Nvidia’s China R&D center, oil prices climb: Trending Tickers


00:00 Speaker A

All right, let’s take checking on some few trending tickers here. That’s sponsored by tasty trade. We’re going to take a look at shares of Nvidia today, as well as some moves in the oil market. First up, Nvidia reportedly building a research and development center in China. This is according to the FT, the Financial Times. So, that made some headlines here, but let’s broaden this out a little bit because Nvidia is on a roll here. I mean, the recent moves here, uh, yes, we know deals announced in Saudi Arabia, UAE. I mean, I think also, you look at those earnings season, those big tech giants. There was a lot of worries about the AI boom, would these customers keep spending? Alphabet reiterates CAPEX, Microsoft reiterates, meta raises. All good news for Jensen Huang.

00:53 Speaker B

Sure is. Well, at one point, uh, that April low that we were just talking about that was so sobering, at one point, Nvidia was cheaper than the S&P 500, right? The S&P 500 at the low was trading at about 19 times. Well, Nvidia was trading because it went down, you know, in the 80s. It was trading at 18 times. I mean, imagine Nvidia, the darling of the AI thing with uh, 50, 60, 70% earnings growth trading at 18 times cheaper than the S&P 500. I mean, it got so crazy. And it wasn’t just Nvidia, it was Celestica, it was Marvell, it was Semimicro Computer, and um, they have all come roaring back, Josh.

01:44 Speaker A

It sounds like Jensen Huang is also very much on President Trump’s good side. He was at CFRA, uh, their team of analysts. They said this week, our outlook on Nvidia has considerably improved. They told their clients in recent weeks. They talked about favorable policy shifts, more lenient China tariffs, scrapping of the AI diffusion rule. They didn’t mention uncertainty remains around the 232 semiconductor investigation. Earnings scheduled for May 20th. Do you like this name?

02:27 Speaker B

You better believe it. Yeah, I bought this, uh, stock for my clients back when it was in the teens, a teenager, as they like to say on Wall Street, and now as, as we were just showing, it was what? 1, 130, 135, etcetera, and I think going on to new highs. I think you have to own Nvidia. I think of it is core ingenuity, right? Um, I run the American ingenuity fund, so I’ve got a core group of names that I almost never sell. Uh, the MAG7. I don’t own all the MAG7, but I own the obvious ones, Google, Amazon, Apple, etcetera, Meta. Uh, and I think you have to put Nvidia into that core ingenuity. I would also tell you put um, uh, uh, salesforce.com into, uh, that core ingenuity and Palo Alto software.

03:35 Speaker A

Why do you like Benioff’s company?

03:39 Speaker B

Because it’s the biggest and best and the first, uh, in customer relationship management. The, the software platforms that help companies mine data to find more sales so they can grow their business. So, it’s a facilitator growth. And then Palo Alto Networks largest cybersecurity firm in the world. And um, I mean, you could argue as to whether they’re the best, but they are the largest, and they really wrote the book on so much as I love owning best in breed companies. So, if you look at those names at Nvidia and then MAG7 to me, that’s core ingenuity. I think you have to own those names. In fact, about a third of the portfolio, and I own 41 companies in the portfolio, but a third of the portfolio is uh, is, is accounted for by those core ingenuity names.

04:48 Speaker A

All right, let’s, let’s switch gears here. We’ll talk about oil prices as well. Higher today, hope growing for a US Iran nuclear deal, maybe that lift sanctions, potentially boost global supply. There was different headlines I saw today on this one. I did see reports that Iran’s foreign minister actually downplayed pros prospects for a breakthrough in nuclear talks with the Trump administration, saying no formal proposal had been received. This is per Bloomberg. Of course, when prices, we know, had come under some pressure when President Trump seems to suggest maybe there, we were closer to a potential deal, but give me, give me your take, Adam.

05:36 Speaker B

Well, this is going to be a very drawn out and complicated, um, negotiation over time. Remember, it’s not just about the US and Iran or just about Iran’s nuclear capabilities. Uh, it’s also about the, the age-old, and I mean centuries-old, um, uh, wrestling match between uh, Sunnis and Shiites. And um, Iran is traditionally Shiite, and Saudi Arabia is Sunni. That’s one reason why those two countries have have been uh, uh, well, I don’t want to say enemies, but uh, certainly uh, at odds with one another for uh, for so long. And so there’re just a lot of complicated issues that you and I, I mean, we sit here in New York, and I’m a Wall Street guy, and you’re a half Wall Street, half media guy, and we could sort of, you know, contemplate what, what it means, um, you know, Sunni versus Shiite, but we’ll never really know. We’ll never really understand it or appreciate the depth of all of that. And that’s why all this is going to take a long time. Add to that the fact that the US is trying to get Saudi Arabia to participate in the Abraham Accords, which is basically a platform that allows, or it tries to pave the way for Israel and uh, various Arab nations to come together on more favorable terms. I mean, this is complex stuff.

07:34 Speaker A

Let me ask you to bring it back though to you as a Wall Street guy. Are there energy names where you say, yes, I, I want to own this for my clients?

07:46 Speaker B

Yeah, yeah, yeah. So, you, you, you, you raise, what you’re getting at is a very interesting point. And and that is, I think that part of the reason the Trump administration is reaching out so hard to both actually Russia and Iran is that if we can form, if there’s truce between Russia and Ukraine, and and if there is, uh, no more nukes, uh, uh, in Iran, you could effectively bring embargoed barrels of oil back on the market, millions of barrels. And guess what, as the price of oil goes down, inflation goes down.


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