Wall Street: Tech-Rally mit Substanz: Nvidia und Softwarekonzerne überzeugen

Wall Street opened firmly on Thursday, with strength clearly focused on the technology sector. Nasdaq Futures gained nearly one percent, following Nvidia's delivery of strong quarterly earnings and a better outlook, especially with the longer-term growth scenario. Revenue surged 106 percent to $96.2 billion, well above the expected $92.4 billion.

Data center sales grew 117 percent to $89 billion. The company anticipates $108 billion in revenue for the current quarter, outpacing the $105 billion consensus. The key news came in the conference call: Nvidia expects a revenue growth of around 70 percent for the 2028 fiscal year, while Wall Street has only been expecting about 45 percent.

Remarkably, without supply chain bottlenecks, demand could even enable growth of over 100 percent. Analysts accordingly jumped up price targets. Bernstein forecasts $400, JP Morgan $320, and Raymond James $515. JP Morgan views the longer-term outlook as likely conservative given the dynamics in agent AI and Sovereign AI. Meanwhile, the software industry offers an important counterbalance to the recently overstated "SaaS apocalypse."

Salesforce, CrowdStrike, and Okta are all performing well. Salesforce reports 14 percent cRPO growth, a 34.1 percent operating margin, and rapidly rising AI revenues. Agentforce ARR grew more than 240 percent to over $1.5 billion. Adding to that is the expanded Anthropic partnership "Claudeforce." CrowdStrike also exceeds expectations and raises the outlook, while Okta beats revenue, RPO, and margin expectations.

The message: AI is not currently displacing established software, at least not for some providers, but rather seems to be accelerating demand. Even US consumer data showed mostly constructive signals in the morning. Dollar General, Dollar Tree, and Best Buy all beat expectations, with Best Buy showing a comparable sales increase of 4.1 percent versus the expected 1.6 percent and raising the yearly outlook.

The tech rally has substance: Nvidia not only confirms the AI boom but also significantly raises growth expectations for 2027 and 2028. Meanwhile, Salesforce, CrowdStrike, and Okta show that the AI wave does not necessarily have to come at the expense of traditional software companies. The next major macro test follows tomorrow: Fed Chief Kevin Warsh speaks at 10 AM in Jackson Hole.