Nvidia results spoil the world’s first Nvidia results party

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Nvidia’s earnings “have become as important to US markets as key economic data,” writes MainFT. For some, it would become another excuse to get drunk on a Wednesday afternoon.

On a sweltering New York summer day, about four dozen sweaty Nvidia enthusiasts gather at a StoreHouse sports bar on Sixth Avenue. Together, they count down to the chipmaker’s second-quarter results, eyes fixed on the seven big screens blasting CNBC’s Fast Money rather than the second round of the US Open.

The mastermind behind this gathering is Lauren Balik, a stock analyst who earlier in the day invited “shoes, shorts and whoever else” to come have a beer in honor of Wall Street’s hottest stock. So between an out-of-work exotic derivatives trader and a young tech guy who vows to sell his Nvidia stock “in a heartbeat” if it hits $140 – FTAV was happy.

Balik tells FTAV that she’s “mostly very lopsided about things.” The three light-up bubble guns he handed out to the predominantly male crowd attested to this playful skepticism. “I love a good bubble more than anything,” she continues. “Guessing when it’s going to explode is such a fun game.”

“I thought why not, let’s host this event,” she shouted over the commotion.

We’re at a sports bar. All sports lead to gambling, and Wall Street has always been about gambling. So I thought, why not combine the two? If you watch football or baseball and have money on it, it’s the same with stocks. People get attached to these things for better or for worse. This is how our times work.

Balik has “bubbles built into me,” she adds. “I remember growing up in Virginia, I had a lot of friends whose parents worked at the big internet companies (before the dotcom crash). Mark Lynch, Microstrategy’s CFO, taught me business studies in high school. I was his star student! It’s very funny.”

The exotic derivatives trader weighs in grimly: “The fact that there’s a dedicated CNBC countdown to these results, watched at a bar by a bunch of lemmings like me. . . it’s over, man. It’s over.”

The countdown itself begins before we find out what exactly “it” might be. Fueled by expensive craft beer, the crowd goes FIVE, FOUR, THREE, TWO, ONE and lets out a collective “HELL YEAH” as the stock price initially rises. A man in a baseball cap raises his arms in the air excitedly. Another quick down a pint of Bud Light. A disgruntled sports fan at the far end of the bar looks on, confused.

But the good times don’t last. While no one in the room seems to care much so far, revenue in the three months to July stands at $30 billion, up 122 percent from a year ago, but just above the 28, 7 billion dollars that analysts expected. Additionally, Nvidia expects revenue of $32.5 billion for the current quarter, plus or minus 2%, which is slightly above expectations. In the world of Nvidia’s earnings, this qualifies as a blip, and the stock price drops to a chorus of boos.

Still smiling from ear to ear, Balik tells us that the bar owner had a baby earlier in the day. “Maybe Nvidia would be a pretty nice middle name. . . See you here next quarter?”

Further reading
— Nvidia shares fall even as revenue doubles (MainFT)