Once again, NVIDIA’s earnings week is upon us. The world’s most valuable company and leading maker of artificial intelligence chips will report first-quarter earnings Wednesday night. Of course, that will cause a ton of action on Wall Street this week. But that’s not the only thing we’re focused on. Other club ownership companies have also reported. Additionally, Google is holding its much-anticipated developer conference, where the latest in AI is expected to be on display. Here are the details (all earnings and estimates are via LSEG): 1. Retail Earnings: Home Depot’s club earnings week begins Tuesday morning. In a note last week, Morgan Stanley analysts nicely assessed that the U.S. housing market “continues to rise in line with the bottom.” Therefore, we do not expect an inflection point in Home Depot’s performance as mortgage rates and housing activity are not aligned. As a result, stocks have plummeted since February, when 30-year fixed mortgage rates began rising, and are now trading at multi-year lows. This means that expectations for Home Depot’s performance are low. Wall Street expects Home Depot’s first-quarter same-store sales growth to be 0.8%, according to FactSet. When Home Depot released its fourth-quarter results in February, it was just days before the outbreak of the Iran war that disrupted the economy and reignited inflation. However, analysts at Bernstein said they do not expect Home Depot to revise its full-year outlook for flat to 2% same-store sales, saying their forecasts “consider a wide range of scenarios.” Bernstein also said Home Depot’s SRS distribution subsidiary could benefit from storm-related repair activity this quarter, so he said he plans to find out if that’s true. Home Depot acquired SRS in 2024 as part of an aggressive push into specialty courthouse contractors that rely on wholesalers. We also just completed the acquisition of an HVAC distributor. Rising inflation has made it difficult for incoming Federal Reserve Chief Kevin Warsh to cut interest rates quickly. But we’re holding on to Home Depot because someday the housing market has to wake up. Revenue: $41.53 billion EPS: $3.41 Fellow retailer TJX Companies will rise next Wednesday morning. The big difference here is that TJX, a retailer known for offering quality products at affordable prices, is actually driven by the economic environment. If you’re feeling the strain of high gas prices but need a new pair of jeans, there are few better places than TJ Maxx or Marshalls. As such, we expect TJX to continue to be relatively well-positioned to attract shoppers. The consensus is for same-store sales to increase 4.1% in the quarter, and we believe we will continue to see transaction growth driving this result. One thing to note is TJX’s positive comments regarding fares. In recent quarters, TJX’s profits have benefited from falling freight rates. But the Iran war took them in the wrong direction. Overall, we continue to believe TJX is a valuable stock for the long term, which is why we bought more shares on Friday. When it comes to guidance, keep in mind that TJX executives have a tendency to under-promise and over-deliver. Revenue: $13.98 billion EPS: $1.01 2. Nvidia Earnings: Now for the main event of Wednesday night. “Beat and raise” is the minimum requirement. That means NVIDIA’s reported results should beat consensus and its guidance for the quarter should also beat expectations, prompting analysts to raise their estimates. This place has been a bar for years. And with NVIDIA stock finally breaking out of a month-long slump to new highs, this time is certainly no different. One of the problems that Nvidia continues to face is that even though its performance is great, some investors continue to worry about the sustainability of that greatness. So whatever CEO Jensen Huang and CFO Colette Kress can do Wednesday night to allay fears that the investment cycle will soon slow will be key to the stock’s reaction to this announcement. The market will also listen to Huang’s commentary on Nvidia’s outlook for the $1 trillion revenue forecast he announced at March’s glitzy GTC conference. This includes sales of the company’s Blackwell and Rubin systems from last year through 2027. There’s no question that NVIDIA faces increased competition in the AI chip space from fellow graphics processing unit (GPU) maker Advanced Micro Devices and custom silicon providers like Broadcom and Marvell, which work with big tech companies to design specialty chips. But we want to hear Huang tackle this issue head-on and discuss energy efficiency and total operating costs compared to competitors. Aside from the technology discussion, another topic we saw in Wall Street’s preview notes last week was returns on capital to shareholders. Nvidia has plenty of money, and more money is coming in as orders are fulfilled. As a result, many analysts are looking for an update on Nvidia’s plans to return some of that money to investors, perhaps through higher dividends or significantly more share buyback authorizations. Nvidia currently pays a quarterly dividend of 1 cent per share, resulting in a microscopic yield of 0.02%. The company paid $974 million in dividends in its 2026 fiscal year, which ended in January. In terms of stock repurchases, NVIDIA repurchased $40.09 billion worth of stock last year, with $58.5 billion remaining under stock repurchase authorizations. That’s certainly a big number. However, this is a company worth $5.56 trillion, so it represents about 1% of its market capitalization. We don’t know what approach is preferable to increase return on capital. On the other hand, the dividend increase signals confidence in the sustainability of demand. On the other hand, getting yield for something that expands its shareholder base to attract income-seeking investors means committing to annual dividends that could be used for research and development or more strategic investments and acquisitions (we know Nvidia is busy). Consider that to achieve a 2% dividend yield for a $5.56 trillion company, Nvidia would need to ship more than $100 billion a year. This yield is certainly substantial, and achievable given the free cash flow that NVIDIA generates. It’s expected to be $182 billion this fiscal year and even higher in the next two years, according to FactSet. But at some point, huge amounts of money need to be considered. It would be a huge amount to send money every year. Sure, NVIDIA could cut the dividend later if it thinks it needs cash, but a cut in dividends is almost always taken as a negative signal for future demand. A much larger share buyback, on the other hand, would return cash, increase future earnings per share by reducing the number of shares, and prevent the team from having to make future payments above the authorized amount. But the more the company can increase its dividend, the less likely it will be able to attract income-oriented value investors. Either way, this is an interesting discussion, and we’ll soon see if Nvidia takes action either way. Revenue: $78.67 billion EPS: $1.76 3. Google Events: Alphabet will host its annual I/O developer conference on Tuesday and Wednesday. Analysts at Bank of America said this could strengthen Google’s AI position. However, amid rising expectations, he warned, “If there is no ‘amazing’ announcement, the stock price may come under pressure.” Rumors have been flying around that Google is announcing or teasing a Gemini 4 AI model, which is a big deal since the introduction of Gemini 3 in November was a huge success and the stock price rose. Another thing we’re looking at is how Google incorporates AI into all of its other services. This may alleviate concerns about the return on large expenditures. In particular, we’re looking for updates on new agent AI capabilities – AI systems that can perform tasks and perform actions without human intervention. Also of interest will be robotics, AI wearables such as smart glasses, and the broader rollout of Waymo. Also on Wednesday, Alphabet will host a Google Marketing Live event. This event will be important to watch for commentary on AI monetization and new advertising tools. Investors are always looking for further clues that traditional Google search is still growing despite the adoption of AI models. The good news is that the number of queries is already at an all-time high, CEO Sundar Pichai said on the company’s first-quarter earnings call, noting that the use of AI is actually driving usage of Google Search. Google’s in-house TPU chips are key to its AI efforts, but the company just announced its 8th generation family at a Google Cloud event in late April, so don’t expect too much big silicon news. 1 week ago Monday, May 18 Before the bell: Baidu (BIDU) Tuesday, May 19 Home sales pending at 10 a.m. ET Before the bell: Home Depot (HD) , Vertiv (VRT), Amer Sports (AS), KE Holdings (BEKE), Bilibili (BILI) After the bell: Keysight (KEYS), Toll Brothers (TOL), CAVA (CAVA) Wednesday, May 20 Federal Open Market Committee Meeting Minutes 2:00 PM ET Before the Bell: TJX Companies (TJX), Target (TGT), Analog Devices (ADI), VF Corp (VFC), ZIM Integrated (ZIM), Lowe’s (LOW), Arcos (ARCO), Hasbro (HAS), Baozun (BZUN) After the Bell: Nvidia (NVDA), Intuit (INTU), Urban Outfitters (URBN) May Thursday 21 First unemployment claims 8:30 a.m. ET Housing availability starts at 8:30 a.m. ET S&P Global Flash US PMI 9:45 a.m. ET Before the bell: NIO (NIO), Deere (DE), Walmart (WMT), Advance Auto Parts (AAP), NetEase (NTES), Vip Shop (VIPS) After the bell: Deckers (DECK), Take-Two (TTWO), Workday (WDAY), Zoom (ZM), Copart (CPRT), Ross Stores (ROST) Friday, May 22, University of Michigan Consumer Sentiment Survey (Final) 10am ET Before the Bell: Booz Allen Hamilton (BAH), BJ’s (BJ) (Jim Cramer Charitable Trust NVDA, HD, TJX, GOOGL See here for a complete list of long-held stocks. ) Subscribers to Jim Cramer’s CNBC Investing Club receive trade alerts before Jim Cramer makes a trade. After Jim sends a trade alert, he waits 45 minutes before buying or selling stocks in his charitable trust’s portfolio. If Jim talks about a stock on CNBC TV, he will issue a trade alert and then wait 72 hours before executing the trade. The above investment club information is subject to our Terms of Use and Privacy Policy, along with our disclaimer. No fiduciary duties or obligations exist or arise from your receipt of information provided in connection with the Investment Club. No specific results or benefits are guaranteed.
