By Adam Clark

$NVIDIA (NVDA.US)$ stock was edging lower Tuesday despite positive Wall Street forecasts rolling in for the chip maker’s coming earnings.

Shares have drifted in a range of $850 to $950 since late March. The company will post its first-quarter results on May 22.

Nvidia could beat its revenue guidance of $24 billion for the quarter by around $2 billion, and guide for a further $2 billion in revenue growth in the current quarter according to Melius Research analyst Ben Reitzes.

The forecast is more optimistic than the consensus on Wall Street, which calls for revenue of $24.51 billion for Nvidia’s first quarter, rising to $26.52 billion in its second quarter, according to a FactSet poll of analysts’ estimates.

Reitzes thinks Nvidia will shake off competition from rivals and customers that are making their own AI chips.

“Remember, hyperscalers talk a big game about custom chips, but they need to buy [Nvidia’s] H100s now to beat cloud estimates and complete internal initiatives. We remain optimistic that Nvidia’s share of inferencing will be strong, especially given the rise of video generation,” wrote Reitzes in a research note on Monday.

Reitzes has a Buy rating and $1,125 price target on Nvidia stock.

The upbeat assessment comes as HSBC analyst Frank Lee also boosted his price target on Nvidia $1,350 from $1,050, forecasting the company to report $26 billion in revenue for its first quarter.

- Adam Clark