11AM Hour: Nvidia Earnings on Deck, Barclays Global Head of Tech Investment Banking & Citi Opens Positive Catalyst Watch on Oracle 8/26/26

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**Carl Quintanilla** (0:53)
Good Wednesday morning. Welcome to Squawk on the Street. I'm Carl Quintanilla with Leslie Picker here at Post9 of the New York Stock Exchange. Sara Eisen's off today. Meta's nearly $17 billion settlement over child addiction claims. The social media company now calling on competitors to make similar concessions. We're going to break down the details and the implications for that sector.

**Leslie Picker** (1:12)
Plus, Oracle investors take note after shares have tumbled nearly 60% since the AI-fueled peak last September. Citi now says it's a, quote, historic opportunity to own the shares. We're joined by the analyst behind that call.

**Carl Quintanilla** (1:26)
A growing executive exodus at OpenAI. What that means for the company's potential IPO and the current tech debut backlog. We're going to discuss with Barclays Global Co-Head of IV, Kristin Peterson. As for markets today, a little bit subdued. Obviously, we're in the back half of August. Volume is a little bit light. The inflation data did come in a little bit hot today on headline and core, or at least headline, PCE year on year. And with that, that 10 years, mildly stubborn, just above 465

**Leslie Picker** (1:53)
We will start on Nvidia, ahead of the company's earnings this afternoon. Kristina Partsanevelis joins us with what to expect. Kristina.

**Kristina Partavangelis** (2:00)
The most important company of the AI era has a stock that's really gone nowhere this year. Nvidia is up, what, 13% in 2026 The broader chip index, you can see on your screen, up 70%.
That's one of the widest gaps between Nvidia and its own sector on record. And the stock, unfortunately, just keeps getting punished on good news. It's fallen the day after earnings four quarters running every time after a beat. The question today isn't really whether Nvidia delivers. It's why the stock stopped working. Cantor Fitzgerald points to four reasons. One is valuation. Nvidia got so expensive that even a strong beat now reads in their words as sell the news. Of course, we know the valuation has improved. Another is rotation. Investors moving into rival chip names instead of crowding into Nvidia because they're looking for more upside. There's the fear it's also losing the inference market to Amazon and Google's homegrown chips. And then hedge funds have actually piled in on the short side of this just over the last little while. And now the newest worry that comes up constantly in sell side research, Nvidia's bankrolling the very customers who buys its chips, back-sopping billions of dollars in leases, an example of 105 billion for OpenAI, and taking stakes across the industry, can be seen as a positive, also a negative. The credit market though has noticed. Morgan Stanley starting coverage of Nvidia's debt just this month said that after recent widening, Nvidia bonds are trading more like triple B credit than double A.
Then the double A is balance sheet actually implies roughly 25 basis points wider than similarly rated peers. So watch what Nvidia does to actually push back on that narrative about the circular financing, financial engineering, etc. One tell, it just split its sales into two buckets, the four big hyperscalers on one side, everyone else on the other. So AI clouds, enterprise, governments, etc. It's telling Wall Street it's growing beyond the four biggest names, the same ones now building chips to compete with it. They're focusing on the other bucket. The numbers though almost aren't the point since a beat is assumed. What moves the stock now is the story Nvidia tells around earnings, especially the qualitative stuff in the call.

**Leslie Picker** (4:02)
Yeah, the story is so important. Christina, do you expect to see additional disclosure to combat those concerns around circular financing and the bank of Nvidia as people have been calling it?

**Kristina Partavangelis** (4:15)
Unfortunately, not because you're relying on six other financiers, especially for that $500 billion mark. And what we don't know is what's the criteria for companies? Is it Nvidia just saying, vouching for the relationship?