Market Summary

• Nvidia releases quarterly results after market close, with Wall Street projecting $1.78 EPS and $79.2B revenue—representing roughly 80% annual growth
• Market veteran Jim Cramer noted Nvidia’s historical pattern of post-earnings rallies followed by sustained selling pressure from profit-taking
• ASML shares climbed 6.7% following UBS naming it the leading European semiconductor stock with a €1,900 price objective
• Strategy received a $400 price target upgrade from TD Cowen, maintaining Buy status with upside potential exceeding 140%
• Target surpassed earnings projections with $1.71 EPS compared to $1.46 consensus, while boosting annual sales outlook

Nvidia: Market’s Most Anticipated Quarterly Report

[[LINK_START_0]]Nvidia[[LINK_END_0]] commands unprecedented attention as traders await its quarterly disclosure following today’s closing bell. The artificial intelligence semiconductor giant faces elevated expectations from the investment community.

Wall Street consensus points to approximately $1.78 in per-share earnings alongside roughly $79.2 billion in total revenue. These figures would mark year-over-year revenue expansion approaching 80%.

The data-center segment represents the critical metric investors will scrutinize. Demand for AI-focused processors from hyperscale cloud providers, artificial intelligence research firms, and major corporations has fueled Nvidia’s explosive expansion over recent reporting periods.

Market participants are particularly focused on several key areas: gross profit margins, order momentum for Blackwell architecture chips, ramifications of expanded China export controls, and forward guidance projections.

Can Strong Results Sustain Upward Momentum?

Jim Cramer highlighted a recurring trend worth monitoring. He observed that Nvidia’s earnings track record frequently features immediate post-announcement gains, subsequently followed by persistent selling waves as traders capitalize on strength.

His analysis suggests that even exceptional results might fail to propel shares higher when market expectations already price in near-perfection.

Competitive dynamics remain front and center for investors. Custom silicon initiatives from major cloud platforms, AMD’s growing presence, and proprietary chip development by technology giants all factor into market calculations.

Should Nvidia provide robust forward guidance while effectively addressing concerns surrounding Chinese market access and margin sustainability, the broader AI investment thesis could receive validation. Conversely, post-results weakness might ripple across semiconductor stocks and technology-heavy indexes.

ASML: European Chip Leader Rallies on Analyst Endorsement

ASML advanced 6.7% after UBS designated the company as its premier European semiconductor selection. The firm elevated its price objective to €1,900 from €1,600.

UBS anticipates ASML’s earnings performance will consistently exceed consensus forecasts extending through 2027 and 2028, propelled by sustained demand for cutting-edge semiconductor manufacturing equipment.

ASML’s Central Role in AI Infrastructure

ASML manufactures extreme ultraviolet lithography systems, which represent indispensable technology for fabricating the world’s most sophisticated processors. Without these specialized machines, chipmakers cannot produce the advanced semiconductors required for AI computing.

Escalating artificial intelligence demand translates to chipmakers requiring expanded manufacturing capacity. This dynamic positions ASML at the strategic center of global semiconductor production infrastructure.

The substantial 6.7% price movement demonstrates investors recognize opportunities beyond domestic AI chip manufacturers. Capital is flowing toward the comprehensive international supply chain enabling chip production.

Strategy: TD Cowen Maintains Optimistic Bitcoin Treasury Stance

Strategy captured market attention following TD Cowen’s price target elevation to $400 from $395 while maintaining Buy guidance. This projection suggests upside potential surpassing 140% from previous closing levels.

Strategy maintains substantial Bitcoin reserves and employs leverage combined with capital-raising activities to expand its cryptocurrency holdings. While the company retains its software operations, market valuation primarily reflects its Bitcoin treasury position.

Substantial Upside Accompanied by Elevated Volatility

TD Cowen’s upgraded outlook reflects conviction in Strategy’s Bitcoin accumulation strategy. However, the equity remains among the market’s most volatile instruments.

Bitcoin price declines typically trigger sharp Strategy share drops. Conversely, cryptocurrency rallies tend to attract aggressive momentum purchasing activity.

For market participants seeking leveraged Bitcoin exposure through traditional equity markets, Strategy continues commanding significant attention.

Target: Results Exceed Expectations Amid Lingering Investor Skepticism

Target disclosed first-quarter adjusted earnings reaching $1.71 per share, surpassing the $1.46 Wall Street estimate. Revenue totaled $25.44 billion, exceeding the $24.66 billion projection.

Comparable sales metrics showed improvement, supported by increased customer traffic. Target additionally raised its full-year sales growth guidance, suggesting its operational turnaround strategy may be generating positive momentum.

Tempered Market Response Despite Quarterly Beat

Notwithstanding the earnings beat, share price reaction proved subdued. Investors maintain caution regarding consumer spending durability and whether Target’s first-quarter momentum can persist throughout the fiscal year.

Profit margins and broader retail sector headwinds remain focal concerns. A single strong quarterly performance proves insufficient to completely restore investor confidence following an extended challenging period for the retailer.

Market analysts say Ether’s (ETH) price may drop to $1,000 if a breakdown from a bearish chart pattern is confirmed.

Key takeaways:

• Ether’s bear flag targets 50% ETH price drop to $1,075. 
• Ether risks over $1.70 billion in long liquidations if the price breaks below $2,000.
• Whale accumulation weakens as major ETH holders reduce exposure.

Ether’s bear flag targets $1,000 ETH price

Ether’s downtrend could accelerate if the price breaks below the lower trend line of a bear flag at $2,000 on the daily chart, where a similar breakdown in January led to a 41.5% ETH price drop.

Related: Ether taker volume turns negative for first time in two months: Will ETH fall under $2K next?

A bear flag pattern is a bearish continuation setup that forms after the price consolidates inside an up-sloping channel following a sharp price drop.

The measured target of the flag, derived from the previous downtrend’s height added to the breakdown point at $2,000, is $1,075, down 49% from the current price.

ETH/USD weekly chart. Source: Cointelegraph/TradingView

“$ETH is about to break the bear flag pattern,” analyst Coin Signals said in a Monday post on X, adding that if the price fails to hold above the lower trend line at 2,000, a “sell-off to $1800 or a new low” would follow.

Fellow analyst Keith Alan told his followers to be “prepared for the nasty scenario,” involving the confirmation of a death cross between the 21-day simple moving average (SMA) and 50-day SMA, and validation of a bear flag in the daily time frame.

“Momentum indicators also show deterioration on both daily and weekly RSI timeframes,” the analyst said in a recent article on X.

“Failure to establish support, however, opens the door to a sequence of progressively lower technical support levels” toward the measured target of the bear flag structure around $1,300, he added.

ETH/USD daily chart. Source: X/Keith Alan

Fellow analyst Crypto Patel said that ETH’s validation of a rising wedge pattern was underway, with a downside target of $1,500.

“Ethereum has lost a key rising trendline. As long as the price stays below it, weakness can continue.”

ETH/USD daily chart. Source: X/Crypto Patel

Meanwhile, Ethereum’s liquidation map shows that a correction below $2,000 would trigger over $1.70 billion worth of leveraged long ETH liquidations across all exchanges, according to CoinGlass data.

ETH exchange liquidation map. Source: CoinGlass

Ethereum whale accumulation drops

Ether’s latest rebound to $2,400 did not trigger broad-based accumulation across major wallet cohorts, Glassnode data showed.

For instance, the number of mega-whale wallets holding more than 10,000 ETH has declined sharply to a 10-month low of 1,050, with the 30-day change dropping to as low as -70, levels last seen in early February.

Ethereum mega-whale address count balance (>10K ETH). Source: Glassnode

In other words, large players are taking advantage of recent liquidity to de-risk, reflecting a lack of mid-term confidence.

The picture looks similar among smaller wallet cohorts.

Ethereum wallets holding 1,000 to 10,000 ETH have also been declining, falling to a nine-month low of 4,750 on May 8. The 30-day change remains negative, hovering around -50 at the time of writing.

Ethereum whale and shark address count balance. Source: Glassnode

Taken together, the data suggest ongoing distribution and weak conviction across key ETH holder cohorts, reinforcing the risk of a deeper drop if $2,000 breaks.

This reduction in whale counts aligns with the recent inflows into exchanges, indicating the path of least resistance remains down in the immediate future and selling pressure mounts.

Prediction markets platforms such as those run by Kalshi and Crypto.com drew two hours of critical questioning in a U.S. Senate Commerce Committee hearing, including scrutiny on the platforms’ advertising practices, regulatory disputes and the cheating they may encourage.

“We want athletes competing on merit, but the opportunity to make money can tempt gamblers — and sometimes even athletes themselves — to guarantee a sure bet,” Senator Ted Cruz, a Texas Republican who chairs the committee, said during the Wednesday hearing. He said high-profile incidents of player cheating “sow doubt in the minds of fans.”

Cruz flagged some recent cases, saying: “NBA players and coaches are accused of manipulating performance and providing insider information to win bets. Two major league baseball pitchers allegedly rigged their own pitches in exchange for money. [Major League Soccer] banned two players for intentionally getting yellow cards to win bets, and the UFC has canceled matches and terminated contracts because of suspected match fixing.”

“It is not uncommon for fans scrolling Twitter on a Sunday afternoon in the fall to see posts speculating that a controversial call by an official was related to gambling,” Cruz said.

Other lawmakers focused on marketing that fosters problem gambling or that has reached youths that are otherwise meant to be blocked from betting. Senator John Hickenlooper, a Colorado Democrat, accused the prediction markets businesses of unleashing the “hounds of hell” in social media and marketing to “prey on our young people.”

Patrick McHenry, who was a prominent member of the House of Representatives until his recent retirement, is now an adviser at the Coalition for Prediction Markets that represents Kalshi, Crypto.com, Robinhood, Coinbase and others. He said trades aren’t allowed for anybody under 18 and that the average age of users is 33.

Problem gamblers

Harry Levant, director of gambling policy at the Public Health Advocacy Institute, testified on Wednesday, telling the lawmakers he was a recovering gambling addict and lamenting the “avalanche of unregulated advertising” from prediction market firms.

“It’s a known addictive product, just like heroin,” he said.

Earlier this week, Kalshi co-founder and CEO Tarek Mansour posted on social media site X to highlight his company’s $2 million commitment with the National Council on Problem Gambling to support an initiative on “trader health and safety.””As retail participation in markets increase, we have a responsibility to balance free markets and individual responsibility with customer education and safety guardrails,” he wrote.

And still other lawmakers on Wednesday dove into the rapidly growing industry’s avoidance of state regulators and competition with regulated gaming on U.S. tribal lands, where revenue is a core support of tribal reservations’ financial health.

CFTC

Even as the senators put the event-contract space under the microscope, the Commodity Futures Trading Commission that regulates derivatives trading platforms is pursuing a lawsuit filed on Tuesday to stop a new law in Minnesota that was set to hold prediction market activity as illegal there. The regulator adds this to a growing list of lawsuits the federal agency has filed against states that have sought to limit prediction markets or declare them in violation of state gambling laws.

“This Minnesota law turns lawful operators and participants in prediction markets into felons overnight,” said CFTC Chairman Mike Selig in a statement, who added this suit alongside similar agency fights against Arizona, Connecticut, Illinois and New York.

Selig has led an agency legal campaign to defend his agency’s authority to supervise and regulate prediction markets, which are managed on registered platforms under CFTC rules. Meanwhile, his agency — at which he’s the sole member of what’s meant to be a five-member commission — is also pursuing a formal rule to establish tailored standards for the sector.

McHenry defended the CFTC role on Wednesday.

“The CFTC, as a cop on the beat, has the capacity to oversee this market, just as they’ve done with the broader commodities marketplace that’s been around and well versed for decades,” McHenry said.

Senator Hickenlooper responded, “You’re the first person who’s told me you think that they think the CFTC is up to the standards.”

One of the witnesses, Bill Miller, the president and CEO of the American Gaming Association, contended the federal regulators “are absolutely not competent to handle this, and two, they are absolutely hurting tribes and states financially.” He added that, “it was never Congress’s intent to create a federal department of gambling through the CFTC.”

McHenry argued that these event contracts are derivatives that belong to “fundamentally different business models” from bets placed with gambling businesses. He equated them to long-regulated grain futures contracts, and he added that “our member companies have enhanced surveillance greater than any casino and greater than any sportsbook in the country.”

In the end, Chairman Cruz said, “The Supreme Court may have to decide the issue.”

Bitcoin (BTC) halted its latest recovery at Wednesday’s Wall Street open as US traders sold off.

Key points:

• Bitcoin nears $78,000 before the US open spoils momentum, continuing a trend from earlier in the week.
• US stock markets await Nvidia earnings amid a tense macro atmosphere.
• Bitcoin’s Coinbase Premium sees multi-month lows in a sign of “soft” US demand.

BTC price stops short of $78,000 ahead of Nvidia numbers

Data from TradingView showed BTC/USD reaching $77,678 on Bitstamp before the US trading session sparked fresh losses.

BTC/USD one-hour chart. Source: Cointelegraph/TradingView

Copying its moves from the week’s first two trading days, Bitcoin faced tailwinds as US market sentiment stayed bearish on the macroeconomic outlook.

The S&P 500 fell 1.3% before rebounding, with traders waiting for the week’s key potential volatility catalyst: Q1 earnings from tech company Nvidia.

On Monday, trading resource The Kobeissi Letter described the numbers as the “biggest earnings event of the quarter.”

Continuing, it noted the role of tech stocks in driving S&P 500 strength — even as the US-Iran war and associated inflation risk spooked other markets.

“A handful of tech stocks are driving the entire market,” it summarized in a post on X.

S&P 500 one-hour chart. Source: Cointelegraph/TradingView

Bitcoin Coinbase Premium reflects “soft” demand

In crypto circles, attention focused on the Coinbase Premium Index, which highlighted the ongoing lack of bullish sentiment during US trading sessions.

Related: BTC price ‘bull trap’ at $76.5K? Five things to know in Bitcoin this week

The Index, which measures the difference in price between Coinbase’s BTC/USD and Binance’s BTC/USDT pairs, fell to its lowest levels since February on the day.

Commenting in one of its QuickTake blog posts, onchain analytics platform CryptoQuant said that spot Bitcoin demand “remains soft.”

“The latest Coinbase Premium Gap reading stands near -$66.8, meaning Bitcoin is trading at a lower price on Coinbase Pro’s USD pair compared with Binance’s USDT pair. This is deeper than the late-March reading of around -$62.6, when Bitcoin was trading near $68,000,” contributor Amr Taha wrote. 

“The comparison is important because Bitcoin is now trading much higher, around $77,200, yet the Coinbase discount versus Binance is wider than it was when BTC was nearly $9,000 lower.”

Bitcoin Coinbase Premium gap (screenshot). Source: CryptoQuant

Others monitored familiar trend lines, including the 21-week exponential moving average (EMA).

As Cointelegraph reported, BTC/USD reclaimed that level on weekly time frames in late April, only to lose it again this week.

“Bitcoin has Weekly Closed below the 21-week EMA (green) which technically positions price to potentially turn it into new resistance on any upcoming rebound,” trader and analyst Rekt Capital told X followers on Tuesday while analyzing the weekly chart. 

“Turning the 21-week EMA into new resistance would fully confirm the breakdown from it.”

BTC/USD one-week chart. Source: Rekt Capital/X

Cryptocurrency custody firm Copper has been out shopping itself, seeking a buyer willing to pay about $500 million for the platform, according to two people familiar with the matter.

Wall Street investment bank Cantor Fitzgerald has been appointed to help sell Copper, the people said.

Copper and Cantor didn’t respond to requests for comment.

The jewel in Copper’s crown is the ClearLoop settlement system, which enables network participants to do delivery versus payment (DvP) from within custody without bringing assets onchain, thereby eliminating settlement risk.

Copper closed its enterprise custody business in 2023 to focus on ClearLoop, launched in 2020 and caters to dozens of institutional firms. The firm boasts more than 1,000 active counterparties and over $50 billion in monthly notional trading volume, according to its website.

Copper was said to be weighing an IPO earlier this year, potentially following in the footsteps of crypto custodian Bitgo, with whom Copper forged a partnership on the ClearLoop application. However, with bitcoin trading below $80,000, and artificial intelligence soaking up most of the capital, the crypto IPO market has been on a holding pattern this year.

Meanwhile, the deal-making in the crypto market has been active this year, as crypto-native, traditional and fintech firms are looking to expand their digital asset capabilities through acquisitions.

Earlier this year, Mastercard agreed to buy U.K.-based stablecoin infrastructure firm BVNK for as much as $1.8 billion. Kraken’s parent company, Payward, agreed to acquire the derivatives platform Bitnomial, while Bullish, owner of CoinDesk, announced a $4.2 billion deal to buy Equiniti, aimed at combining transfer agency services with tokenization infrastructure.

And just this week, London-based bank Standard Chartered said it will buy the remaining shares of Zodia Custody, its cryptocurrency custodian subsidiary, that it doesn’t already own. The deal came just weeks after the bank’s venture capital division reportedly took a stake in crypto trading firm GSR at a valuation of more than $1 billion.