Nvidia (NVDA)

Chipmaker Nvidia was up 0.5% in pre-market trade, as investors awaited the release of its highly anticipated earnings after the US bell on Wednesday.

The $3.2tn (£2.4tn) chipmaker will set the tone for tech stocks, serving as a bellwether for artificial intelligence (AI) spending and other companies' investment into new technologies.

Nvidia is expected to report revenues of $28.7bn for the second quarter, representing a 113% increase compared to the same period last year.

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Revenues for its data center business are expected to jump 142% to $24bn. Gaming revenues of $2.7bn are also expected.

Semiconductor stocks lost ground on Tuesday alongside a 1% drop for the AI darling, a sign of how Nvidia's report could ripple through tech stocks as it tests the AI trade that has driven gains.

CrowdStrike (CRWD)

Shares in CrowdStrike were just above the flatline in pre-market trading as the cybersecurity firm prepares to reveal its quarterly earnings on Wednesday, with investors eager to see how the company behind the recent global outage is performing.

The cybersecurity firm has seen its market value sharply decline after its involvement in a Microsoft-related (MSFT) IT disruption that caused widespread chaos. The incident, attributed to “a single content update for Windows hosts”, led to severe disruptions across various sectors, including airlines, emergency services and media outlets globally.

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"We worry new customer additions are going to see an impact. Executives may want to get 'into the weeds' on why CrowdStrike is the right answer and why their choice is not inviting a future outage," Bernstein analysts said in a note.

The cloud-based security company is expected to post quarterly earnings of $0.98 per share in its upcoming report, which represents a year-over-year change of +32.4%, according to Zachs Research. Revenues are expected to be $958.66m, up 31% from the year-ago quarter.

Shares of the company have declined about 20% since the outage, wiping about $20bn from its market value.

Nordstrom (JWN)

Shares in the department store chain were 7% higher in pre-market trading as its second quarter results beat estimates on the top and bottom line.

The Seattle-based company said it had net income of 72 cents per share. Earnings, adjusted for one-time gains and costs, were 96 cents per share.

The results came in well above Wall Street expectations, with the consensus being earnings of 74 cents per share.

Total revenue at the company rose 3.2% to $3.89bn in the quarter ended 3 August, from $3.77bn a year earlier.

Despite the earnings beat, Nordstrom provided cautious full-year guidance, expecting adjusted EPS between $1.75 and $2.05 and sales ranging from a 1% decline to 1% growth.

Prudential (PRU.L)

Despite a dip in new business profit in the first half of the year, insurer Prudential said it was confident about meeting targets going forward, with shares up nearly 2% in morning trading.

In results released on Wednesday, Prudential posted a 1% fall in new business profits to $1.4bn for the first six months of the year on an annual equivalent rate basis.

However, it reported a 6% increase in adjusted operating profits to $1.5bn in the first half compared to the same period last year.

A fall in annualised premium equivalent (APE) sales, a measure of new business written in insurance, drove a 3% decline in new business profits in Hong Kong. Meanwhile, an 18% fall in APE sales in China resulted in a 33% decrease in new business profits in China.

However, Prudential reported a pick up in sale momentum in June, which it saw continuing into the second half of the year.

The company still expected new business profits for 2024 to grow at an annual rate consistent with the level needed to meet its 2022 to 2027 growth target.

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Richard Hunter, head of markets at Interactive Investor, said that the reason for the dip in new business profits was “mainly due to extremely strong comparatives, given that this time last year China released its pandemic restrictions and opened its economy once more”.

Hunter added that geopolitical tensions, alongside “economic clouds which have hung over China in particular more recently have had a detrimental effect on the share price for Prudential, if not for its long-term prospects”.

Over the last three years, shares were down 57%, which he said served as “a painful reminder of the ground which needs to be recovered”.

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