Tech Weekly: NVIDIA Earnings Impress, Bezos Launches AI Startup

This week's tech sector performance

This week, the stock market displayed a mixed performance amid ongoing uncertainty about artificial intelligence (AI) company valuations and policy decisions from the US Federal Reserve.

On Monday (November 17), both the S&P 500 (INDEXSP:.INX) and the Nasdaq Composite (INDEXNASDAQ:.IXIC) fell below their 50 day moving averages for the first time since late April, a significant technical breakdown. The Dow Jones Industrial Average (INDEXDJX:.DJI) also closed below this important threshold for the first time since October 10.

Tuesday (November 18) saw continued volatility and some attempted stabilization attempts, but market participants remained cautious. Heavyweight tech and chip stocks were down ahead of NVIDIA's (NASDAQ:NVDA) earnings call on Wednesday (November 19), but a global relief rally followed the firm's upbeat earnings report and raised Q4 guidance. However, enthusiasm was short-lived, with markets pulling back on midday Thursday (November 20) after September US jobs numbers temporarily dashed hopes of a December interest rate cut from the Fed.

Comments made at the Bloomberg New Economy Forum further contributed to market caution, with Goldman Sachs (NYSE:GS) President John Waldron warning that markets could still face further declines.

In contrast, former Barclays (NYSE:BCS) CEO Bob Diamond offered a more optimistic view, calling the recent selloff a “healthy correction” rather than the start of a bear market.

Later on Thursday and into Friday (November 21), the odds of a December rate cut rose again as Fed officials, including San Francisco Fed President Mary Daly and New York Fed President John Williams, signaled concerns about slowing economic growth and a cooling labor market. Markets surged on the back of the news to end the trading day sharply higher after a volatile week that saw all three major indexes post losses.

This renewed optimism quelled some selling pressure going into the weekend, although investor caution around AI valuations and Fed policy remains prevalent.

3 tech stocks moving markets this week

1. NVIDIA (NASDAQ:NVDA)

NVIDIA reported stronger-than-expected Q3 earnings with revenue of US$57 billion, beating expectations of US$55 billion, and earnings per share of US$1.30 versus the predicted US$1.25. The company also offered an optimistic Q4 revenue forecast of US$65 billion, surpassing analysts' expectations of US$62 billion.

In correspondence with the Investing News Network, John Murillo, CBO of global fintech firm B2Broker, noted that NVIDIA's revenue growth is expected amid the AI surge.

However, he also noted that the sustainability of this growth depends on continued investor confidence.

He warned that, similar to past tech bubbles like the dot-com era, AI companies today may be overvalued, with expectations currently outpacing reality. Murillo cautioned that while AI is making breakthroughs, its practical applications are still limited, and there is risk that an AI bubble could burst, impacting even large tech giants.

Despite recent share price declines amid debates of an AI bubble, CEO Jensen Huang reassured investors, stating, “There’s been a lot of talk about an AI bubble. From our vantage point, we see something very different.”

After a midweek gain of over 5 percent due to its earnings report, NVIDIA posted a weekly loss of 3.79 percent.

2. Alphabet (NASDAQ:GOOGL)

Alphabet rallied in early trading on Monday after Berkshire Hathaway (NYSE:BRK.A,NYSE:BRK,B) disclosed a US$4.3 billion stake in the company and reduced its stake in Apple (NASDAQ:AAPL). Alphabet then released Gemini 3 on Tuesday. The updated AI model has enhanced reasoning, coding and multimedia, alongside Antigravity, a Gemini-powered coding platform, and Nano Banana Pro, its latest detailed image-generation model.

The week’s momentum was further fueled by reports that Google is on the verge of securing a US$1 billion annual deal with Apple to power the next-generation Siri, underscoring its dominant AI position across rival platforms.

The company ended the week 4.86 percent higher.

3. Apple (NASDAQ:AAPL)

Apple was the steady pillar of tech resilience this week.

With no obvious catalyst driving its price action this week, the company has maintained gains and investor interest following the strong earnings and product launches from earlier weeks.

Consistency speaks to Apple’s enduring market strength and the confidence investors have in its long-term growth trajectory as it integrates AI across its product and services ecosystem.

The company posted a modest advance of 0.99 percent for the week.

Top tech news of the week

• Jeff Bezos will co-lead a new AI startup, Project Prometheus, which will focus on “physical AI” and will “help in engineering and manufacturing” across various fields, according to the New York Times. The new company is reportedly launching with a massive US$6.2 billion, much of which is from Bezos. Meanwhile, Amazon (NASDAQ:AMZN) raised US$15 billion this week in its first US dollar bond offering since 2022, with proceeds earmarked for acquisitions, capital expenditures and share buybacks. The deal closed on Thursday.

• Anthropic has partnered with Microsoft (NASDAQ:MSFT) and NVIDIA, with Claude AI running on Microsoft Azure and powered by NVIDIA chips. Anthropic will buy US$30 billion in Azure compute and similar NVIDIA capacity, while Microsoft and NVIDIA will invest a combined US$15 billion in Anthropic, making Claude the only frontier AI model available across the three major clouds: Microsoft, Amazon and Google.

• AI chip startup Tenstorrent, backed by investors like Samsung Electronics (KRX:005930,OTC Pink:SSNGY) and Bezos' fund, is reportedly seeking at least US$800 million, led by Fidelity Management. This new funding round would value the Toronto-based company at a pre-investment US$3.2 billion, reflecting strong investor confidence in its challenge to NVIDIA's market dominance. Tenstorrent, which last raised over US$693 million in late 2024 at a US$2.6 billion valuation, aims to unseat NVIDIA with specialized chips and open-source software.

• SoftBank Group (TSE:9984,OTC Pink:SOBKY) said it will invest up to US$3 billion to remodel an electric vehicle plant in Ohio into a facility that will produce equipment for OpenAI data centers, according to a report from the Information.

• OpenAI announced a collaboration with Foxconn Technology (TPE:2354,OTC Pink:FITGF) to focus on the design and US manufacturing readiness of next-generation AI infrastructure hardware. OpenAI provided Foxconn with insights on emerging hardware needs to inform the design and development of hardware to be made at Foxconn's US facilities. The initial agreement lacked purchase commitments, but OpenAI received early access to evaluate the systems and an option to purchase them.

Tech ETF performance

Tech exchange-traded funds (ETFs) track baskets of major tech stocks, meaning their performance helps investors gauge the overall performance of the niches they cover.

This week, the iShares Semiconductor ETF (NASDAQ:SOXX) declined by 5.28 percent, while the Invesco PHLX Semiconductor ETF (NASDAQ:SOXQ) saw a weekly loss of 5.14 percent.

The VanEck Semiconductor ETF (NASDAQ:SMH) decreased by 4.63 percent.

Tech news to watch next week

With fewer major tech earnings reports expected next week, market focus will likely shift to key economic data releases. Dell Technologies (NYSE:DELL) will deliver its Q3 results on November 25.

Analysts predict earnings of around US$2.48 per share, representing approximately 15 percent year-on-year growth. Revenue estimates hover around US$27.29 billion, suggesting nearly 12 percent annual growth.

Important economic reports include the US Consumer Confidence Index on November 25 and the Personal Consumption Expenditures price index on November 26.

US markets will close on November 27 for Thanksgiving and have a shortened session on November 28. November 28 will also bring Canada’s Q3 GDP release.