The major US stock indices are set to open higher,. Oil price are down about -$2. Yields are lower by about 2 basis points, which is not much but it is something. Looking at the major indices, the NASDAQ is up 200 points while the S&P is up 28 points in premarket trading
Later today, the Fed FOMC meeting minutes from the April meeting willl be released at 2 PM ET. Recall that at the April meeting, there were three dissenters who wanted to get rid of the easing bias (to neutral) with one (Miran) dissenting in favor of a 25 basis point cut in rates. Miran has stepped down from his role on the FOMC board, making room for the new Fed Chair Kevin Warsh who will officially take over from Fed Chair Powell on Friday (after his swearing in).
In other news, Nvidia will unveil its fiscal Q1 2027 earnings report after the close today, May 20, with Wall Street expecting earnings of $1.78 per share — up 120% year over year — on revenue of approximately $79.2 billion, representing roughly 79.5% growth compared to the same period last year. The company itself has guided for $78 billion in revenue, plus or minus 2%, with gross margins expected to hold near 75%.
The Data Center segment remains Nvidia’s primary earnings engine, fueled by robust Blackwell platform shipments and surging demand for AI training and inference workloads. Analysts are forecasting Data Center revenue of roughly $72.85 billion, up an estimated 86% year over year. Blackwell now drives close to 70% of data center compute, meaning its margin trajectory and unit economics — not just shipment volume — are the central question heading into tonight’s print.
China remains the highest-variance factor in the report. CEO Jensen Huang has previously acknowledged that Nvidia’s market share in the region has effectively fallen to zero due to ongoing export control pressures, and management has excluded China entirely from forward guidance
