US stock futures fall as Nvidia forecast dampens Outlook AI Rally

(Bloomberg) — U.S. futures fell after Nvidia Corp. gave a revenue estimate that was below analysts’ highest estimates, which could add weight to concerns about the sustainability of the artificial intelligence boom.

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Nasdaq 100 futures were down 0.6 percent as of 12:34 a.m. in Hong Kong on Thursday, while S&P 500 futures were down 0.3 percent, both paring earlier losses. Semiconductor stocks fell in a key indicator of Asian stocks.

Despite a recent rally, the Nasdaq 100 is still down from a record high as investors try to gauge whether this year’s massive rally in AI stocks has outstripped the gains the technology will actually deliver. At the same time, expectations of interest rate cuts helped spur some rotation out of technology and into sectors that were lagging behind.

Shares of Nvidia fell more than 8 percent in after-market trading, with the company’s announcement of manufacturing problems with its new Blackwell chips also weighing on sentiment.

The market may be disappointed that the chipmaker’s results weren’t as stellar as previous reports, but “this looks like short-term noise” amid continued underlying strength, Vital Knowledge’s Adam Crisafulli wrote in a note. Slower growth is “just a function of extremely difficult comparisons and it’s something the whole world has been aware of.”

Declines in US stocks on Wednesday ahead of Nvidia’s report showed that investors were on alert for negative surprises. Futures coming off their intraday lows could indicate that further declines will be limited by continued optimism for the chip maker’s outlook.

Nvidia’s management assurance that it expects the Blackwell chip to bring in “several billion dollars” in revenue in the fourth quarter “was important and should remove the worst of the discussion,” TD Cowen analyst Matthew Ramsay wrote in -a note. “But official guidance for the January quarter is likely needed before the debate is truly settled.”

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