Prediction: Nov. 17 Will Be a Huge Day for the Stock Market

Nov. 17 could be one of the most important dates remaining on Wall Street's 2026 calendar. That's when Nvidia (NASDAQ:NVDA) is scheduled to report its third-quarter fiscal 2027 earnings, giving investors an opportunity to assess the strength of the artificial intelligence (AI) revolution.

The timing is particularly interesting. Technology stocks have experienced considerable volatility amid concerns about AI infrastructure spending, potential regulation, and whether the industry's growth is sustainable.

Meanwhile, Nvidia is facing additional scrutiny surrounding CEO Jensen Huang, introducing uncertainty about the company's leadership. I think investors should be focusing on what Nvidia's upcoming earnings reveal about the underlying business. Based on management's latest guidance, there's reason to believe the growth story remains intact.

Image source: Nvidia.

Nvidia's third-quarter earnings should be another blowout

During the company's fiscal second quarter (ended July 26), Nvidia generated $96.2 billion in revenue, representing a 106% increase year over year. Data center revenue reached $89 billion, increasing 117% annually. Meanwhile, earnings per share (EPS) climbed 128% to $2.46, while the company's gross margin reached 75%.

What's even more encouraging is the company expects more growth. Management guided for $108 billion in third-quarter revenue, plus or minus 2%, representing roughly 89% growth compared with the same quarter last year.

Wall Street's expectations are slightly higher. Analysts are projecting approximately $108.9 billion in revenue and EPS of $2.47. That would represent roughly 91% revenue growth and 90% earnings growth year over year. Importantly, Nvidia's guidance does not assume any data center revenue from China.

Why is Nvidia growing so quickly?

Nvidia's growth isn't just the result of companies experimenting with AI. The company is heavily embedded with capital expenditure (capex) commitments from cloud computing providers, frontier model developers, and enterprises building production-scale applications.

Companies including Microsoft, Amazon, Alphabet, Meta Platforms, Oracle, Anthropic, and OpenAI are expanding their data center footprints to support AI training and inference. These investments translate directly into demand for Nvidia's GPUs, networking equipment, and integrated computing systems.

The company's Blackwell architecture is an important component of hyperscaler infrastructure, supporting AI training and inference workloads. Meanwhile, Nvidia's new Vera Rubin platform is in full production, with deployments underway across cloud providers including Microsoft Azure, Google Cloud, Oracle Cloud Infrastructure, and CoreWeave.

Rubin combines GPU computing with Nvidia's Vera CPUs and high-speed networking systems. Training generative models requires enormous levels of compute. However, inference -- the process of generating responses and performing tasks using trained models -- is now also becoming a major source of computing demand.

As AI applications become more sophisticated, the amount of compute required to serve end users will increase substantially. Nvidia is positioning its GPUs, CPUs, networking systems, and CUDA software to capture more spending across various layers of AI workloads.

Why Nov. 17 could be a turning point for Nvidia stock

Beyond Nvidia's financial results, investors are navigating a new source of uncertainty. Nvidia's board of directors recently launched an independent investigation following reports that Huang had a relationship with a woman suspected of ties to Chinese intelligence. Huang has acknowledged an extramarital affair, while the intelligence allegations remain under investigation and Nvidia says it has no reason to believe trade secrets were compromised.

The development has weighed on investor sentiment, particularly because Huang has played such a central role in Nvidia's growth. However, investors should not confuse questions surrounding corporate leadership with evidence that demand for Nvidia's products is going away. Those are separate issues.

I'll be watching three things particularly closely: data center revenue growth, gross margin, and management's fourth-quarter outlook. If Nvidia delivers another strong quarter but offers disappointing guidance, investors could interpret that as evidence that AI infrastructure spending is beginning to moderate. Conversely, results that exceed expectations alongside accelerating demand for Vera Rubin could help restore confidence in the company's growth trajectory.

Of course, even a blowout earnings report will not automatically resolve the governance investigation, and a strong report does not guarantee an immediate stock price recovery. Given Nvidia's importance to the broader AI trade, the implications could extend well beyond a single semiconductor stock.

Still, I think the company's underlying financial performance deserves considerably more attention than the short-term narrative described in headlines. This is why I expect Nov. 17 to be a significant day for the entire stock market.

Adam Spatacco has positions in Alphabet, Amazon, Microsoft, and Nvidia. The Motley Fool has positions in and recommends Alphabet, Amazon, Meta Platforms, Microsoft, Nvidia, and Oracle. The Motley Fool has a disclosure policy.