Nvidia Rough Patch Ahead of Results… And Tesla’s Next Charge Higher 11/17/25

0:02Live from the Nasdaq market, sitting in the heart of New York City's Times Square, this is Fast money. Here's what's on tap tonight. NVIDIA on deck, the semi-giant under pressure ahead of earnings and dragging the major indices down with it. Will Wednesday's report get the stock back on track along with the markets and back in rally mode? We'll debate that. Plus, revving up, one top analyst sees Tesla shares surging from current levels. What'll drive the gains? He'll lay out his case later this hour. Apple intensifies its search for Tim Cook's successor. Netflix gets chilled on day one of its stock split.

0:31And Bitcoin for bounce, the crypto trading at nearly seven-month lows, but the chart master says it is about to change course. Carter Braxton-Worth will join us for a look at the technicals. I'm Melissa Lee, come to you last in the studio of B at the NASDAQ. On the desk tonight, Tim Seymour, Bono and Eisen, Dan Nathan, Guy Adami, and in a fast money first. Come on, come on. Thank you. Thank you, everyone. Thank you. It's right here on the desk. Thank you so much. Thank you, Bruce. Can you believe it's, I mean, in the history of this show, of Mad Money, You have never been here physically. Teleportation.

1:05I think Wednesday, Jensen Long. Oh, we felt you. Teleportation. So I'll make it a regular. I'll be a regular. Look out. If there's no Jim Cramer, by the way, I think there's no Fast Money. Absolutely. He is the groundbreaker, and he's been in our camp since day one. So it's an honor to have him here. Well, your camp is a thoughtful, really terrific camp to be in. Thank you. And everybody who watches should understand, while some people regard it as a trading show, Some people regard it as an investment show. I regard it as a thought leader show. I find myself watching it as much as I can while I'm doing my show.

1:39Because I've got to know what you're saying. Every one of you, because you have different views, too. Yes. It's great to have you, Jim. Thank you. And we do want to kick things off with a rough start to the week on Wall Street. Stocks giving up early gains to close just off their lowest levels of the day. Financials, energy, tech among the worst performers today, helping push the S &P to its lowest close in over a month. Bitcoin, meanwhile, is seeing even bigger losses, dropping below the 92 ,000 mark for the first time since late April. It has now lost more than a quarter of its value since hitting an all-time high just last month.

2:07Also sharply lower, NVIDIA down about 2 % today ahead of earnings Wednesday night. The semi-giant has been stumbling recently, weighed down by fears that AI valuations have come too far too fast. The stock down nearly 8 % in November, shedding 12%. It's hitting an all-time high less than three weeks ago. So far this month, it's lagging all the major indices and its mega cap MAG7 peers. And since spending a couple of days with a market cap over five trillion dollars, it's lost five hundred billion dollars in value. More than one Exxon Mobil. So is this underperformance a healthy reset going into earnings?

2:42Just how much is at stake in Wednesday's report? Jim, let's kick it off with you. Look, I'm actually thrilled it's going down. I did not want to see it come in hot. I think all of us know if it came in hot, then had the wrong money moving it. I do think that this is a quarter that is not I don't think it's make or break, but there is a need to have something be stable when it comes to the data center. And, Melissa, I've got to tell you, the data center is so hated. We're taking it to everything. I mean, today there was just a savage assault on Blue Owl. OK, well, yeah, Blue Owl. Hey, who's Blue Owl?

3:13Blue's huge. I mean, but suddenly we discovered them. I don't like the Achilles heel of the market. We are overdoing everything. I think that the market was set up to go down by all the people who said November is you can't miss. It's going to be great. And unfortunately, Nvidia is going to be looked at as what I would say. There's a fort called Fort Zindernoff in the movie Bo Jess. It's the last bastion by the foreign legion. And they didn't hold. They didn't hold. So I feel like we're set up. We're set up to have people say that. And you buy it Friday. I mean, if you think about it, if you're a rational thinking person, you think that the NVIDIA story going into earnings has been somewhat de-risked given the guidance it gave during GTC.

3:55I mean, it's not – I don't know how many other sort of question marks there are in terms of orders. So we'll go back to Jim. I'll ask you. I mean, you know more about this company than anybody maybe but the founder. So I'll ask you, the importance of not margins but the guidance for margins, because to me, that's the crux of this whole thing. Price to earnings, reasonable. I'm totally right. Price to sales, not reasonable. Margins deteriorate. That price to earnings doesn't look as good. And that's why I don't think you want to buy the first trade if it's down, because you can send it lower, because it's all about the transition from the Grace Blackwell to the Vera Rubin.

4:30Now, if you remember last year, we thought that transition was going to go well to the Grace Blackwell, and it did not. And the margins went way down. My indication is that Vera Rubin is going to be seamless. That means the margins can actually stable and then go up. That would be a godsend for NVIDIA, which is why let the hot money be afraid. If the margins are good and they're ready to ship Vera Rubin, which, remember, is the chip that makes it so you can reason, then you've got to be in the stock. All right. So, Jim, you know, over the last few weeks, we got this GTCDC and the guidance. It was big, right?

5:07It was the thing that kind of caused the stock to break out to new all-time highs. But all of a sudden, right, NVIDIA is this big investor in OpenAI. OpenAI gives this huge order to AMD, right? We have Marvell and Broadcom making chips for NVIDIA's biggest customers. When do you think this competition is going to start putting a little bit of a dent, or at least the trajectory of NVIDIA's upside? And, you know, sooner or later it's got to happen. Look, you're absolutely right. I do think that AMD is telling a story which basically says, look, we're ahead of where the Grace Blackwell is. by this time next year.

5:44But the problem that Lisa Sue has is it won't be against the Grace Blackwell. It will be against the Vera Rubin. So she's going to fall, once again, a generation behind. Does she have 10 % of the market? She's going to. Do people want that chip? They want it just the way they wanted AMD when it was against Intel. But the fact is there'll be a generation behind, and the guy's like, you know, you take a guy like Zuckerberg. He doesn't want AMD if it's a generation behind. I do know that I'm waiting for Amazon to make a big move with them on that, and they haven't. Amazon remains a quandary. What is their plan?

6:18What is their plan for AI? What is their plan for being faster and better? That last quarter, they had nice Amazon Web Services increase. Remember, they went from 18 to 20. That's got to continue. But the one that we have to talk about that is driving, if it's really a problem, if all of this is a big joke problem, then how come we're taking Alphabet? How come he's buying Alphabet? How come Alphabet's so dead safe? Really? That's the safety play? What is that, the J &J of the data centers? Oh. Well, it's funny. And you bring up Amazon, Jim, and today's the day where we know Amazon's out there in the market on a$15 billion debt.

6:56Of course, that means nothing, right? Having said that. Because that Oracle debt. Well, that and so I wonder if the free cash flow story that's gone on forever to the fact that these folks, at least some of the big cap tech are running into the debt markets. I'm not worried about the credit side, but I am worried about that free cash flow story. And if you'll remember, whether it's been meta, any of these companies that the minute they started becoming more free cash flow focused is when their stocks went through the roof. It feels to me that the equity market is struggling with this free cash flow.

7:26I think you're right, Tim. I think the problem is open. AI is like a kamikaze. Whoever they go after, they take themselves out and they take out the target. So Mark Zuckerberg has to say, I'm spending more than anybody else. I'm cretious, cretious. Forget about him. He's poor. Because he doesn't want open AI coming into social. Take a look at Alphabet. What did they do to keep not going to come in again. Search. Amazon, are they going to really go into retail? How about this story? We do some sort of Oedipus thing. They go after Microsoft. They go after the enterprise. An Oedipus thing. They go after the enterprise.

8:01The enterprise is where the money is. Anthropics. By the way, Anthropic, free cash flow positive by December. People are talking about losing money. They're not. So this whole market positive we saw today, at least, is it all just we're waiting for NVIDIA? We are waiting for the next, you know, economic data print to come out to, you know, lift this purgatory of economic data that we've been in? No, I think it's the end of the year of magical investing. Oh, it is the end. It is the end. It is the end. Of magical investing. The best times of magical investing are over and behind us. And how are we defining magical?

8:35The companies that have no revenues and no earnings that just keep going up that we all hate and drive us crazy. And nuclear. Okay, I want a nuclear power plant next to me, but it turns out that there's 8 million people who don't want it. I mean, come on. I used to sleep next to a nuclear power plant that had not been decommissioned yet. Where, where, where? In Sacramento. This was called SMUD, the Municipal Utility District, because everyone knew that if you were within two miles of that thing, you were irradiated. No one wants those. We all want them in theory. We want them in Tennessee Valley.

9:06Good music, too, around no nukes. I mean, we've had some good concerts. I went to a Springsteen concert with no nukes. I remember that one. That was a killer concert. Devil with the blue dress. But I do think that we have to be careful. that we separate the greatness of the end of those stocks, and we just can't keep having those stocks go up. There are some of those stocks, though, in those sectors that are strategically important to the United States. Like MP Materials? I have them on tomorrow. Yes. Yeah, they're on all the time. I mean, they are. They are strategic. And Magnus. They are on.

9:40And Magnus. So you may hate them and think it's the end of magical investing, But magical investing is buttressed by the Trump administration. Well, that so is crypto, and that is down three. How's that operation doing that he's going? Does he have a Bitcoin? Is the East Wing going to be equipped with Bitcoin mining? Well, you're talking about strategy, obviously. You're talking about Michael Saylor. But this is basically what he's been setting up. I mean, he sells his stock. He buys Bitcoin. I mean, Jim Chanos has done the same thing. He just recently took it off. So this what's happening now in terms of being along Bitcoin selling stock, I mean, that theoretically is what should be happening.

10:19It's playing out right before our eyes. Well, look, all I can tell you is, is that we just need it's a it's a cohort of traders that I'm worried about more than actually what they seize upon. People who are the zero day options guys, you know, but the head, all right. The the people who just can't resist at Robinhood, you see how how little of actual investing there is at Robinhood? what percentage of people who actually buy common stocks. Yep. And they're tiny accounts, too. I mean, they've grown their account base massively. But, yeah, I mean, they're whipping it around. And who's making money in the 2X?

10:532X in the day. No, those are horrible. The worst constructed ETF. All right, let's go back to the magical investing because, you know, they talk about this AI party, okay? Didn't you think that's funny? I've been using that for now. I've been beating that dead horse. What just joined the party in the last two months? We saw Micron and we saw the storage guys, okay? and they've gone up hundreds of percent. Oh, did you hear today after the big round? What did they say today they announced? The super cycle, like the fracking super cycle, like the coal super cycle. So you're feeding it. That's the kiss of death, the super cycle.

11:21It must be near the top. Applied material is going to put it in machines. Next thing you know, we have too much micron. Was that part of your end of the magical thing? Because if you could just throw a dart at the next thing. At Western Ditch, at SanDisk. Well, I mean, I think that Murotra would be hesitant to continue to say the numbers should keep going up. It has historically led to just ruin. Look at the 94 super cycle. Who was... I was... Stop it. Get your mouth in the phone. I want to talk about the 94 super cycle. All right, so let me ask. So you mentioned quantum, and I'm not picking on Rigetti, but it happens to be in front of me.

11:57Rigetti? Exactly. This was a 16... Rigetti, pasta. I saw it from Barstool, pasta. 16, one-six billion dollar company doing 20 million... I'll give them$25 million of revenue. You've been doing this a long time. What was it worth a year ago? I mean, they did like a$72 ,000 for one split to get up there. Does that concern you? Does it scare you when you see it? Yes. Because people playing the momentum, they did very well. I'm telling you, I don't recommend shorting, but that's part of the magical investing era that's over. Rigetti. Rigetti. Okay? D-Wave. Okay? How about IBM? And by the way, Google actually has a real quantum division.

12:36I'm going to Google Rigetti. You pick Google. Rigetti's right here. So, Jim, how do you convince the younger cohort who have seen these beta plays actually pound out for them over the majority of the last four years? How do you convince them without them having to take massive losses to move away from chasing these hyper beta plays? when, I mean, unfortunately, they've kind of been reinforced as being right by chasing Bitcoin and meme. And we can go down the list. My biggest worry is in the book, I talk about this. I don't want them blown out. It's really important that they don't be blown out.

13:14It's important that they migrate. And I don't see that happening because the money isn't made fast enough in the traditional companies that we talk about. I mentioned J &J, which was beautiful. You know, I'm new prostate. Love J &J. that acquisition just made, that would be – they would rather – they'd rather play for the Detroit Lions last night than they would on change. You were there last night, no? Do I miss games? No, you do not. Do I impress you someone who misses games? What did you think? I mean, that was an interesting – sorry, Mel. Now we're going now. Jim brought it up. All right. It's all right.

13:46I mean, you – I was out of line. That defense now appears to be as – they're playing as well as anybody in the league not named the Denver Broncos. It's true. Thoughts? They're violent, and they're from University of Georgia. I think you have a producer, someone involved with the University of Georgia. That would be Sandy Kendall. Yes, it would be Sandy Kendall. But I don't know. I just think that you've raised the question that I think that we all have to think about, which is we all want this generation to own good common stocks, and we don't want them to necessarily buy stocks that have no chance of earnings.

14:21I was with someone yesterday who's a safety engineer for a flying, had looked at a flying car company job. Sounds like quantum computing. Well, and he said, look, they're good, but Boeing's ahead of them. And that reminds me of quantum. Oh, they're good, but IBM's ahead of them. I want to try to get them involved in IBM, but, you know, I just think that that's just, that's not going to be their style. But if we lose them like we did so many people in 2000, it will be another lost generation. And I think our job, to some degree, Soto Voce, is to get people to say, why don't you have some of those?

14:58And with them, maybe Borla has something at Pfizer. But retail wasn't selling in April, right? I mean, there's an argument that that was the smart money. But that's young. Young retail is going to get obliterated, I think. Older retail turned out to be smarter than the hedge funds. Yeah. Like, there used to be this ad that would run that had my picture in it. It was appalling. And it said, here's all the funds. I looked okay then. It had all the funds that it sold NVIDIA and how, you know, it's like, hey, these people got— Well, I read them down. It was a list of 20 idiotic funds. It's like, wow, I'll go against all of them.

15:33Then I saw today Peter Thiel sold his$500 ,000 NVIDIA. I guess I got to get out of NVIDIA again. How many times can they scare you out of NVIDIA, Mel? I mean, it's crazy. Greatest stock of all time, and every hedge fund scared you out of it. Is there anything about the AI trade in terms of the concerns that investors have brought to the fore about financing, about maybe component costs eating into margins, about the circular nature of all the financing that concerns you? At what point do you say, you know what, maybe there's a few questions that need to be answered here? These are not true lazy Susan deals because you're investing in the company and then NVIDIA invests in the company immediately.

16:11He gives an order to take that. But I'm worried about him. I'm worried about open AI. I think open AI is the biggest danger of the large cap. Of course, it's private because they're based on retail. They have they keep coming with the fastest growing, fastest growing. I don't like B to C. I like B to B. B to C is not sticky. And that's what they are. And what happens if they have a month where they don't gain twenty five, fifty million? What happens, I mean, you know, have you ever heard this term? I'm going to put it to you because he's a smart fellow. No, he's a smart guy. He's a Georgetown guy.

16:48No, this is not going to be good, though. It's called backstop. Yes, backstop. What does that mean there? It means you backstop. You got their back. In other words, I backstopped him. If he says something that's not particularly funny, then I'm going to backstop. You mean backstop like the government? Like what's their fire? It's like my credit policy. But you can't. Look, I've loved to walk back. I've said some things in my life, including in personal life. I would love to walk them back. They tend to stick. They do. Well, Altman doubled down on what Friar said. I know. Right? Well, you get a chance to take it.

17:18When I ask you, let's say you say something you curse right now, and I say, did you say that? And then you go back and you double down on the curse. It's tougher to take back. It really is harder. Jim, so you don't like B2C as it comes to AI. I love B2C. Anthropic. If you like B2B, then you've got to love Microsoft. No, I love B2B, and B2B is Microsoft. B2B is Anthropic for Google. Those are the good ones. and B2C is worrisome. Now, if you're doing what Zuckerberg is, you have to spend as much as you can and then tell people you're going to spend double because you're banking on Sam Altman saying, okay, that's the one I can't go after.

17:53And he has to protect himself because that's the easiest. I think social is the easiest. He already has a kind of a social product. So I think Zuckerberg's right to say, I'm going to spend more money than God. But I think the problem is Altman thinks he's God, so it's going to be a race. So let's say OpenAI does need some sort of government backstop. They stumble. They're in the private market, so it seems like it's okay. But what ripple effect would that have on the AI trade? Would we be looking at massive losses across the board when it comes to Meta, NVIDIA, AMD, you name it? Well, I think it depends on the way they, if they ever do it, a backstop, because we know that the president is fickle.

18:31Like that 15 % NVIDIA trade never really happened. And I have MP1 tomorrow morning on the 9. And if you put a floor underneath of what OpenAI needs, then OpenAI makes it. But I think it won't come to that. I just think they're going to have to slow the spend. They have to slow the spend. And that's what Zuckerberg wants. And that's how Meta goes. That's how Meta goes. That's 400 points. That's how Google is worth Berkshire Hathaway. And maybe Andy Jassy comes out and says, you know what, I don't have to spend fortunes anymore. And then Microsoft, B to B, goes and doubles. And that's the best one, though.

19:10Am I allowed to take Jim overseas very quickly? Of course, anywhere he wants to go. So it was last August, if you recall. I forgot my passport. I got my passport. It's funny you say that, because I happen to have one. Oh, my God, he's got it right here, just because I knew you'd say that. Was he on the run? Was he on the run? He was running for cover. He was on the run. So here we go. Right before our eyes, you have a yen that's weakening. You have rates going higher in a meaningful way in Japan. That is what we call an unhealthy relationship, right? Thoughts on the important, should we be talking about it, or are we making too much out of it by talking about it?

19:41No, look, because it's one of those things you're going to wake up one day and the market could be down five on it. We've seen that because people are totally unprepared. But you also have to remember, I mean, our economy is very big, very powerful, and there are a lot of companies that have real great, that do have lots of profits. They just tend not to be talked about because of the overshadowing of the seven. I mean, I was listening to you earlier talking about Tesla. And I'm saying that thing, that thing, which was a car company going from 400 to 200, is now an everything company. And that thing just can't be shot down.

20:14So I would say buy Tesla on a yen play. In other words, buy Teflon. Tesla became Teflon. I don't know how that happened. All right. By the way, we all have books on our desk. This is Jim's latest book, How to Make Money in Any Market. It is now available. It was on the New York Times bestseller list. Oh, thank you. So it's amazing. Amazing. A number one also on Amazon's list of top-selling stock market investing books. Thank you. Congratulations on your latest show. Thank you. And it's to get out of this morass where all we talk about is a Mag 7. Do some homework. I actually have stuff on Balance Sheet.

20:48My publisher I thought was going to be wearing. Because Balance Sheet is a... But I did it anyway. Can I say something about Jim Cramer? Of course you can. We came in. We'll come out. So, Andrew Rorsorkin, who we all love. Oh, yes. He wrote a great book. Yes. 1929. You're familiar. He brought us books. Did he? No. No. You could have called out on air. I just did. Now when he does 1930. Maybe he couldn't carry them all. They're very heavy books. Not only did Jim bring books, but he wrote everybody a very poignant insight and something that was real. Well, Chris, you people are real, and I love you, and I was not going to just give you a book and say, hey, check out page 139.

21:27No. Guy, I got a better message than you did, by the way. Yeah, I did. I'm going to keep it to myself because it's not fair. That was. That was. But that's because my wife knows you. It's an easy call. She's going to see you at a party. I'm a lucky man. Your husband is really, it'll be like a good, it'll be fabulous day for me. Hold on. Again, why are you wearing that suit? This was my stepson's graduation of Georgetown. I put it on and not worn it since. But I know there's some Georgetown folks here. Heavy Georgetown. Heavy Georgetown. Yep. Go Hoyas. Go Hoyas. Go Hoyas. Jim, it's always a pleasure.

21:57God, it was so much fun. We hope people come back. I think I've got to come back. You cannot be 19 years. I think I have to come back. I'm not kidding. You cannot be 19 years from now. It was too much fun. I'm sorry if I was a little disruptive, but it is B2B, and the problem is open AI, and we've got to get the younger people away from spaghetti. Yeah, you're here. Well, they're watching Mad Money, that's for sure. Well, let's hope so. Hopefully they're watching Fast Money, too. Let's hope so. Thank you, Jim. Thank you. Pure joy. Coming up, the apple doesn't fall far from the tree, or maybe does it.

22:25Details on the tech giant's Tim Cook succession plans and just how soon to expect a changing of the guard. Plus, Tesla has been stalling out recently, but could shares be about to rip higher? When one firm sees its robo-taxi rollout, charging up the stock, don't go anywhere. Fast Money is back in two.