All eyes on the Fed as market volatility returns

Nvidia earnings, bitcoin's slide and government stimulus jolted markets, leaving investors watching the central bank for hints on interest rate changes

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With apologies to Ron Burgundy, that escalated quickly. After weeks drifting sideways in a som-nambulant shuffle nervous, yet oddly inert - last week financial markets suddenly snapped awake with a jolt. Investors, lulled into complacency, suddenly found themselves thrown out of their beds and into the churn of a fully fledged market squall.

The catalyst was the most consequential firm in global markets - Nvidia, the shovel merchant in the artificial intelligence (AI) gold rush.

It is hard to overstate just how astonishing Nvidia's growth has been. The company boasts net margins north of 50% and has delivered average annual revenue growth of more than 40% every year, for 10 years running. Its market capitalisation, now above $4.3-trillion, has ballooned at a compound annual rate of nearly 80% over the same period, for a total return of an extraordinary 23,936%, or about 239-fold.

Expectations for 19 November's quarterly results were therefore not merely high, they were stratospheric. Investors knew that this single earnings release could make or break the global stock market for the last few months of 2025 and into 2026. A set of blowout numbers would reinforce the narrative of unstoppable AI-led expansion, but any hint of a slowdown in demand and spending from the AI “hyperscalers” would puncture the froth across markets and asset classes. No other company so clearly embodies the hopes - and hazards - of this present cycle.