Choppy Markets Follow Nvidia Earnings: Is It 'Sell the News' or Waiting on Warsh's Jackson Hole Speech?
Choppy markets today after Nvidia's earnings report. Is it a "buy the rumor, sell the news" moment, or are traders, investors, and corporate companies waiting on Kevin Warsh's speech at Jackson Hole as the next major catalyst in markets and the signal for how risk is taken?
Nvidia (NVDA)
Price Action: Surged dramatically off the cash open, trading up 8.9% to 9.3% around the $228–$229 level.
Catalyst: The post-earnings strength was fueled by Jensen Huang's conference call guidance, highlighting the pivot to the Vera Rubin platform and high demand for AI agent workflows despite supply constraints and near-term margin compressions.
Mag 7 Stocks
The Breadth Split: Nvidia effectively carried the Magnificent Seven single-handedly today.
Hyperscaler Pressure: Meta (-1.0%), Microsoft (-0.8%), Alphabet (-0.9%), and Apple (-0.9%) traded mostly flat-to-down.
Market Sentiment: Wall Street treated Nvidia's print as a double-edged sword: while chip demand remains sky-high, it signals that Big Tech hyperscalers are being forced into massive ongoing capex spend ($1.3T projection), weighing on their own near-term margin profiles.
Nasdaq Composite (IXIC / NQ)
Performance: Up roughly +0.8% on the session.
Overall Dynamics: Nvidia's heavy weighting provided a strong boost to the index, but broader market gains were capped as traders held back ahead of tomorrow's main event—Kevin Warsh's opening Jackson Hole keynote address and the incoming PCE inflation print.
Kevin Warsh at Jackson Hole has stolen the show and is mainly expected to be hawkish, but if he comes out slightly to the optimistic, dovish side combined with Nvidia's blockbuster earnings, could markets rally after the speech?
Markets are generally expecting a hawkish tilt to neutral, with high potential for a surprise wildcard:
Hawkish Risk (Primary Concern): Core PCE remaining sticky near 3.3% and recent financial conditions easing leave traders worried Warsh could push back against aggressive rate-cut pricing.
The Wildcard Element: Warsh has explicitly moved away from traditional forward guidance. Rather than delivering a clear dovish pivot or hawkish roadmap, he is widely expected to focus heavily on structural framework changes, leaving short-term policy paths untelegraphed and keeping markets on edge.
Today, Nvidia was carrying the whole of the tech sector at one point, and there was even a point when the dollar was coming up yet so was Nvidia stock, which could well be a tell-tale sign there could have been a lot of retail traders speculating on trading apps.
Could a scenario be where what the big boys call the "dumb money" have positioned themselves in Nvidia shares with much exposure, then Fed Chair Kevin Warsh comes out with a hawkish, tight monetary stance and then it sells to a lower price than where they positioned themselves?