Closing Bell 8/26/26

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**Scott Wapner** (0:45)
Here we go. Welcome to Closing Bell. I'm Scott Wapner live from Post Night here at the New York Stock Exchange. This Maker Break Hour begins with what else?
The countdown to NVIDIA earnings. We've got it surrounded tonight. In just a moment, we'll be joined by our ace reporter, Christina Partsenevalos, Dan Ives of Ives Yorkville, Doug Clinton from Intelligent Alpha, Humilis Capitals, Brian Belsky, NVIDIA investors, Brent Talkington of Requisite Capital, Malcolm Etheridge from Capital Area Planning Group. I do want to first show you the scorecard with 60 to go in regulation. We are mostly red. The S&P and the NASDAQ though are trying to go green. Tech, obviously, a bit of a wait and see. Though some of the chip names are up today going in. Meta is green as it settles with state AGs in that case over child safety. Apple also positive. It now sets a September date for its next iPhone release.
All of that takes us to our talk of the tape. All that is riding on what happens tonight. We begin there with Christina to set the scene. Hi.

**Christina Parthenavalos** (1:47)
Scott, there's three things really hanging over this stock. One, the fear that Amazon and Google building their own chips and are starting to cut NVIDIA out. Two, the credit markets unease. Morgan Stanley said NVIDIA credit now trades more like a triple B credit than the double A its balance sheet implies, as NVIDIA really just takes on more of the financing, propping up its own customers. And then three, margins. NVIDIA's gross margins climbed all through last year, then flattened and analysts see it drifting lower as memory cost bite, which is, you can't see it as dramatically on the graph, but it's going down. Wall Street wants NVIDIA to defend that mid 70s line and signal it can hold it in the medium term. A lot of investors too are hoping for a bigger buyback, but not only UBS, others too doubt there's much new to say there since NVIDIA just committed to returning half of its free cashflow this year. So the real tell is what NVIDIA reveals about the commitments piling up off its balance sheet, the multi-year deals to lock and supply power and demand, put a number on it, and the market can maybe finally price what's been a cloud over the stock just over the last three months or so.

**Scott Wapner** (2:49)
Scott? Certainly has. Christina, thank you very much. Been down eight of the last nine days. It's a really good scene-setter. As we bring in our panel, I'll begin with Dan Ives, who's sitting right next to me. What's the biggest issue? Because Christina highlighted what appear to be several. Competition, the debt, right? The CDS, China, margins, infrastructure spend. How do you deal with all those going in?

**Dan Ives** (3:11)
First, in competition, there's one chip in the world fueling the AI revolution and it's NVIDIA. I think worries about competition. We see it from every enterprise that's going down the path. The red phone goes to NVIDIA. I don't think anyone's looking at any sort of second or third options, even though down the road there's competition.

**Scott Wapner** (3:29)
What do you mean? The hyperscalers as Christina laid out, they're making their own chips too.

**Dan Ives** (3:33)
But I think I continue to view that as three, four, five years down the road. For now, when we think about the first, second phase of the AI revolution, it's only about NVIDIA. Now, when it comes down to the debt, what we're seeing in the market, she's worried about credit. I think it just comes down to investors, tech investors are underestimating the scale and scope of the AI revolution, which is why it's so important in terms of as they show demand from Rubin Blackwell, from this all excludes China, this is what all the tech sector is watching.

**Scott Wapner** (4:04)
Could we really be underestimating the demand like this gentleman says, do you agree with that?