Tech Gains, Meta-Nvidia "Millions," Titans and the AI trade 2/18/26

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David Faber (0:58)

Market insight and analysis. You're listening to the opening bell of CNBC's Squawk on the Street.

Carl Quintanilla (1:04)

Good Wednesday morning. Welcome to Squawk on the Street. I'm Carl Quintanilla. Jim Cramer is back alongside me and David Faber here at Post 9 of the New York Stock Exchange. Futures are steady after Tuesday. Somewhat wobbly action. Busy day for eco data. Both durables and starts were quite strong ahead of Friday's GDP number. Ten year almost back to 408 Oil hit 64 on some of these Iran jitters. Our road map begins with tech and the AI trade bouncing back today. Amazon snapping that nine day losing streak.

David Faber (1:33)

Plus arm shares moving higher in the pre-market. This as Nvidia shakes up its AI investments. And the so-called smart money making a lot of moves in this market. We will tell you about the latest buying and selling from the 13F filings.

Carl Quintanilla (1:49)

Let's begin with the markets though as the Nasdaq does look to extend yesterday's gains after snapping that four session losing streak. More importantly Jim, though it's good to have you back after kind of a long absence almost a week and a half.

Jim Cramer (2:00)

Yeah, I had some eye surgery. I'm back. I can't see you but it's great to have both of you. Carl, when did you switch side? It used to be... Look, I've been paying attention to it. Obviously, when you have a nine day losing streak for Amazon, after a quarter that was panned, when you have Nvidia, yesterday was a big reversal, Nvidia opening. I was telling my wife because I'm actually home with her, she had a knee replacement. The two of us really get along incredibly well when I can't see and she can't walk. What was amazing was she said, she said, what's new? I said, nothing. She goes, Nvidia? I said, yeah, down too because she knows nothing means Nvidia, mean nothing good. Now, the thing that I liked about Nvidia was that at the end of the day, and David, I'm going to put this view as being seminal. I'm beginning to believe that Mark Zuckerberg is trying to develop his own web services. He locked up $6 billion with a Corning material, the Corning mix, the fiber. This note that Nvidia put out about how he wants millions, use millions of AI chips in data center.

David Faber (3:06)

From Nvidia, as we see right there.

Jim Cramer (3:08)

You often said to me, he doesn't have a web services, he just has an advertising deal. Any chance, any chance, that maybe this is him making a web service company.

David Faber (3:19)

I have absolutely no idea. Well, there you go. But it's an interesting thought, and clearly in asking the question, you think it's least worth thinking about.

Jim Cramer (3:28)

I just think, would you be so open-ended about how much you have to buy?

David Faber (3:31)

I don't know. We have made the point that as opposed to the hyperscalers, Meta does not have a cloud business to advertise all the spending over, so to speak. That said, it's done a pretty darn good job of getting it to accelerate its core business.

Jim Cramer (3:49)

Yes, it has.

David Faber (3:49)

And so, the concerns about the capex spending there, perhaps a bit more muted as a result of the underlying performance of the business.

Jim Cramer (3:57)

It's 21 times earnings. What's muted? That's muted.

David Faber (3:59)

Well, that's no. By the way, there's no muted, anything muted I should say about capex spending from everybody, whether it's Amazon, whether it's Meta, whether it's Alphabet, whether it's Microsoft. And on from there, Jim, what we're in right now is, I mean, we're at 92% of cash flows from operations this year from the hyperscalers will be spent on capex.