What happened
Two months ago, computer memory maker Micron (MU -3.75%) reported its financial results for fiscal Q2 2022, and the news was incredible -- sales were up 25% year over year, and net profits more than tripled.
Three weeks ago, semiconductors specialist Advanced Micro Devices (AMD -3.20%) reported some earnings of its own, and again the news was great -- sales up 71% and profits rising 42%.
But tomorrow, it will be Nvidia's (NVDA -3.19%) turn to report...and this time investors are nervous. Heading into earnings day, Nvidia stock is down 5.3% at 11:10 a.m. ET Tuesday, and investor worry is beginning to bleed over into other tech stocks. Despite the positive reports already filed, Micron stock is now down 4.6%, and AMD is losing 4.7%.
Image source: Getty Images.
So what
What's got semiconductor investors so nervous? There are all the obvious macroeconomic issues, of course -- rising inflation (which devalues future profits), rising interest rates (which depress consumer spending -- which will have the effect of reducing future profits), a lingering supply chain crisis and the lingering Covid epidemic that caused it...and now monkeypox, too!
The big concern for Nvidia in particular, though, seems to be investors' worry that the declining value of cryptocurrencies (and I count another dozen or so cryptos down double digits today) is going to depress demand for Nvidia GPUs used in crypto mining. This fear has been reinforced by various analysts warning of the "premium" to MSRP charged for Nvidia's GPUs falling "precipitously" over the past few months. It's the reason that analysts at Susquehanna International, for example, recently warned that Nvidia may beat earnings and raise guidance when it reports tomorrow -- yet still see its stock suffer.
Now what
And yet consider: For all the pessimism about Nvidia stock, analysts still expect this company to report tremendous 43% sales growth tomorrow and 42% growth in profits. They're still expecting sales to come in nearly 30% ahead of 2021 levels by the end of this year -- and yes, that's slow-er growth, but it's not slow growth at all.
Indeed, over the last five years, Nvidia has grown its sales an average of 31% per year and its profits an average of 42% per year -- largely in years where "crypto" amounted to little more than a rounding error on its results. AMD's paced Nvidia on sales growth, averaging 32.5% over the last five years, according to data from S&P Global Market Intelligence, and even Micron's growth rate -- 16% -- is nothing to sneeze at.
Long story short, all three of these growth stocks look to be doing just fine to me, and if a bit of a worry about slower growth in the short-term future results in lower stock prices today, I'd view that as less of a cause for alarm and more of a buying opportunity.
