Nvidia earnings and Anthropic's record IPO set up a twin test of the AI trade

Nvidia will report third-quarter results on Tuesday, its first earnings release since co-founder Jensen Huang resigned as chief executive, setting up a twin stress test of the artificial-intelligence trade alongside Anthropic's record stock-market debut.

The chipmaker said it will post results on Nov. 17 "as previously scheduled," with numbers at about 4:20 p.m. ET and a conference call at 5 p.m. ET, according to 247wallst.com. It is the first quarter Huang has not led since he co-founded the company in 1993; he resigned on the morning of Nov. 12, effective immediately, after the board opened an investigation into multiple reported extramarital affairs, including one with a woman alleged to be a Chinese spy.

Leadership in question

Chief financial officer Colette Kress, who has walked investors through Nvidia's numbers for 13 years, is now interim CEO while keeping the CFO role. The company has not said who will speak on Tuesday's call, and the board is still searching for a permanent chief executive.

Nvidia guided to quarterly revenue of $108.0 billion, plus or minus 2%, and a gross margin of 74.0%, plus or minus half a percentage point, saying it assumed no data-center compute revenue from China. Analysts' consensus stood at $108.80 billion of revenue and $2.47 a share, per MarketBeat. Second-quarter revenue was $96.2 billion, with data-center revenue of $89.0 billion.

Beating expectations has not reliably lifted the stock: it fell after three of its last four reports. Shares closed Wednesday at $209.66, and by mid-morning Thursday had fallen 5.5% to $164.25. Options traders had priced a swing of roughly 6.7% to 7.8%, above the 4.0% average of the last eight reports.

Anthropic's debut

Days later, Anthropic is expected to begin trading on the Nasdaq on Nov. 19 under the ticker "ANT." Wikipedia's summary of the offering says it could raise up to $64 billion and value the company at about $1.3 trillion, down from an earlier estimate of $2 trillion, with the AI lab hoping to sell 20% of shares to retail investors.

Anthropic confidentially filed in June and committed 5% of shares to a public-benefit fund on Oct. 18. It separately filed a Japanese registration for Class A shares worth up to about $3.5 billion.

The pairing matters because Nvidia is the benchmark for AI-chip demand, while Anthropic is a leading test of investor appetite for AI companies coming to market. Both events fall in the same week, leaving little room for either to disappoint.