Tech Rebounds on Taiwan Semi/AI Trade, BlackRock CEO Larry Fink Exclusive, Big Bank Earnings Wrap-up 1/15/26

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I think.

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Carl Quintanilla (0:59)

Market moving insight and analysis. Join Jim Cramer, David Faber and me, Carl Quintanilla on the opening bell hour of CNBC Squawk on the Street. Good Thursday morning. Welcome to Squawk on the Street. I'm Carl Quintanilla, Jim Cramer's back. David Faber here at Post 9 of the New York Stock Exchange. Big Tech looks to reclaim some losses on this barnburner profit in capex guy from Taiwan Semi. More relief as the president says he has no plans for now to fire Jay Powell or attack Iran. Oils down for the first time in about six days. Our roadmap begins with this tech rally fueled by Taiwan Semi and the record results as the president does clear the way for Nvidia to sell its chips to China, but with a massive surcharge.

David Faber (1:37)

We've got more earnings from Wall Street this morning. Goldman Sachs, Morgan Stanley, and BlackRock leading that charge. BlackRock CEO Larry Fink will join us first on CNBC. The company reporting record inflows. Its assets under management now top $14 trillion. And all prices are down. This after President Trump signals he may hold off on any attacks against Iran.

Carl Quintanilla (2:02)

Let's begin with this rebound in tech sparked by Taiwan Semiconductor getting a lift from this AI boom. Company posts a 35% jump in quarterly profit, plans to boost CapEx this year to as much as $56 billion. Jim, we're seeing it today in ASML, Lamb, Sandisk, you name it.

Jim Cramer (2:19)

It's really funny. ASML moved faster than Taiwan Semi itself and the others caught up. And a lot of firms upgraded to capital equipment stocks. But the actual Taiwan Semiconductor was amazing. And we're going to get a lot of talk about what it means for applied materials and their research. It's good. But the essence of it was, you think there's a bubble? Have you talked to any of the clients? Do you know that they can't get enough? Do you know how much money they're making? We usually hear that they're spending too much and they're not getting returned. It was quite the opposite from the company that sees everything. The begging that's going on for equipment, that includes the actual customers going, maybe even cutting out Nvidia. I don't think that. David, their conference calls are different from ours. The conference calls are, let's stop fooling around.

Business is great because there's no way it can't be.

David Faber (3:13)

Right.

Jim Cramer (3:13)

And I found it refreshing because there was none of this, there was one question directly about a bubble. And I'm not saying it was laughed out loud because the translation was just something. But what the essence of it was, look, they want it.

David Faber (3:27)

We gotta make it. I got it. I mean, yeah. I mean, to the specifics here, 52 to 56 billion in capbacks for 2026 And that was above most if not almost all the analysts who obviously follow Taiwan Semi in terms of what their expectations were for this year and, you know, continue to upgrade things and ramp from there. So that is an aggressive capex target. And to your point reflects what they see is just the need to produce more and more high end chips that are so in demand, not just from Nvidia, but certainly a very important customer is Nvidia.

Jim Cramer (4:07)

Well, you know, also Apple. And Apple came out high end versus low end phone. People aren't going to buy Apple. Why? Because you don't talk about Apple. But Apple was an undercurrent. Apple's been left behind in any sort of rally since the year began. But Carl, this company sees everything. And do the analysts really see everything? Do the traders who have left Nvidia behind see everything? Were they at the David Ricks Fireside Chat where Jensen talked about living forever?