The Latest AI Investments From Tech Giants… And A Bull Case Still In Place

0:02Mazda has been named Consumer Reports' safest new car brand. It starts with our approach. Every Mazda comes standard with proactive safety features. So you're more aware of what's around you, more focused on the road ahead, and ready before problems ever start. Mazda. More of what matters most to you. Go to mazdausa.com to learn more. Consumer Reports does not endorse or promote any product. At Edward Jones, we believe rich isn't about having life all figured out. It's opening yourself to all the possibilities. That's why your dedicated financial advisor provides long-term planning built around you, meeting you where you are, and helping you get closer to where you want to be.

0:47So no matter where you're starting from, you can move forward with confidence. The key to being rich is knowing what counts. Let's find your rich. Edward Jones, member SIPC. Live from the Nasdaq MarketSide in the heart of New York City's Times Square, this is Fast Money. Here's what's on tap tonight. Trucking higher. The Dow Transport's hitting a new record today. How much higher can the group go? And what's it say about the U.S. economy and the state of the A.I. trade? Oracle raising major cash to fund its A.I. ambitions, while NVIDIA's investment in open A.I. seems to hit a roadblock. What it all means for the high-tech stocks.

1:23Plus, digging in on Disney's first earnings drop, what Bitcoin's pullback means for strategy stock, and chomping on Chipotle. Do the options market expect a burrito blowout in tomorrow's report? We will find out. I'm Melissa Lico, and you live from Studio B at the NASDAQ. On the desk tonight, Tim Seymour, Dan Nathan, Guy Adami, and Mike Coe. Well, stocks rebounding from Friday's losses. The S &P and NASDAQ each gaining half a percent, and the Dow leading the charge, adding 515 points or just over a percent, while one key group really outperformed. Dow Transports rallying more than 3 % to fresh records with all 20 stocks in the index closing in positive territory.

2:02It's gained nearly 9 % just since the start of 2026, is now up almost 16 % over the past 12 months. Leading the group higher today, Old Dominion Freight up 7.5%. Other trucking stocks, Ryder and Landstar, each getting roughly 6%. And some other big movers, FedEx rallying 4 % to all-time highs, while container shipper Matson rose to levels last seen in November 2024. So given the transportation sector's read on real-world demand, are the gains positive for the broader economy? Do you recall Dow Theory? Oh, sure. Well, I was part of it when— Well, she almost didn't—she asked it as a question because she wasn't sure that you did recall.

2:42Yeah, well, no. Well, I take that privilege in, and that helps me to recall. So you really remember everything. Yeah, it actually works. She likes it. But in theory, this should be very good news for the economy and for the stock market. It's not bad news. Now, I will say this. Obviously, the economy has changed a lot since Dow theory. I don't think transports are nearly as important, but it's not a bad thing. And it speaks to the robust consumer and still spending. Again, we can quibble whether or not they should be, but they are. FedEx finally growing into a valuation that I think we've talked about for years.

3:12The one that interests me is UPS. If our crack staff back in EC can put up a long term chart, you will see we're recently traded down to the 2020 low-ish. We have bounced. We're about to take out a trend line that's been in place for the last three years. And on valuation, it's as compelling as it's probably been in quite some time. So to me, if you want to play the catch-up trade here, it's in the form of UPS, Melms. I mean, oil has also been weak, and so maybe that plays into some of these advances. Well, let's not get too high over this, but how about this ISM today? The ISM manufacturing was the best one since August of 22.

3:47It's the first time we've actually shown that all the components in it were higher. The orders component was very impressive. And it tends to, you know, essentially resemble Fed surveys that we've seen on a regional basis that said that manufacturing was better. I mean, President Trump could be taking a victory lap here because you can see manufacturing has inflected in a way. Now, this is one number. But if this is truly an inflection, it's time to buy airlines and it's time to buy shippers, because these are the sectors that tend to really outperform in the 12 months after an inflection. Let's let's be clear.

4:20This is the first positive print. So I should say above 50, which means expansion as opposed to below 50, which is contraction since February of last year. So 11 straight down months. But really the best one in a long time. I don't think manufacturing has turned the corner. FedEx is up 35 percent since September. UPS, which I'm long and I think goes a lot higher and pays you 6 percent to be in that trade, is, I think, a great way. But I think the airlines are next. It's funny. On the manufacturing front, I mean, if you do have an economy that is inflecting and, you know, again, it would be nice to see that jobs data.

4:51But it kind of could kind of square the circle a little bit. You know, when you think about, you know, yields and you think about the 10 year and you think about what the president wants from the new Fed chair, which doesn't think, you know, doesn't really seem that that's kind of his M.O., that he's going to come here in May and just kind of lower interest rates. I mean, the focus, I think, on his part is kind of reduce that balance sheet. And why would you be lowering interest rates into an economy that happens to be inflecting? So that's something obviously we don't know for, you know, at least a few months or so.

5:19But going back to the transports, you know, the largest holding in that IYT is Uber. And it's worth noting that here's a company that you would think in a, you know, in a consumer environment that's doing OK and an economy that's doing better than many expect, that that would be trading better. And, you know, you look at this thing and you say to yourself, it's down 20 percent. And we know that there's some headwinds from RoboTaxi and the like. I'm going to take the over on RoboTaxi's and I'm going to look at what Uber is doing and say, you know what? Their plan to partner with some of these folks, whether it be Waymo or like, that's probably going to give them some cover over the next couple of years or so.

5:53So Uber, to me, looks more interesting than some of those more industrial sort of names. Maintaining the asset light structure does seem to be like a benefit. Yeah, I mean, listen, you go to Austin right now, you want to get a Waymo, you have to do it through Uber. Yeah. Mike, what do you make of the moves in transports? Yeah, I mean, the first thing I would say, I mean, obviously the truckers did extremely well today, but the valuation of that as a group has been kind of hard to get my arms around. And FedEx is a little bit above their longer-term moving average. I think I'm with Tim on UPS. UPS looks reasonably valued here.

6:26And I think the airlines do, too, you know, particularly maybe Delta and United. I think this would probably be still an attractive place to be. And perhaps some of the rails, too. So, I mean, rails certainly not asset light as far as the business is concerned. But in terms of their historical valuation, still, I think, reasonably priced here. And we did see a decent bit of bullish activity on the options side in several of those. All right. We've got some breaking news out of the White House we want to get to. Eamon Javers got the details. Eamon. Melissa, that's right. President Trump is taking some questions from reporters in a roundtable session in the Oval Office.

7:02He was announcing the creation of a strategic minerals reserve that the White House is calling Operation Vault. They're going to have$10 billion worth of financing as part of this from the Ex-Im Bank and$2 billion from the private sector. Mary Barra, the CEO of General Motors, joined the president in the Oval Office just a short time ago, as you can see there, for the announcement of the mineral reserve. The president was asked a number of questions by reporters in the room. One was on this question of the Federal Reserve investigation. Remember, the U.S. Attorney's Office is investigating Jerome Powell and whether or not he lied to Congress.

7:36Senator Tillis has said that he won't vote for the president's replacement for Powell until that investigation is resolved, Tillis says. The president was asked if he wants the U.S. Attorney's Office to stand down on that investigation, and he said no. He said they have to take it to the end of the investigation. He wants it to continue. Separately, I asked the president about the Wall Street Journal reporting on the royal family of Abu Dhabi investing hundreds of millions of dollars with World Liberty Financial, his family's cryptocurrency company. I asked him why he agreed to take that investment.

8:09The president said he didn't know about the investment. He said that investment was handled by his sons. He said, I know that crypto is a big thing and they like it. A lot of people like it. My sons are handling that. My family is handling that. And I guess they get investments from different people. Melissa, back over to you. All right, Eamon. Eamon Javers at the White House asking some very pointed questions to President Trump. I know where you want to begin. Well, let's start with the rare earths because I think of the 28th of January. We're sitting here. An announcement came out. Those stocks cratered.

8:40I don't know exactly what the announcement was, but we talked about it. And we collectively said, don't run too far from these. There are a lot of chapters left. I wouldn't be surprised to see an about-face. So pull up MP materials. My instincts suggest it's probably higher on the back of this announcement. We just had the report last week that there would be no floor in the price, and we saw all those stocks really react sharply to the downside. I mean, not an easy trade to be in, even knowing that the government has some sort of a stake in it. You know, the problem with the trade is how have you gotten exposure to that in the United States outside of MP?

9:14And let's you know, the name of this is the strategically strategic critical minerals reserve. So what what what makes up that group of strategic reserves? In other words, I think copper is part of that. And I think so again, you know, we don't really need to spend a lot of time. I forget where this is in today's conversation, Mel, our metals chat and what's going on with gold and silver. But it was another day of volatility in that space. But again, I'm not running too far away from some of those dynamics because this is exactly why they remain strategic. All right. Meantime, two big funding stories in the AI space.

9:47Oracle announcing a plan to raise up to$50 billion to boost its infrastructure build out this year in order to meet demand from its cloud customers. Shares were up as much as 4 percent earlier in the day, but ended the day lower. And NVIDIA's$100 billion open AI investment may not be a done deal. CEO Jensen Huang has reportedly criticized the company's business strategy, expressed concerns about competition from the likes of Anthropic as well as Google. Over the weekend, he denied that he was upset with OpenAI, but said he would not invest any more than the$100 billion. Shares of NVIDIA took a steep leg down late in the day, falling almost 3%.

10:23I'm curious what your take is on all of this. All right. So OpenAI, let's start. You know, we're all rooting for Sam Altman here. This all has to work at OpenAI or it doesn't work for anybody, in my opinion. And so when I think about, you know, just the strategy that this company has, I mean, for a long time, Sam Altman said that they're not going to an advertising model anytime soon. And what are they doing right now? They're going to an advertising model. You know, I think the thought that they were going to be able to support the sort of losses that they have and continue the sort of investments that they have committed to making on just a subscription model.

10:53And obviously, you know, enterprise at some point will be a part of that. But this is a company that, you know, if it was a publicly traded company and I know that there are private markets and this stock would be trading very poorly, in my opinion, because there seems to be not a whole heck of a lot of clarity about what their business model is, other than spending gobs of money to try to get to AGI before anybody else. So to me, I obviously this is at the middle of it. I think NVIDIA, the fact that that stock was down based on the pullback of that commitment. And I get it, you know, the idea that they were just going to plunk$100 billion down.

11:25But this is a company, OpenAI, that really does have to raise, you know,$100 billion. And so, you know, again, I think that every time you see someone pull back from that, it's not going to be great for sentiment in the entire ecosystem. Yeah, I mean, I'm not sure. Are we all pulling for Sam Altman? I mean, I don't. What I'm saying is he better be successful or the whole thing is going to come crashing down. Well, his whole thing might come crashing down. But I mean, there's no question what's going on around him. So, I mean, I think also NVIDIA is smart to at least voice that they, as the largest AI infrastructure company in the world by far, aren't necessarily writing blank checks.

12:00And I think it's probably about holding people more accountable and even some of the most important customers you have in the world. I just think these are the types of headlines that are continuing to be very complicated. And it continues to emphasize this circular investment dynamic. But it comes back to NVIDIA. NVIDIA is the one that has the cash flow, that has the balance sheet, and as far as I'm concerned, in the driver's seat on all of these. I actually thought that NVIDIA stock could be higher on the back of the report that they are showing some fiscal discipline when it comes to investing in AI.

12:33Could have made that argument. Tim makes a great point. But then I thought the other side of that is, and this is sort of a term we've used, the sanctity of CapEx. And we've questioned whether or not it's written in stone as much as it is. And I think we learned over the weekend that maybe not. So, you know, we play the game. If you had known all these things. Right. How would the stock move? I thought the market was going to get cratered today on the back of what Bitcoin was doing, on the back of this announcement, a couple other things, and on the back of the bond market, which, by the way, yields continue to go higher.

13:01Obviously, that was not the case. All right. For more on what's next for big tech and the AI trade, let's bring in Dan Ives. He's the managing director, senior equity analyst at Wedbush. Dan, great to see you. So walk us through, because if you think about this whole circular sort of trade, if NVIDIA doesn't invest the money in OpenAI, OpenAI doesn't necessarily have the money or has to get the money elsewhere in order to pay Oracle. And so these things are all connected. Look, I think the first thing is Oracle needed to get this out there and put the financing plan in place. I actually think it's important, not just for Oracle, but for the tech trade.

13:38Show the$45,$50 billion that you're going to raise. So I actually think it's a huge step in the right direction. Look, in terms of NVIDIA, remember, Jensen's playing a game of poker as well in terms of, you know, open AI, the investment, also competitively with Alphabet as well as others. Look, I think they're going to get the$100 billion. But this is, look, it's the black cloud over the tech trade. And I think you want to see them come out. You want to see Jensen talk about it. You need to see Oracle talk about it because, look, Then you can trust the numbers that we're seeing, Palantir and others, the growth's there.

14:11But this is the cloud that's overhanging. And I think that's what needs to be addressed. And I think they're starting to address it. Jensen, in some of his reported comments, was citing the competition from Google as well as Anthropics specifically. And those are sort of outside of that circular financing ecosystem. In your view, just stepping back, are those investments more sound in that there is less sort of dependency on other players in order to meet goals? Yeah, I think there is definitely, I think, you know, there's more stability. And I think this is one where you're building out a new economy when it comes to what's happened with OpenAI.

14:50You're building essentially a new consumer and enterprise economy. So we're talking about$100 billion here, but ultimately trillions over the course of time. But that's why I think the tech trade, I think this is an important week, not just in terms of numbers, but just showing the financing, putting it out there instead of this sort of CDS spread and sort of, you know, maybe this sort of, you know, third derivative that's sort of been, I think, clearly an overhang on all these tech names. All right, Dan, this might surprise you, but I get labeled sometimes as a perma-big. No, no. Never. Not by us.

15:22But you are clearly an unabashed bull, okay? The AI revolution is something you coined. You know what some of the criticisms are about that. You and I talked for a long time. What if you're going to take the other side of that? How does this thing at least take a pause? How do we get into a digestion phase? How do we start seeing some down round in private companies? What is some of the pushback that you get from the buy side as it relates to, again, this universal bullishness on the AI revolution? Because it's not going to be a straight line, obviously, one way. And I'm just curious, how do you take a step back and what is some of the pushback you get to that enthusiasm?

16:01Yeah, look, I think earnings season last week, if you saw Microsoft, I think it's this balance between CapEx and monetization. Any sort of issue right there, investors are going to kind of take a step back. And I think that's something that you're almost fighting sort of a headwind there in terms of as they're going after from a CapEx perspective. To me, the biggest worry is energy in terms of just the shortage in the U.S. That's something. You have more data centers on the construction today than active data centers. And then, of course, U.S.-China. I mean, any sensitivity to some sort of tariff, just like I saw when I was in Davos, and you combine all together.

16:38The question is not about the use cases, the fourth industrial revolution, the spending. It's about some of these other issues as well as the financing that are going to be clearly a spotlight on in terms of a market like this. So, Dan, there's a big spotlight then on equity-linked issuance, which essentially Oracle has announced. We've gotten some detail on it. This isn't just a hypothetical anymore. What does this do for you as an analyst looking at companies? I mean, Oracle has been a cash flow machine like anybody. The dividend, they say, is intact. That's great. But equity-linked issuance begins to have a lot of traditional investors say, well, I'm more concerned about this than I might have been if this was, first of all.

17:18You know, straight debt is its own thing, but equity linked issuance is certainly dilutive. It was less of a dilution than people had expected. Thoughts on that in terms of value multiples for the sector? Well, as an analyst, you have to factor it in because the reality is, is that, OK, what's the raise going to be? How dilutive? How quickly? Does it does it ultimately cause them to pause? Because when you look at Oracle, you talk about growth going from 15 percent to 30 percent to 50 percent in terms of 300 billion that's out there in terms of to go after. So I think, look, it's the nature of playing this game.

17:52Because the reality is for Oracle, they don't have to play the game. But for them to be a core player in this AI revolution, it's what they need to do now. And I think that's something investors, you see with the stock, they're willing to take that bet. But now they have to execute on it. Dan, you're here, so I have to ask you about the Barron's article that ran over the weekend. It is titled, he's Wall Street's biggest showman. Should you trust him? And basically, it says that you have a lot of overlapping interests. And I guess at the heart of it is that, you know, the Dan Ives ecosystem only works in a tech bull market.

18:26And I'm wondering, you know, what your commentary on that is, because without, you know, an AI boom, without the Bitcoin boom, all these sorts of, you know, very enthusiastic trades out there these days, your empire would not be as big. Yeah, look, I mean, I've been a tech bull for, what, 25 years. And I think it's something where it's created other opportunities in terms of, you know, whether it's advisor, ETF, you know, which is based on the Ives AI 30. You know, my view is, is that this is something where I live and breathe the AI revolution. I'm passionate about tech. You know, I give charity, you know, relative to teaching kids the AI revolution.

19:07It's something that's so important in my role. So it's I get the scrutiny, but everything's vetted. If I chew gum, Wedbush needs to approve it. And it's something where I get, you know, this sort of you're disrupting the role of a typical analyst. But it's something where because of the revolution, the passion and the opportunities, that's what's sort of been nothing put in front of me. And I'll continue to evaluate. Yeah. Not that Dan needs me to say this, but I will say it. I mean, showman aside, and he is, he happens to be extraordinarily rigorous in his work. And he's as diligent and I think, I don't know what the word I'm looking for, thorough an analyst as I've met in all the years I've been doing it.

19:48And we've been on the show now for 19 years. And, you know, when Dan's wrong, which is seldom he talks about it. And when he's right, which is often he doesn't. And here he is today, you know, talking about an article, which I get. You know, you have to sell magazines. But he still does his work very well. Thanks for those words. I appreciate it. Dan, it's always good to see you. No, thank you. Thank you. Dan Ives of Wedbush. So what do you think this does to Oracle? Look, this is, by the way, Oracle, I think people know, is the O in the Timbo trade. Yes. My view is that Oracle is priced in subtractive AI in terms of what they're going to do in terms of build out their capacity.

20:24It's not only taken a hit to the multiple, but it's taken a hit to where the stock actually was valued even before this was even brought up. I think Oracle is interesting here. I do think that this cap raise has to be done in the context of fiscal discipline. I mean, it's not a straight up. And I think that that's why it was an important day. I think the dilutive element of this equity-linked issuance was less than had been expected. I think that's kind of a net positive. But it's hard to think that the stock can rally right now in a difficult period. That's why we're playing the long game and the acronym game, of course.

20:55Yeah. We are playing a long game. Mike, you know, there seems to be some, we've used the term existential risk around software. I will tell you, because you texted me on Friday, the you and my junk, if you want to throw that. It was junk on Friday. So software under pressure without question. But to Tim's point, you don't get paid at halftime, and we're only in early February. Tommy Up shares of Palantir on the move after reporting the numbers out of the quarter, how the company is faring the AI race. That's next. And speaking of earnings, Disney getting hit after returning support this morning.

21:25the rough stock reaction, and when we can learn who is taking over for CEO Bob Iger. Don't go anywhere. Fast Money's back in two. Hello, I'm Ozempic. And I'm other GLP ones, kind of like him. Are you shaking a maraca? Nope, I'm shaking the pill version of Ozempic, which no one should ever do except in ads like this. A nice disclaimer. Hey, thanks. Ask your doctor about which FDA-approved uses of the Ozempic pen or pill may be right for you. Call 1-833-OZEMPIC or visit ozempic.com to view the medication guide and learn more about Ozempic semaglutide tablets, 9 mg, and Ozempic semaglutide injection, 2 mg.

22:01There's a pill version of Ozempic! At 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.

22:45Discover 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. We've got a news alert on Waymo. Mackenzie Cigalos has got much more on this. Mac. Hey, Mel. So Waymo says it's just closed a new funding round. $16 billion at$126 billion post-money, nearly triple the valuation at its last raise. The round was led by three new names joining the cap table, Dragoneer, DST Global, and Sequoia. Returning investors Andreessen Horowitz, Bessemer, and Mubadala Capital, the sovereign investment firm based in Abu Dhabi, also invested in a raise that was reportedly 3x oversubscribed.