Stock Market Midday, Aug. 24: Dow Edges Higher as Chip Weakness Pressures Nasdaq

Nvidia reportedly agreed to buy Hugging Face for $12.9B. The deal aims to counter threats from AI companies developing their own chips. Hugging Face, an open AI model hub, could help Nvidia maintain market share. Nvidia's Q3 revenue was $96.2B, up 104% YoY, despite competition. Google and OpenAI are developing custom chips but still rely on Nvidia.

Salesforce (CRM) rose 23% after reporting strong seat growth and low attrition, with Agentforce ARR up 240% to $1.5B. NVIDIA (NVDA) guided Q3 revenue to $108B, exceeding estimates. Jim Cramer argued bearish theses on both companies were refuted by earnings. Salesforce reported $11.35B revenue and raised FY27 guidance. NVIDIA's Q2 revenue was $96.22B, up 105.85% YoY, with Q3 guidance at $108B.

Nvidia is reportedly in talks to acquire Hugging Face for $12.9 billion, according to The Information. Hugging Face hosts open-source AI models, and the deal could impact Nvidia's chip dominance and AI strategy. The acquisition, if finalized, would be the second major AI infrastructure deal this month, following Stripe's purchase of OpenRouter. Analysts debate whether Nvidia will maintain Hugging Face's hardware neutrality. The deal highlights the consolidation of neutral AI infrastructure platf

Nvidia reported $96.2 billion in Q2 revenue, up 106% YoY, with $89 billion from data-center business. CEO Jensen Huang forecast 70% data-center revenue growth for fiscal 2028. Demand is strong, but profit margins are declining due to memory shortages. The company faces risks from customer concentration and financing commitments, including $105 billion for an OpenAI project.

Nvidia reported a 85% year-over-year revenue increase to $81.62 billion, beating earnings estimates and providing strong forward guidance. Despite this, the broader chip sector, including the SPDR S&P Semiconductor ETF (XSD) and VanEck Semiconductor ETF (SMH), struggled to gain momentum, remaining below key moving averages. Nvidia's stock rose 8.7% but stayed below its May 14 all-time high of $236.54, potentially impacting broader market performance.

NVIDIA's Q2 FY2027 earnings revealed a 135% increase in multi-year memory purchase commitments to $279B, signaling strong demand for memory chips. The company also warned of >15% AI server price hikes due to rising memory costs. SK Hynix, Samsung, and Micron saw stock price increases following the news, with Micron (MU) up +0.40%. NVIDIA's margin guidance suggests memory price increases will impact its profitability but benefit memory suppliers.