3-4 trillion AI infrastructure cycle that CFO Colette Kress outlined has plenty of fuel left.

The China headwind—while real—appears manageable. The company reported zero H20 chip sales to China but benefited from $180 million in inventory releases elsewhere, showing how geopolitical constraints can create unexpected opportunities in other markets.

Key Insights:

• Blackwell momentum accelerating: The next-generation chip line now accounts for 70% of data center revenue at $27 billion in sales, validating Nvidia's technological moat against competitors scrambling to catch up

• Customer concentration as strength, not weakness: Large cloud providers make up about half the data center business, but these are the same hyperscalers spending "tens of billions quarterly" on AI infrastructure—hardly a fragile customer base

• Gaming renaissance bonus: Gaming revenue jumped 49% to $4.3 billion, showing Nvidia's diversification beyond data centers provides additional upside optionality

Market Pulse:

"We expect between $3 and $4 trillion in AI infrastructure spending by the end of the decade." —CFO Colette Kress

Bull’s Take:

When a company beats estimates, raises guidance, and still sees its stock wobble, that's often the market's way of creating entry points for patient capital. The AI infrastructure supercycle is barely in the third inning.

Market Stories of Note

CrowdStrike's Guidance Miss Serves Up Classic Contrarian Opportunity:

The cybersecurity firm's post-outage earnings beat of 93 cents versus 83 cents expected reveals how markets often punish companies for transparency rather than rewarding operational excellence—creating exactly the kind of mispricing that patient investors should recognize. While CrowdStrike's Q3 revenue guidance of $1.21 billion fell short of Wall Street's $1.23 billion expectations, the company's 20% ARR growth to $4.66 billion and $221 million in net new ARR suggests the July 2024 outage created temporary pricing pressure rather than permanent customer defection. History teaches us that dominant platform companies with sticky subscription models—like CrowdStrike's expanding cybersecurity ecosystem—often emerge stronger from crisis-driven discount cycles, making today's 6% stock decline a potential gift for disciplined value hunters willing to bet against short-term sentiment.

Kohl's Margin Magic Trumps Meme Stock Madness:

The department store's ability to beat earnings estimates by 70% while raising full-year guidance demonstrates how genuine operational improvements can create sustainable value far beyond social media-driven price volatility. Kohl's delivered $0.56 per share versus the $0.33 consensus through disciplined cost-cutting—closing 27 stores and trimming corporate headcount by 10%—proving that sometimes shrinking strategically beats growing recklessly in challenging retail environments. While revenue still declined 5.1% year-over-year, the company's focus on margin expansion over top-line growth offers a textbook example of how patient investors can profit when management prioritizes profitability over vanity metrics.

CRYPTO
Fear & Greed 

Headlines

• Bitcoin price edges higher to $111.3k after 7-wk low amid Fed worries (link)

• VersaBank Tests Tokenized Deposits on Algorand, Ethereum and Stellar in U.S. Pilot (link)

• Google Cloud is developing its own blockchain for payments, currently in private testnet (link)