Nvidia's $108 Billion Test Comes Without Jensen Huang

By Grace Kim

Nvidia will report third-quarter results on November 17 with guidance of $108.0 billion, plus or minus 2%, and no permanent chief executive.

Results arrive at about 4:20 PM ET. The conference call follows at 5 PM ET. Nvidia said the schedule comes "as previously scheduled."

What changes without Jensen Huang?

Jensen Huang resigned as chief executive on Thursday morning, effective immediately. He co-founded Nvidia in 1993.

The November 17 report is the first without him at the helm. Chief financial officer Colette Kress serves as interim CEO and keeps the CFO role.

Kress has walked investors through Nvidia's numbers for 13 years, yet the company has not said who will speak on Tuesday's call. She joined in 2013, when annual revenue ran about $4 billion. Nvidia has since generated $216 billion.

Interim leadership now combines the finance seat with the chief executive post. The board's search for a permanent replacement is one of three issues investors will test on Tuesday.

What has Nvidia promised for the third quarter?

August guidance called for $108.0 billion in revenue, plus or minus 2%. That range runs from $105.84 billion to $110.16 billion.

The midpoint would lift revenue about 12% from the $96.2 billion Nvidia reported in the second quarter, when data center revenue alone reached $89.0 billion.

Nvidia also guided to a 74.0% gross margin, plus or minus half a percentage point. The company was "not assuming any Data Center compute revenue from China in its outlook."

MarketBeat's Tuesday consensus called for $108.80 billion in revenue and $2.47 a share in earnings. The revenue consensus sits above the midpoint of Nvidia's own range.

How has the stock handled earnings?

Nvidia fell after three of its last four reports. Moves measured from each report-day close ran as follows:

• November 2025: down 3.2%
• February 2026: down 5.5%
• May 2026: down 1.8%
• August 2026: up 8.7%

Thursday trading showed the strain, as Nvidia opened at $151.01, fell to $148.80 and stood at $164.25 at 11:45 AM ET. That price was down 5.5% from Wednesday's close. It was 22% below the $209.66 close on the day of the August report.

At Thursday's price, Nvidia carried a market value of about $3.97 trillion, roughly 6% of the S&P 500. Most index-fund investors hold that exposure without buying the stock directly.

What volatility do options imply?

Options traders priced a larger-than-usual reaction before Huang's resignation. Bloomberg data showed a possible 6.7% swing as of Monday. Saxo estimated about 7.8% as of Wednesday's close.

The 7.8% estimate compares with an average 4.0% move over the last eight reports. Applied to $164.25, a 7.8% move amounts to about $12.81 a share in either direction, and both figures predate the resignation.

Those figures describe the size of a possible move, not its direction. They also predate a chief executive change that has already moved the shares.

What will matter on Tuesday?

Three issues will draw the most attention: whether revenue lands inside or above the $108 billion range, the next-quarter forecast that will be the first set without Huang, and any commentary on leadership and the board's search for a permanent CEO.

The board is also investigating Huang's relationship with a former Megaspeed executive. U.S. officials suspect that executive of spying for China. China calls the claim groundless.

The source also points to separate analysis in which the last company without a permanent CEO left shareholders 17 points behind the market.

How have analysts responded?

Stifel cut its price target to $205 from $315 on Thursday, while Baird reduced its target to $200 from $500 and downgraded the stock to neutral, according to reports.

The cuts followed the resignation, not the earnings result. Nvidia has not yet reported the quarter.

What does the move mean for shareholders?

The source advises investors to total direct and fund holdings before the report, because selling before earnings is a bet on a result nobody knows yet. The actionable choice is position size, it says. Trimming inside an IRA costs nothing in taxes when the holding exceeds about 10% of a portfolio.

The source also carries a sponsored Fisher Investments guide on retirement income, covering retirement costs, cash flow and annual withdrawal rates.

Nvidia's first forecast without Huang will show whether the $108 billion revenue plan holds with China data center compute excluded and no permanent chief executive in place.