Doge Disagreement, Airline Layoffs, The Return of Jack Ma? 02/18/25

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David Faber (0:44)

Market insight and analysis. You're listening to the opening bell of CNBC Squawk on the Street. Good Tuesday morning. Welcome to Squawk on the Street. I'm David Faber with Jim Cramer. We are live from Postline at the New York Stock Exchange. Carl has the morning off. Let's give you a look at futures. It's a short week. Remember, it is Tuesday.

I don't feel like it, but look at that. We may have a higher open.

Jim Cramer (1:05)

First time in three, what? We had three down. Well, I can't call it Mondays. This is actually Synthetic Wednesday. But you know what I mean.

David Faber (1:12)

Yeah, I do. I know exactly what you mean. But we look like we're going to have a higher open a half hour from now when we get started with trading. Let's get to our roadmap. It does start with the return of a little bit surprising, right? Jack Ma, Chinese President Xi holding a rare closed door meeting with some of that country's top business leaders and did include, I want to call him my old friend, but certainly somebody I used to interview a bunch, founder of Alibaba. Moving on from there, one top Social Security official steps down from her role. This after refusing a request from Musk's Doge Group.

We are also monitoring what was another plane crash, this time involving a Delta jet overturning upon landing at Toronto's Pearson International Airport. Thankfully, everybody survived. All right, let's get to the market. So again, what I said was a short and trading week. First time you and I have been together in a little while. We both took some needed R&R. First time I can congratulate you on being part of the fanbase for Super Bowl.

Jim Cramer (2:13)

Thank you. That was quite a... I did not wear my eagle tie. This is a serious show. We know that. That's more fun show. I'll have it on tonight.

David Faber (2:21)

That's great. Well, a great way for you to start. And obviously...

Jim Cramer (2:24)

My wife Lisa.

David Faber (2:25)

We meant this week for you in a lot of different ways that we don't need to necessarily revisit as well, Jim. But I'm very happy you're back. I'm happy to be back. And we got plenty to talk about.

Jim Cramer (2:34)

Yes we do.

David Faber (2:34)

So let's start off with what you're thinking about as this week sort of begins.

Jim Cramer (2:38)

Well, look, I think that there are a lot of people recognizing there was a panic. And the panic was frankly from out of China and whether they've passed us. It was very reminiscent to the Sputnik period in our country, had the Russians passed us.

David Faber (2:53)

And you're talking about deep sea. Of course, this is weeks ago at this point. But the reaction, particularly in NVIDIA stock and in many of the power suppliers, which I think continues to be a question I would say that a lot of people are saying, look, right now, it's still good.

Jim Cramer (3:08)

A lot of people are saying when I was with a lot of CEOs, look, if Meta, if Alphabet, if Amazon are still committed to NVIDIA, then there was no surprise. I believe that. I think that there are another wave of thought, which is actually good for NVIDIA because it gets more people on board. Not sure if I agree with that, but it is a cheap way to get on board and then you do need training, real training. I think the excitement part is video. Video means robotics. That's the next leg for NVIDIA. Yes.

David Faber (3:40)

That's the next leg.

Jim Cramer (3:41)

Because over and over again, even GTC last year, the big conference that Jensen runs, that was all about how Blackwell will help video, and video allows a robot to learn how to do things. Now, video, David, is when you keep saying, anything you can do, they can do better physically, but they need to see the videos. Now, they can, and I think that that's a big step up, and it's not something that Deepsea could possibly imitate. They're nowhere like that.