In short
Fast Money episode focused on Nvidia’s GTC conference (Jensen Huang’s demand outlook), “when to buy the dip,” plus segments on Meta AI infrastructure/layoff speculation, Bitcoin strength, and market risk hedging amid Middle East tensions.
Guests (and backgrounds)
- Tony Wong, T. Rowe Price portfolio manager; oversees the firm’s Science and Technology Fund.
- Carter Braxton Worth, “Worth Charting” chart analyst; provides technical views on Meta.
- Stuart Kaiser, Citi head of equity trading strategy; discusses macro/positioning and hedging.
- (Also featured: CNBC hosts Tim Seymour, Karen Feinerman, Dan Nathan, Guy Adami; reporter Christina Parks Nevelis.)
Key claims
- Nvidia: Huang expects Blackwell + Vera Rubin orders to reach $1T through 2027; market liked initial spike but later gave back gains; debate centers on whether margins can stay ~73% as growth normalizes.
- Agentic AI shifts focus to lower token costs and “systems” (not just chips), plus networking/software stack.
- Meta: Reuters says hyperscaler could cut up to 20% workforce to offset AI spending; Meta shares jump; Nebius deal adds $12B upfront compute (up to $15B more).
- Bitcoin: rebounds toward ~$75k; Strategy adds ~23k BTC.
Notable examples
- Grok 3 shipping in 2H/Q3; Vera Rubin CPU on Arm; copper vs optical networking; “NemoTron” open-source autonomous-agent model.
- Optical/memory/storage names discussed: Lumentum, Sienna (optical), Micron/SanDisk/Western Digital (memory/storage).
- Technical examples: Meta “head-and-shoulders” risk; Lulu breaks a 2-week losing streak ahead of earnings.
Written by AI. May contain mistakes. Listen to the episode to check what was said.
Chapters
Tap a time to open that second in VONVIDIA's GTC Conference Highlights
1:44 to 3:59
Discussing key announcements and market reactions from the NVIDIA GTC.
“Come to you live from CEO of the Nasdaq.”
Market Interpretation of NVIDIA's Forecast
3:59 to 7:21
Analyzing the market's response to NVIDIA's growth forecasts and implications.
“The turnaround in the stock, granted it finished the day higher, was sort of dramatic in terms of the response.”
Competition and CPU Market Dynamics
7:21 to 8:45
Exploring NVIDIA's competition in the CPU market and implications for Intel.
“And when I think about it, you know, do it.”
Investor Sentiment and Future Prospects
8:45 to 14:01
Insights on investor sentiment, market trends, and NVIDIA's future outlook.
“Sandisk, Micron, Western Digit, it's all the same world.”
NVIDIA's Margin Sustainability Debate
14:01 to 16:40
Discussion on NVIDIA's ability to maintain high margins amidst changing market dynamics.
“and the longevity of, I would say, growth here.”
Market Insights on Memory and Optical Technologies
16:40 to 19:46
An analysis of critical areas in the tech market, especially memory and optical technologies, and their growth potential.
“And you heard, you know, NVIDIA, they're signing on BYD, Uber.”
Apple's Strategic Positioning and AI Potential
19:46 to 22:40
Discussion about Apple's spending patterns and the potential of its AI capabilities amidst low expectations.
“That's the one from Anthropic that you use, right?”
Political Climate and Its Impact on Markets
22:40 to 23:44
Overview of recent political developments and their implications for market dynamics, particularly involving China and Iran.
“where what people want to believe is that the U.S.”
Political Climate and Its Impact on Markets
24:59 to 25:15
Overview of recent political developments and their implications for market dynamics, particularly involving China and Iran.
“Every year, every Uber driver is background checked again, so the person picking you up today meets the same standards as the day they started.”
Meta's AI Ambitions and Employment Impact
25:18 to 28:01
Examination of Meta's AI infrastructure plans, layoffs, and market implications.
“MetaShares jumping over 2 % today after a Reuters report that the hyperscaler could lay off as much as 20 % of its workforce to offset AI spending plans.”
Show all 18 chapters
Meta's Challenges and Future
28:01 to 28:30
Discussion on Meta's current challenges and their urgent need to address them.
“I mean, so, I mean, listen, Meta's got to get those models working, you know.”
Market Overview and Upcoming Segments
28:30 to 29:00
Overview of upcoming segments focused on stocks, crypto, and market trends.
“Stocks rallying to start the week as investors await decisions from not one, not two, but four central banks.”
Bitcoin's Performance Amid Market Volatility
30:04 to 30:36
Analysis of Bitcoin's recent gains and its position in the crypto market.
“On any journey using Uber, it helps to know you're getting into the right car.”
Market Sentiment and Economic Factors
30:36 to 39:03
Discussion on market resilience amid economic pressures and oil price impacts.
“Bitcoin getting more than 3 % today, now up 7 % over the past week.”
Technical Analysis of MetaShares
39:03 to 42:00
Carter Braxton Worth analyzes Meta's stock performance and future risks.
“Let's say we're three more weeks from now.”
Analyzing Nvidia's Stock Patterns
42:00 to 43:38
Learn about the historical performance and current trends of Nvidia's stock.
“it goes all the way back to when the stock went from 100 to 800.”
Lululemon's Earnings and Market Position
43:38 to 45:42
Discuss the challenges Lululemon faces ahead of its earnings report.
“Lululemon snapping its longest losing streak on record.”
Final Trades and Shout-Outs
45:42 to 46:40
Catch the final trades and personal shout-outs from the hosts.
“Time for Final Trades and last shout-outs.”
Transcript
Automatic transcript. May contain errors.0:00At Edward Jones, we believe rich is more than caring about the latest and greatest. It's also taking care of what gives your life meaning. That's why your dedicated financial advisor meets you where you are, with personalized financial strategies that help protect what matters, so you can preserve your progress while creating a path forward. The key to being rich is knowing what counts. Let's find your rich together. Edward Jones, member SIPC.
0:30Melissa Lee:Are you as confident as you should be when it comes to growing your business? Is your strategy ready to execute today? If cash flows aren't where they need to be, growth could be at risk, especially in the eyes of your investors, board members, and the business press. But when your business is operating in top shape, you've earned the right to grow. EY Parthenon can help you reimagine your business and execute a game plan for long-term growth. EY Parthenon. Solutions that work in practice. not just on paper.
1:28Tim Seymour:Melts up, but the chart master says sell. Bitcoin bounces back toward a key level in the lowdown on Lulu. Shares of the ackleyger maker breaking their longest ever losing streak as it gets ready to report earnings. Will tomorrow's numbers help the stock stretch higher? Oh, boy. I'm Melissa Lee. Come to you live from CEO of the Nasdaq. On the desk tonight, Tim Seymour, Karen Feinerman, Dan Nathan, and Guy Adami. We start off with the latest out of NVIDIA's GTC. The chip giants closely watch developers conference. shares ending the day higher by more than a percent and a half, though had been up nearly five percent at the highs after CEO Jensen Wong said he expects Blackwell and Vera Rubin purchase orders to reach one trillion dollars, at least one trillion dollars through 2027.
2:08Tim Seymour:For all the key takeaways, let's get to Christina Parts Nevelis, who is on the ground in San Jose. Christina.
2:14Melissa Lee:Yeah, the CEO Jensen Wong speaking for two hours and 15 minutes straight and markets liked what they initially heard. That's how you saw the stock pop 5 % at first. But the CEO now saying he's certain demand will exceed$1 trillion through 2027. But shares actually gave back most of its initial jump. That number largely matched what buy side investors were already expecting. It didn't really show an acceleration in growth either for 2026 and 2027, I should say. On the products front, the Grok 3, a new chip designed specifically to make AI faster at generating responses was announced built on technology and video license from Grok for roughly$20 billion just last year.
2:53Melissa Lee:They said it's going to ship in the second half of this year, probably Q3. Then they spoke about the, or I should say the CEO spoke about Vera Rubin CPU built on arms architecture, already a multi-billion dollar business, according to the CEO. And he admits that he didn't actually see it coming, you know, the demand for CPUs. And that's why you saw The arm shares actually closed 5 % higher on that news. And then lastly on networking, he did say copper isn't going away, but that optical, which is using light as a source of speaking or allowing chips to speak to each other, is scaling in every direction.
3:26Melissa Lee:And then one last point, too, on the software front. Then he did talk about NemoTron, which is an open-source AI model for autonomous enterprise agents. The reason that matters is NVIDIA isn't just selling the chips anymore that run AI. It wants to own the models, the agents, the networking, and the storage tube. So essentially from silicon to software, NVIDIA's CEO is betting on the entire AI stack will run specifically on NVIDIA.
3:54Tim Seymour:Christina, thanks. Christina Parks and Nevelis in San Jose at GTC. The turnaround in the stock, granted it finished the day higher, was sort of dramatic in terms of the response.
4:05Melissa Lee:I think that's exactly right. I mean, we can talk about the numbers. It's a staggering number, clearly. But it's the way the market interpreted it. And then the subsequent price action. Initial spike made sense. And now I think even in the after hours, I think we're trading a little bit lower. We'll see. I don't want to liken this to what we heard from Oracle on September 10th of last year. And that huge move higher. And that subsequently was sort of a selling opportunity because the stock didn't move on the back of this. But it's somewhat like that. You know, this big announcement seemingly, I want to say out of nowhere because as Christina said, a lot of people were expecting this.
4:34Melissa Lee:But the price action is less than robust, in my opinion.
4:38Tim Seymour:Well, the forecast for 2026 through 2026 is$500 billion. So now they're saying a trillion through 2027, which implies another$500 billion in 2027, which is what kind of growth rate? It's not. Right, exactly. Right. Exactly. Yes, but, you know, Jensen is the master of under-promise, over-deliver. And I think, you know, so that was a little bit disappointing for the street, though. Normally, I don't pay such close attention to how something trades intraday. But this spiked up. And within like 10 or 15 minutes, maybe 15 minutes, it was already backed down. So I don't know whether that was, you know, algos that are just, you know, triggered and then it was straight up and then pretty much straight down.
5:22So I kind of ignore that. And, I mean, he also said things are growing at an accelerating pace, which, you know, that's a very bullish thing, right? Yes, but when you're trading in a multiple that they're trading at, and when you want to control as much of it as he does, I don't know. I think it's pretty compelling. I'm hanging on. So I'm glad you brought that up, because I said I was going to say to you smart people, how do you go from a 500 million estimate for the end of 20? Billion, billion. Sorry, yes, 500 billion at the end of 26 to a trillion at the end of 27 and feel that's a great number.
5:58And I think that's absolutely the turn. Now, we need to hear more. In fact, I thought this was like really do like a fiscal year or something, something. So, no, but if you're telling me that 27 is adding 500 billion onto a growth story, I think the key here is Grok and what we're actually getting in terms of inferencing and the opportunity that they feel they have there. and maybe also the place where they have a lot of competition or they could have a lot of competition. So I think it's important to stress where they really feel like they're one step ahead. And that's been kind of the story for NVIDIA.
6:30And also reinforcing the idea that they're selling systems, not chips. And that, I think, is very important as AI and the different places where AI is actually evolving continue on for them.
6:43Melissa Lee:On the inference side, I mean, we keep hearing this, right? CPUs, clusters of CPUs, they're much cheaper than GPUs, right? So you use the kind of, you know, the superpower GPU that takes a lot of energy, that costs a lot of money to train up those models. And then if we're going into this agentic phase and you're going to see really the cost of, you know, this measurement tokens come down pretty dramatically. You're already starting to see that. And I guess that's a good thing if you're a user of that compute. Right. Like you want to actually have access to it and build on top of that. So, you know, the story for NVIDIA, it doesn't get easier from here.
7:14Melissa Lee:I mean, the stock is telling you that, too. Investors are telling you that. It's gone sideways for, you know, now, what does it feel like, six, seven months or something like that? Six or seven. And so, what? And when I think about it, you know, do it.
7:26Tim Seymour:The six, seven. Yeah. Oh, come on. No, I don't want to do that. No, what do your kids say?
7:29Melissa Lee:What do your kids say? 7-11. 7-11. Okay. I just want to give them that. Is that where it's at? Because I don't know. I mean, I've heard six, seven. For six or seven months, the stock has basically gone sideways. And so, I think investors are looking for other ways to express these views. But, you know, pull up Broadcom, you know, doesn't act that much better. And when you think about just kind of where folks are going to be running to to kind of power that agentic build over the next couple of years, that's the takeaway. When you hear Jensen talk about it, this inflection point for computing and you go back to the Internet, right?
8:00Melissa Lee:It wasn't just the Internet that you made money on. It was the application layer. Right. And so that's the thing I think is going to be exciting, I think, for enterprise, obviously for consumers, too. I'm not sure NVIDIA wins the way they have since early 2023 as far as that build out over the next couple of years.
8:15Tim Seymour:So you go to Broadcom because they are the ones making the custom chips with various hyperscalers. And then the memory layer, all these chips require more memory per chip. And that's where you have the Micron story, Micron reporting, of course, on Wednesday. So that'll be a key for the market.
8:31Melissa Lee:On the 18th, obviously, we traded to levels today that we last saw back in February. We spiked higher and did it on a decent volume day. I think it traded about 40 million shares. We typically trade about 30. So everything's OK, folks. Nothing broke. So we'll see what Micron has to say. Sandisk, Micron, Western Digit, it's all the same world. Obviously, they're telling their own story right now. They're seemingly the winners of this whole thing. But again, to Tim's point, the price action and the guide might not have been as robust as the market wanted to hear. And it seems like another loser here is Intel.
9:02Now, I realize we already have seen their CPU business be eroded, and it's certainly been AMDs. But the reversal on Intel, too, I mean, I'm not sure exactly what fundamentals Intel trades on anymore. But at one point, this stock was up 6%. So, I mean, I just think this general purpose CPU announcement out of NVIDIA, either they could be friend, not foe. This could be a case where they've discussed a working relationship. But I do think you have to consider what this also means for Intel and what they're able to do or what they're not able to do without really partnering up. For me, I'm looking at Dell, right?
9:36We've talked before about how is memory going up so much, but why is Dell going down? Because the cost inputs, but the demand is there as well. So I like Dell here.
9:45Tim Seymour:So let's say that NVIDIA's growth is challenge at this point. Are we about to play a game? I feel like you're leading into a game. It sounds like right on the verge of one. It's not a game. This is not a game. This is real life. If we are at a point where NVIDIA is slowing its growth because there's, you know, TPUs being used and developed elsewhere outside of the NVIDIA ecosystem by hyperscalers themselves, perhaps, then what should that multiple be? Well, the multiple is reasonable. I don't think it's. But that's my point. But it's a margin.
10:21Melissa Lee:If the margins contract, then the multiple, which is reasonable now, ceases to become reasonable. So that's the story here. The multiple has been fine for quite some time. Karen, Tim, even Dan points that out. It's very reasonable. What's not necessarily reasonable is the expectations that they're going to enjoy 75 percent gross margins in perpetuity.
10:40Tim Seymour:So what does a multiple reflect then? Does it already reflect the world in which potentially it starts slowing its growth and loses to TPU development by various hyperscalers? I don't think we can say it doesn't. I mean, how can you trade it 22 times forward without some sense with the kind of growth we still have here, even in a less than extraordinary announcement about end of 27? You can't tell me what the stock has done. It's been, I think, more about margin. We know how far out in front they are. We know also the deals they're cutting to be an AI infrastructure company, not just a chip company.
11:19So that sounds like business, by the way. That's not as high a margin. That, to me, is why you are trading where you are.
11:26Melissa Lee:You want to talk multiples? I mean, Karen, you're Microsoft. It was on the cover of Barron's. I mean, that's amazing, right? Too cheap. But look at this thing. It's come in, what, 30 percent or almost that sort of thing. It's trading at about, you know, 21 times next year, mid-teens earnings and sales growth expected. And, you know, I mean, Azure. OK, we get it. We get where it sits here and all that sort of stuff. And we get the potential uptake of, you know, co-pilots and stuff. I mean, it seems like they have some interesting leverage to pull. It goes back to what are investors? Why are they just not buying any of it?
11:54Melissa Lee:You know, it's just one of those things like you keep talking about bubble. Well, maybe the bubbles burst because the companies that actually had been spending hundreds of billions of dollars before we just start to get this trillion dollar number out in video. Maybe they've gotten to a point where the clouds are there. They're loaded with the models. Right. They just need the customers to come in and use them. And that's the whole point about the agent move. So no one can put their finger on that. And it's not a consumer thing. It's not a consumer thing where people are paying for these chatbots$20 a month.
12:22Melissa Lee:It really has to come from enterprise. And until we see that, because I know we're going to talk about Meta, you know, these companies are cutting jobs. They're not cutting jobs right now because they're anticipating all the productivity gains they're going to get from this. They don't know just yet. So I think the job cutting is really important. to a lot of these stocks, they're acting very poorly. It seems like investors are speaking that they're waiting for this last bastion, which is the memory and the storage. At some point, that will peak out because it's all going to get to a point where we're just in a massive digestion phase.
12:51Melissa Lee:And I think at least most of this sort of ecosystem, at least in the stock market, is telling you that right now.
12:56Tim Seymour:For more on NVIDIA, let's bring in T. Rowe Price Portfolio Manager Tony Wong. He oversees the firm Science and Technology Fund. Tony, great to have you with us. I trust you heard parts of our discussion here. And putting in context the move or the lack of movement in video stock over this past six months, did you hear anything from GTC today, from Jensen Huang, that makes you believe the stock deserves to break out of this range? Yeah, well, I think that what I'm looking at is two things, essentially. One is the demand and the supply and the platform improvements. And so if you look at the demand part of it, I think what is really exciting is Claude and then also OpenClaw.
13:36And just this move to Agentec really is, I think, a profound change. And I think that's what the market is trying to struggle with. They're seeing huge amounts of growth. But then at the same time, they're just kind of worried about the terminal value of the company. And so what I look to then is just the improvement in the NVIDIA systems. And you're seeing that the next platforms are improving token costs by 3 to 10x. And so to me, that's what's important for the company. and the longevity of, I would say, growth here.
14:05Tim Seymour:Do you think, though, they can hold on to margins? I mean, I think the last quarter's margins were 73 percent or somewhere high. And as the world moves towards inferencing and the emphasis on inferencing, can NVIDIA keep up those margins? Yeah, absolutely. So I definitely think so. And why is because their gross margin essentially is a function of their token costs in their ROI for their customer. And so when they're pushing that frontier, they're the lowest cost provider and driving through the throughput of the token as well as the cost. I think that's what allows them to capture the superior gross margin.
14:43And at the same time, you look at like what it takes to drive performance. It's more of this like scale, massive scaled system, rack solution, building more of the cluster in the data center. So to me, I was really bullish after hearing what they're building.
14:59Melissa Lee:Tony, in your coverage universe, what name don't we talk about enough, in your opinion? Not just this show, the network in general. Well, I think what's really interesting, you look at the roadmap for NVIDIA. Essentially, where the bottlenecks are developing, essentially, is memory and on-report. And Jensen talked about KB Cash and the importance of storage and understanding the context for these models and proving. So I think there's areas like NAND, for example, that's gone from more with mines and now more strategic. And then also optical, you guys talked about a little bit here, too. But just this idea that we need to have better connections, you know, using new technology.
15:38So I think like Lumentum or Sienna, for example, are areas where you're going to see a lot of growth. There's probably a shortage for the multi-year here. Tony, it's Karen. Thanks for being on. So when we think about the NVIDIA story, if we were to look down the road a little bit and see them having a wider array of products with different margins from the very high to somewhat lower. I mean, you look at Oracle, it's different. It's a very cautionary tale of what happens when you add revenues at a very low margin that ultimately doesn't work out. But to me, that doesn't seem to be the NVIDIA story.
16:10How do you think it plays out there with them expanding where they are? Yeah, definitely. I think NVIDIA and Oracle are pretty different. I think Oracle, you know, there's questions around the balance sheet and the R-line. But in terms of NVIDIA, I mean, they have tremendous cash flow. In addition, I think what you think about NVIDIA's competitive advantage is all their domain expertise and vertical libraries. And you're seeing that more and more of these agentic solutions are building on NVIDIA. And then also when you think about what's next, essentially it's agentic and then robotics, physical AI.
16:41And you heard, you know, NVIDIA, they're signing on BYD, Uber. And so people are building on NVIDIA and all these new frontiers is what I'm really excited about. And, you know, the custom stuff, there will be custom chips. But, you know, NVIDIA is really pushing the frontier of where the next areas of, I would say, inflection are. Tony, so let's talk about optical. Let's talk about memory, places where I know you're bullish. And yet we've struggled now with the concept of what has always been a very commoditized business. I realize it's not commoditized in the same way, but supply response and moats around the business of the names that you are bullish on.
17:19Help us get more comfortable with that and or push back on those that say this is a bubble. Well, first of all, the industry is going to continue to be sick of all. And so there's nothing that's just going to go up and right. We will see volatility. But if you look out over the multi-year, I do think that this is a new TAM that, you know, NAND does not really see. And so it's just generally used to mobile and PCs. And now we have these new LLMs that require a ton of NAND on their models. And so to me, that's like an area where you just look at how much, you know, we need in terms of the tokens.
Read the full transcript
17:57And as a result, like, it actually can consume a lot of the world's NAND capacity. In addition, there's not a lot of clean room space coming online. So they have to build it. There's a lag there. And so the cycle could be prolonged. And I think that what I'm looking for is agentic and physical AI, because that's stuff that's not in people's models.
18:16Tim Seymour:Tony, great to speak to you. Thank you. Great. Thanks. Tony Wong. And do not miss Jim Cramer's exclusive interview with NVIDIA CEO Jensen Huang. That is tomorrow starting 1010 a.m. Eastern Time on Squawk on the Street. You can catch more from that interview tomorrow, 6 p.m. on Mad Money. So that will be a great interview to listen to. The whole idea about memory and adding capacity, it sort of reminds me of GLP-1s. I don't know why. Like, the TAM is ever expanding. Everybody's going to want these drugs. It's going to take a long time to get the capacity on. And then the capacity came, and then the demand wasn't necessarily there as strongly as everybody thought.
18:50Well, these are fat valuations, Melissa.
18:52Tim Seymour:I mean, it's completely different.
18:53Melissa Lee:But we've been talking about this, it feels like, for three years, right? So if you think about it, so the NVIDIA chips and all the memory and the storage, they go into the server, right? The server goes into the rack. The rack goes into the data center. The data centers all trains the models. Well, most everything that we just talked about has pretty much rolled over. You know what I mean? And so I just think that at some point that's going to happen. I think I bet you my tip of my pinky on the sand is thing. Your pinky ring that you wear. Yeah. Oh, you can have the ring. That's fine. I want it.
19:19Melissa Lee:You know, one thing I think is really interesting. We don't talk about Apple anymore. And I think Apple is going to be really interesting when we get to June, to their developers conference. Because this is a company, we don't talk about their CapEx. If these other companies are spending 25, 30 percent of their revenue, Apple spends like 4 percent. Sounds like a silver lining is creeping in here, man. A little bit. I mean, I'm just saying, I'd love to see this thing get creamed. And like, you know, think about this. There we go. There's a little bit. I guess not. You know, I was out last night and some guy says to me, give me your phone.
19:46Melissa Lee:And he's like, you got Claude. And I said, yeah, I got Claude. That's the one from Anthropic that you use, right? And he says, he goes, speak into it and say, what are the emails I need to respond to in my Gmail? And what do I have on my calendar for tomorrow? So I do that. It's on my iPhone. It gives me the whole thing. Okay. Now, Siri's been on these iPhones for 15 years, and they have not figured this out. And the app that I pay$20 a month that does a lot of stuff for me is doing that on an iPhone. It's going into my email. It's going to my calendar. It has access to all of your information.
20:15Melissa Lee:But that's the good thing for Apple. I just want to say that because their whole thing is security. Right. And it's going to be on the edge. that sort of thing. So to me, I think Apple is setting up because we have such low expectations for Siri and Apple intelligence. I think you'd be a winner this year.
20:27Tim Seymour:That is a silver lining in the end. He wants to see a cream, but it was a silver lining in the end. All right. Meantime, the conflict in the Middle East entering its third week. We'll get more on Iran in just a minute. But first, President Trump just a few minutes ago confirming what Scott Besson told her Brian Sullivan about his meeting with China's Xi Jinping. Eamon Javers has got the details on this. Amen.
20:48Melissa Lee:Yeah, Melissa, that's right. The president just wrapped up a lengthy session with reporters in the Oval Office. And he said in that conversation that he thinks the China meeting, which was scheduled for the end of this month, is going to have to be pushed off. He said because of the war, he wants to be here, that is in Washington, D.C., and not traveling to Beijing. So he said he'll push it off a little bit. Not clear what the make-up dates are. I've been trying to pin down some options from Treasury and the White House throughout the day today. Not clear exactly how long this is going to be pushed off.
21:21Melissa Lee:But for those people in the market who've been looking for that meeting as an inflection point at the end of this month, it looks like it's not going to happen.
21:31Tim Seymour:Eamon, is there any indication that maybe the relationship has frayed a little bit because of what's going on in Iran?
21:39Melissa Lee:Well, look, I mean, it's clear that the Chinese are deeply impacted by what's going on in Iran. They are close to the Iranians. And it's also clear that this request by the president for the Chinese to send their navy into the Persian Gulf sort of upends decades of U.S. diplomacy toward China. And I'm not sure the Chinese necessarily know what to make of it. Do they want to globalize their navy? The U.S. has always said they don't want the Chinese taking their navy out of port and getting involved in conflicts around the world. Now the American president is asking them to do that. That's a very different situation than, you know, was sort of in the cards months ago when this meeting was agreed to.
22:21Melissa Lee:And so you can see why from the Chinese side, you know, they might want to back away from this and see where everything settles.
22:27Tim Seymour:Eamon, thank you. Eamon Javers from D.C. Interesting developments here, Tim. Yeah, I mean, I won't get around the politics of having Chinese battleships in the Middle East. But boy, you know, I played that game growing up and didn't go well. I just think you've got a dynamic where what people want to believe is that the U.S. is working with China to get oil around the world, that for people, this is a strategic problem and that that's where the U.S. is actually looking to help. This doesn't help that. And I will just say, I think we are escalating the conflict and it's hard to believe that Iran is the country in the world that controls the energy market.
23:02Melissa Lee:Short positions and crude are going up. And before we go, So this is important. You know, we have fans all over the place, as you know.
23:07Tim Seymour:Sure, around the world, in fact.
23:09Melissa Lee:Yeah. And we have a lot of fans at the University of North Carolina. Their women's soccer team, 23-time national championship. Our show has become like the show for their team, believe it or not. They're watching right now. I'm not even making this up. Really?
23:23Tim Seymour:I don't believe it.
23:25Melissa Lee:Shout out to UNC Women's Soccer. There you go. Absolutely. I didn't believe it.
23:29Tim Seymour:Coming up, Metta's AI ambitions, what the company's massive CapEx plans could mean for headcount and how its latest infrastructure deal is impacting the stock, plus crypto climbing back to next move for Bitcoin as it nears$75 ,000 and how it's faring against the broader market. Don't go anywhere. Fast Money is back in two.
23:52At Venture Global, we think about what can be done, not what's usually done. Through innovation, Venture Global is not only building some of the largest energy facilities in the world right here in the United States, but delivering American energy at a fraction of the cost and a fraction of the time. So while others are busy talking, we're busy building. That's Venture Global. That's unstoppable energy. It's smart to always have a few financial goals and a really smart one you can set, earning cash back on what you buy every day. And with Discover, you can. Get this. Discover automatically matches all the cash back you've earned at the end of your first year.
24:38Seriously, all of it. And we trust you to make smart decisions. After all, you listen to this show. See terms at discover.com slash credit card. At Uber, every single driver is required to pass a thorough background check before they can start driving. That means any prospective driver goes through a multi-step screening process, checking for any impaired driving or criminal offenses. But the checks don't stop there. Every year, every Uber driver is background checked again, so the person picking you up today meets the same standards as the day they started. Hey, how's it going?
25:09Tim Seymour:Yeah, good. Thanks. Annual driver screenings from Uber. One more way Uber is putting safety at every turn. Learn more at uber.com slash safety. Welcome back to Fast Money. MetaShares jumping over 2 % today after a Reuters report that the hyperscaler could lay off as much as 20 % of its workforce to offset AI spending plans. spending plans that just grew by$27 billion. The company also inkiing an AI infrastructure deal with data and cloud services provider Nebius, whose shares jumped 15 % on the news. The deal includes$12 billion in upfront computing capacity spent across multiple data centers with the potential of up to$15 billion in additional compute.
25:47Tim Seymour:But it's the reports, and we should say it's reports because Meta spokesperson said it's speculation, the reports of the layoffs that are really interesting, I think. The last time they had layoffs was the year of efficiency. The year of efficiency, right. Yes, I think that's clearly what the market liked. As to the nebbiest part, I don't know if that's included in the very significant$100 to$30 billion that they're expecting to spend. I don't know. Let's just say it's in there already and all of this move today is on this expectation of 20 percent. I think the street would like it. You know, these are people's jobs.
26:26You would like it. but I think it would trade well. I think it would also, you would also see extrapolation, people extrapolating to others as well, right? Who else on the street would be, who else on the street could cut significantly like that, which gets you then into that whole dynamic, oh, wow, what's going to happen to employment? Yes, that's, but for, I mean, the dollar saved translates so quickly versus the dollar spent in CapEx are of - Not close. Unknown, right? And when? unknown how much and what. Yeah, I was going to say, I mean, if you start to do the math, the analyst community was hard at work doing that and said this could be$5 to$6 billion of savings.
27:06You know, I think they get a lot. It's not a lot. No, I think they get a lot more in terms of a market cap reaction. Right, right. That would be 10 times that or more if they just talked about efficiency. And, you know, they also have the delay of their frontier model announced on Friday. I mean, there's different pieces of news flow here. And, of course, people will also want to read this into the job market at a time when people are very concerned.
27:30Melissa Lee:Yeah. You want to get a market cap pop or market reaction is like get those models working right and get them working outside the Meadow ecosystem. And, you know, we saw that with Google last year with Gemini, you know, like I mean, obviously they have their cloud business and they've been spending more than Meta. But Meta is picking up right now. I mean, you know, Gemini is across what, six or seven, you know, multibillion dollar platforms on Google. but it's also getting uptake outside of that. They did the deal with Apple, who we know that we like a little bit, maybe. We think that could be a good one, Tim, you know, for this year.
28:01Melissa Lee:I mean, so, I mean, listen, Meta's got to get those models working, you know. I mean, it's that simple, and they've spent hundreds of millions of dollars hiring talent to do it. One thing, Meta doesn't want this story hanging out there either way, if it's true or it's not true. True, yeah. If it's true, right, you've got people scared, whatever, you've got to just do it as quickly as possible instead of just leaving it out there.
28:21Tim Seymour:Yeah, good point there. We'll have much more in meta later in the show. The chart master is digging into the technicals to tell us where he sees the stock going. There's a lot more Fast Money to come. Here's what's coming up next. Stocks rallying to start the week as investors await decisions from not one, not two, but four central banks. How our next guest is positioning now and what he needs to see before believing the bounce. But first, crypto shifting back into drive. How Bitcoin is standing out amid the market volatility. and whether the token can get back to six figures this year. You're watching Fast Money, live from the NASDAQ market side in Times Square.
29:00We're back right after this.
29:09Never bet against American grit or American energy. Through innovation, Venture Global is not only building some of the largest energy facilities in the world right here in the United States, but delivering American energy at a fraction of the cost and a fraction of the time. So while others are busy talking, we're busy building. That's Venture Global. That's unstoppable energy.
29:38It's smart to always have a few financial goals. And a really smart one you can set? Earning cash back on what you buy every day. And with Discover, you can. Get this. Discover automatically matches all the cash back you've earned at the end of your first year. Seriously, all of it. And we trust you to make smart decisions. After all, you listen to this show. See terms at discover.com slash credit card. On any journey using Uber, it helps to know you're getting into the right car. Pin verification adds an extra step to make sure your ride is your ride. Before the trip begins, your app gives you a unique pin.
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30:35Tim Seymour:Welcome back to Fast Money. Bitcoin getting more than 3 % today, now up 7 % over the past week. The token hitting its highest level since February 4th. Other cryptocurrencies seeing even bigger gains. Ether up more than 10%. 10 percent in crypto proxies like strategy and Coinbase also higher. Well, the markets were up. So yes, although crypto really has some making up to do, especially when you look at what's happened to gold this in the last year. But I think, you know, expectation, the hope of clarity at some point. And I don't know, oversold that cycle now seems to be turning with strategy no longer.
31:12I don't know what you would call it in distress. Right.
31:15Melissa Lee:They bought another 23 ,000-odd Bitcoin. They just announced it today. So they're probably up to about 730 ,000 at an average price of probably 76 ,000-ish. So they continue to buy. This level right here is where we failed at now a couple times on the bounces from the mid-60s. Let's see what happens now.
31:32Tim Seymour:Coming up, holding off and buying the dip, what City's Stu Kaiser needs to see in the market before putting more money to work. And will he be buying amid any weakness? Do not go anywhere. Fast Money is back in two.
31:46Melissa Lee:As America celebrates its 250th anniversary, CNBC spotlights the companies that rose with the nation and continue to shape its future. I'm Bill Ford, Executive Chair of Ford Motor Company, a company that my great-grandfather Henry Ford founded in 1903. Through his innovations on the vehicle and most importantly the assembly line, he really helped create the middle class in America and he gave the average American the freedom of mobility that they didn't have prior to the Model T. Most people never traveled more than 25 miles from home in their entire lifetime. I think what it did for America was allowed people to choose where they lived and where they played.
32:37Melissa Lee:Prior to the assembly line, cars were hand-built and you could make just a few a day. And all of a sudden now you were making 20, 30, 40, 50 an hour. And that changed everything. It brought the price down. It made it so that the average American could actually own one. And it really changed the way all manufacturing in America was done. He also doubled the average wage of the day to$5 a day. And he began profit charity so his own workers could then afford the vehicles that they were making. We were the arsenal of democracy in two world wars. Fast forward to when COVID hit, we transformed our plants to making PPE equipment.
33:20Melissa Lee:Once again, we've proved to the country that our industrial know-how is something that the country benefits from. What's made us a great company is we have so many multi-generational employees, dealers, suppliers that have been with us for our entire journey. And we want to continue that well into the future. If you look back at our last 250 years, it's been an amazing run for our country. And when I look ahead, that same opportunity is ahead of us, but we have to come together as people. And I believe if we do that, our future will be every bit as bright as our past.
34:02Tim Seymour:Welcome back to Fast Money. Stocks rallying to start the week as oil prices pulled back, the Dow jumping nearly 400 points, the S &P climbing 1 percent, the Nasdaq leading the gains up nearly one and a quarter percent, crude settling more than 5 percent lower. Well, Citi isn't buying today's market strength and warns there's more trouble ahead. Stuart Kaiser is behind the call as the firm's head of equity trading strategy. Stu, great to have you with us. Good to be here. Nothing seems capitulatory, that's for sure. I mean, in terms of the action that we've seen so far, is that why? Yeah, I think, I mean, you're in a situation where just, you know, oil price is driving the market right now and it's probably going to drive the market on a go forward basis.
34:37And what's going to get you more downside is if the front month move in oil or the short date of moving oil translates into something that looks like a little more long lasting. I think the good news here is the bar for bad news is very high, right? If we had given you the list of the headlines two weeks ago, you would have expected equity markets to be significantly lower. So it is a high bar, but that tail risk is significant, and we're just not comfortable owning equities with that tail risk hanging out there.
35:00Tim Seymour:Why do you think the markets have been so immune or resilient or maybe complacent about the closure of the Strait of Hormuz, which has always been a black swan, I mean, a known black swan event that's actually happened? I think, number one, we're pretty well hedged going into this. Number two, we could debate the magnitude of the moves, but the relative order of performance, I think, makes a whole lot of sense. So you've got positioning got attacked, and that was why your sort of memory stocks, Korea, traded off. It's why software has gotten covered. And then the market's gone after anything that is really negatively exposed to higher shipping costs and higher energy costs.
35:36And that's going to be Japan. It's going to be Europe. It's going to be transports in the U.S. It's going to be consumer durable. It's going to be emerging markets. So, again, like the magnitudes might not be as big as you might expect at the S &P level. But a lot of those other markets are down 6%, 8%, 10%. So I think the market's done a pretty good job of sorting out winners and losers, though to your point, it probably hasn't punished the S &P quite enough yet. And that's where I wanted to go because you have had, if you look at Europe, they're down almost 10%, emerging down 7%. S &P's down a couple.
36:03NASDAQ's actually outperformed. But the fact that you have had a capitulation in sentiment, right? I mean, 10 days ago, people were like, ah, this isn't that big a deal. Now they are worried. Sometimes, you know, that coupled with oversized moves to those trades that were rotations that did make sense. Does that mean even could those be nibbles? Because capitulation maybe has happened on sentiment and they've had oversized moves. It definitely could be. You know, we've seen a little bit of nibbling, a little bit on airlines, a little bit on tech, a little bit on Korea, for instance. But it's been it's been fairly limited.
36:34I think if you ask me, like, I'm not comfortable owning Europe as sort of a bounce back candidate. But I think Korea makes a lot of sense. I think materials in the U.S. makes a lot of sense. I think some of your AI bottlenecks that we structurally like that have sold off make some sense. But again, it's pretty limited. And frankly, the stuff you like just hasn't sold off enough. You look at the chart and it's like, where's the dip? And I think that's kind of keeping people on the sidelines a little bit, even though, again, the bar is extremely high. I mean, it's crazy the headlines we've seen in the market just kind of shrugs them off.
37:04So there's always black swans, whether or not we know they're there or, you know, they're sort of known swans now, I guess. But so the VIX hanging out here, 23 and a half, you would be long VIX there because you think there's more black swans to raise their heads? It's a great question. I mean, the VIX and the VVIX, which is basically the call of VIX call option, are extremely, extremely high. Oil volatility is extremely, extremely high. And again, I think that's one of the reasons. That's been a buffer for the market, I think, that that hedging was kind of already in place. Owning VIX here, you know, 23, it's a little tough.
37:36It looks a little bit. It's expensive relative to how the market's behaving. It's probably a little cheap if you expect to L risk. So I think you have to have a good amount of conviction that you're going to get another pullback here. If I had to hedge, I'd probably do either VIX upside or actually maybe just S &P puts. Because if this kind of goes sideways, the S &P is ultimately going to have to catch down some of these other assets. But it's tough. I mean, the cost of hedging is, I don't want to call it prohibitive, but it's a sticker shock if you look at it right now.
38:03Melissa Lee:So Tim has brought this up. The strength of the dollar, is that a flight to quality or something more going on? Is it sustainable? I think it's a little bit of flight to quality and it's a little bit of positioning, probably. I mean, it's the only, quote unquote, safe haven that's worked, right? Because gold was so heavily owned that that's come under positioning pressure. The same thing has happened to the bond market due to inflation risk. So it's kind of a hedge or safe haven of last resort. Is it sustainable? Look, I think if things calmed down, you would expect some of the previous trends to kind of reestablish themselves.
38:34The caveat being that labor market report was ugly. And the question, I think, is if Iran calms down, do we go back to that cyclical trade or are people spooked enough by the labor market report that they don't? And if they're spooked by the labor market report, I think, you know, the dollar can kind of remain remain pretty solid here. If it's just, you know, risk on, then the dollar is going to sell off, I think.
38:55Tim Seymour:So great to see you. Thank you for coming by, Stuart Kaiser. What do you think? And what if we're three weeks in now? Right. and President Trump has said four weeks, a few weeks, whatever. Let's say we're three more weeks from now. Oil prices are basically where they are. Does that cause the market to break? Like what truly breaks the market that's only, what, four plus percent from all time highs?
39:17Melissa Lee:We're going to be in earnings season pretty soon. And I suspect a lot of the companies that drive a lot of the performance are just going to do fine. You know, we just despite the labor market, despite, you know, some of the disruptions that we have in supply chains and the like. And, you know, I take it another way. In the next week or so, if we had the administration basically saying we negotiated a ceasefire, the Stratto-Hermuzes opened, we won, I think the stock market, I think the S &P is at 7 ,000, probably on its way higher. And again, because there's so much negative sentiment about so many of these groups underneath the hood, I just think you're going to see.
39:50Melissa Lee:What's the term you just used, Tim? Nibbling? Nibbling? I think it's going to go from nibbling. You did use it. No, I really don't remember. I'm sorry. Those trading terms that I do rattle off, including nibbling. I think it's going to be something more than that. I think it might be a gorging or something like that. Well, I'm looking a little Miss Sunshine. Well, I just, you know, I think they're going to rip. I agree. That could happen. And then when you think about the VIX at 23, everyone's all hedged up. Stuart just told us that. You take those hedges off and you're going to get a little upside action.
40:19I think so. I do. You know, we always talk about this administration who really looks at the stock market as a gauge of performance and they don't like to have negative performance and certainly not going into a meeting with China. Oh, China's, yeah. First and then midterms. But you can roll back tariffs, but you can't roll back, you know, igniting the Middle East.
40:38Tim Seymour:Well, there's another party here actually involved in war, right? There's another side. They can't just be like, it's off. Coming up, we dug into the latest headlines, Moving Meta, but are the technicals telling a different story? Where the chart master sees the tech giant heading next when Fast Money returns.
41:01Tim Seymour:Welcome back to Fast Money. MetaShares bouncing today, but the chart master is not impressed. Carter Braxton Worth, Worth Charting, joins us on set here to chart the stock. Carter, what do you see? Sure, let's get right to it. So obviously the seventh biggest stock in the S &P at 2.3 percent. But let's look at the charts. We've got six in a row. They're always identical time frame, but just different ways to draw the lines. This has no lines, but what is quite, I think, clear is the topping formation that's been in effect. The market makes a new high in January. So did the Qs, but this hasn't made a high for six months.
41:34Now, let's annotate it. Next chart, there's the sort of official. You'll see it here coming up, head and shoulders, and that's not great. Look at the next iteration. We also have this sort of minor formation. This picks up the lows associated with tariffs. We broke that level on Friday. That's not a good circumstance. If we were to extend this line back, next chart, it goes all the way back to when the stock went from 100 to 800. Think about that. 100 to 800, and it's been stalling and rolling ever since. Next iteration, if we keep that long-term trend line in, put the head and shoulders top back in.
42:16And key here is the poor relative strength. Again, market makes a new high in January. Stock does not. Qs make a new high. Stock does not. Final chart, instead of using trend lines, using the smoothing mechanism, the 150-day moving average. We know that a stock that bottoms is called a bearish-to-bullish reversal buy. A stock that tops is called a bullish-to-bearish reversal sell. The 150-day moving average has turned over. We're sellers here, and we think there's plenty of downside.
42:45Tim Seymour:Plenty of downside. Carter, thanks. Great to see you. Carter Braxton Worth, worth charting. Would you agree, Guy? Are you concerned about the plenty of downside?
42:52Melissa Lee:Yeah, well, he makes a good point. The stock is not traded well now. It's August. Now, we had that bounce in November from 575 to 640. That was pretty robust. But since then, it's been anemic in a word. Valuation is not the problem. But the head and shoulders formation into earnings when April 29th, which is a ways away. That's got to be a little bit concerning.
43:10Tim Seymour:Coming up, Lulu getting out of its downward dog.
43:13Melissa Lee:Oh, boy.
43:14Tim Seymour:Breaking in more than two-week losing streak, but will tomorrow's earnings report keep the stock doing sun salutations? And here's a sneak peek at the Kramer cam. Jim is chatting exclusively with Michael Dell. Catch a full interview top of the hour on Mad Money. More Fast Money in two.
43:37Tim Seymour:Welcome back to Fast Money. Lululemon snapping its longest losing streak on record. The stock breaking out of an 11-day downward dog that chopped 15 % off the stock price. This just in time for tomorrow's earnings report. The stock is down nearly 50 % over the past year. Karen, what do you think? There's an activist involved here. Yeah, I'm not long, but I would not be short. I mean, this stock has not traded at this level. Granted, a lot of things have gone wrong and there's intense competition. But I just think the risk-reward at this level, I'd much rather be long. I think you can run the risk of over-trading this one.
44:15By the way, we did a shout-out to the Carolina girls soccer team. Shout-out to Rick Morrison, my fantasy baseball league, who over-trades all the time.
44:24Tim Seymour:Is this a show of random shout-outs? It felt like it was the right time. I just think you have to be careful about Lulu. Pressing this short at these levels, even though I think all of the peers are shorts.
44:36Melissa Lee:Nike, this thing just fell off a cliff, and it's getting back towards those April tariff lows. Obviously, there are a lot of headwinds there. But to me, this one was like 80 down to 54. That looks kind of interesting. And by the way, we have Ishmael here. Shout out to Ishmael. Ishmael has a shout out. He's a total man. We're giving them away. We have a minute to the show. Huge fan of the show.
44:53Tim Seymour:Highest bidder. Call me Ishmael. Do you have anything intelligent to say about the athletes? St. Patrick's Day is tomorrow, by the way.
45:01Melissa Lee:It is. Any shout outs to pre-green? He doesn't wear the concert to the concert. But you know why I wore this? You know why I wore this today? Because if you recall, the last time that Tim and I were together, you came at me, when was the last time you wore that shirt? Yesterday? Was that from your closet from 1980s? So I figured I'd pull something else new out. At least the 80s. I think it's still from the 80s, though. No, this probably is from the 80s. That's a wide tie. Guy, do you have anything interesting to say about Lululemon? Not really. Not really, but I'm glad Dan put up Nike in competition.
45:32Melissa Lee:But this is what I think you want to happen. They miss, they guide lower, you gap lower, and then you come in on the long side against an activist that's going to make noise.
45:41Tim Seymour:Up next, Final Trades.
45:55Tim Seymour:Time for Final Trades and last shout-outs. Tim. By the way, Rick spelled R-I-K. He's going to trick his way out of first place this year in fantasy. Going. Karen, my daughter Kate, a surprise visit. Even though she's in school. Shout out to Kate. Shout out to Kate. And a shout out to Citibank and Jane Brasher. I like Citibank. Dan.
46:17Melissa Lee:Nike, like it here. 50 stop to the downside.
46:20Tim Seymour:No shout out?
46:21Melissa Lee:Who gave a lot of shout out? Who said it? Guy? Do you have a trade? A shout out? I like SLB Corp. By the way, my mom is watching. Oh, hold on. Nathan.
46:33Tim Seymour:Huge shout out. My mom is watching too. Mr. and Mrs. Seymour, let's do this. All right, thanks for watching Fast Money. To all of you, Mad Money starts right now. All opinions expressed by the Fast Money participants are solely their opinions and do not reflect the opinions of CNBC or its parent company or affiliates and may have been previously disseminated by them on television, radio, internet, or another medium. You should not treat any opinion expressed on this podcast as a specific inducement to make a particular investment or follow a particular strategy, but only as an expression of an opinion.
47:03Such opinions are based upon information the Fast Money participants consider reliable, but neither CNBC nor its affiliates and or subsidiaries warrant its completeness or accuracy, and it should not be relied upon as such.
47:12Tim Seymour:To view the full Fast Money Disclaimer, please visit cnbc.com forward slash Fast Money Disclaimer.
47:17Melissa Lee:I want to grow the game so every kid can fall in love with soccer like I did. So I asked myself, what would you like the power to do? My answers inspired me to invent a pop-up soccer goal that can turn any basketball court into a street soccer pitch. Bank of America champion street soccer advocate, Kyle Martino, and everyone who dares to ask, what would you like the power to do? Bank of America, proud to be the official bank of U.S. soccer and FIFA World Cup 2026. Bank of America N.A. Member FDSC.
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All eyes on Nvidia, as the chip giant kicks off its GTC conference. The next-gen GPU’s investors are waiting to hear about, and what it means for the stock’s next move. Plus Stocks rallying to start the week, as oil pulls back on the latest developments out of Iran. What a top market strategist needs to see before buying the dip, and the areas of the market where he’d put new money to work.
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