For years, NVIDIA has been playing a crucial role in driving the stock market to new highs. However, as doubts about artificial intelligence have been growing, Wall Street is increasingly worried that regardless of the company's financial results this week, its stock price will be negatively affected.

NVIDIA's stock price has been in a consolidation state for several months, rising by only 1.7% since the fourth quarter, slightly lower than the 3.3% increase of the S&P 500 index during the same period. The company's stock price has hardly increased this year, and it is in the lower half of the overall stock benchmark index performance at the beginning of 2026. For a company that was recently the leader of the index and achieved a triple-digit annual growth rate, this decline is truly astonishing.

“Fundamentally [Nvidia’s] story continues to be strong, it’s just a question of whether sentiment’s going to continue to be strong as well,” said Matt Stucky, chief portfolio manager for equities at Northwestern Mutual Wealth Management. “Anxiety levels are rising across a lot of different parts of that trade.”

Much of Nvidia’s recent lackluster performance has been driven by investors rotating away from mega-cap technology stocks amid rising concerns about the hundreds of billions of dollars being spent to develop AI. But the stock market is also facing numerous external risks that are hanging over the shares.

The geopolitical backdrop is fraught, with the Trump administration threatening to attack Iran. Economic growth is slowing while inflation remains stubborn, according to data released Friday. The labor market appears to be stabilizing after a soft 2025, which has traders betting that the Federal Reserve will be wary of further rate cuts. And the Supreme Court just struck down President Donald Trump’s tariffs, which is considered to be a positive for US companies but also introduces another layer of uncertainty as the White House figures out how to handle the ruling and preserve Trump’s signature economic policy.

All of which puts Nvidia in a tricky spot as it prepares to report its fourth-quarter and fiscal-year results on Wednesday. Investors expect it to trounce Wall Street’s expectations and raise estimates for the coming quarters. But there may be little the company can do or say to move its shares meaningfully higher. Nvidia’s stock has fallen after its last two quarterly reports.

“This will be an important earnings announcement, but I think it could trade down on earnings because it’s not good enough,” said Rhys Williams, chief strategist at Wayve Capital Management. “From what we’re gathering the earnings and forecast will be fine, it may just not meet a whisper number.”

Nvidia isn’t alone in this predicament. The Magnificent Seven tech giants, which have been the largest contributors to stock market gains over the past few years, have been treading water for months. A Bloomberg index of the group has lost nearly 1% since the start of the fourth quarter, underperforming the S&P 500 in that timeframe.

Big Tech’s mixed earnings have contributed to the wariness around AI, with Wall Street particularly focused on their heavy AI-related capital expenditures. For example, shares of Microsoft Corp. fell after the company reported strong overall results because investors zeroed in on slowing growth in its Azure cloud-computing business and a record spending forecast.

That being said, there is a bright side to Nvidia’s meandering stock price: Its market valuation has come way down. At less than 24 times forward earnings, the stock is trading not far from its lowest multiple in five years and well below its five-year average of roughly 38 times. A relatively cheap stock price could provide a catalyst for buying if investors are pleased with the results and hear encouraging comments from Chief Executive Officer Jensen Huang.

“Nvidia has been kind of the market savior for a while now,” said Will McMahon, chief equity strategist at MFA Wealth. “People are hoping Nvidia can kind of put up a great report and, you know, calm the waters here a little bit.”

Still, even if shares rise, Nvidia’s price-to-earnings ratio may very well hold steady as Wall Street remains skeptical about AI in general and the company’s performance in particular.

“The multiple will continue to be compressed until the market’s convinced that Nvidia can maintain both the market share and the order flow,” said Alec Young, chief investment strategist at Mapsignals.

Commentary from Huang on Nvidia’s market dominance could also give the stock a boost, as competitors such as Advanced Micro Devices, Inc., Amazon.com, Inc., Broadcom Inc. and Alphabet Inc. start to grab market share with their own so-called inference chips, which generate output based on AI models.

“What’s probably going to help, specific to Nvidia sentiment longer term, is talking about how the company’s positioned for maintaining market share and what are the drivers behind that,” Northwestern Mutual’s Stucky said. “A full-throated defense and outlook about how they’re going to drive continued strong market share and market share gains in the inference market, to me, I think is very relevant for the long term story.”

Of course, if these results fail to calm the investors' panic, it could lead to greater fluctuations in stocks related to artificial intelligence and the entire market.

"If something goes wrong with Nvidia, the entire industry will be affected," said Luke Rahbari, the CEO of Equity Armor Investments.