When I want to write about things other than technology companies, I often find myself troubled by not just the size of the technology (as my colleague David Faber often reminds me), but also how nice and robust the technology is compared to other sectors of the market. Let’s take Metaplatform as an example. I had been urging Meta to do something big with its growing stock of computing power, allaying concerns about massive spending on artificial intelligence. On the night of June 30th, I said on “Mad Money” that the cloud announcement could easily add 100 points to the stock, or $100 per share. Meta closed at $563 on June 30th. The next day, Bloomberg News reported that Meta was in the business of selling excess computing. I later confirmed this report. On Thursday, we finally heard from CEO Mark Zuckerberg about the issue, saying in an interview with Bloomberg: “The offers you get for computing usage are so high that in some cases it may make sense to rent or consider such a deal instead of using it internally.” As the market reacted to these comments, Meta soared 6% on Friday to $669. You can earn 100 points in a week by simply acknowledging something that seems so obvious. Meta was the best performing stock last week. META YTD Mountain Meta’s year-to-date stock performance. Compare this to PepsiCo, a company that used to have consistent multi-year growth. The company’s stock price fell so much after it announced its earnings Thursday morning that it looked like it was trying to rally higher. no. That beats you, down over 3% on Thursday, and down a bit in Friday trading as well. With just a flick of the pen, Meta gets 100 points, or almost 20%. Pepsi found itself in an unexpected situation for a food and beverage company after a poor quarter. Tech companies, especially the trillion-dollar giants, have far more to offer than any other industry. For example, we know that memory chip giant SK Hynix, which listed on the Nasdaq on Friday, made huge profits in hindsight, complementing the company’s shares traded in its home country of South Korea. With its U.S. listing, SK Hynix raised $26.5 billion to fund its expansion plans. The stock price rose 13% on the first day. Technology is dynamic. In the case of SK Hynix, some companies have proposed the hypothesis that the company is no longer a cyclical company and is achieving long-term growth thanks to memory-intensive AI computing. This theory, first floated by memory rival Micron and then by Applied Materials, a major maker of chip manufacturing equipment, should be familiar, but it’s not practical. But in the tech industry, stock prices fluctuate every time a company declares it’s not cyclical. Think of it this way. Applied Materials’ peers in the equipment space, Lam Research and KLA Corporation, as well as memory chip makers Seagate, Western Digital and SanDisk, simply have to say in reporting that while they are on assignment, they are offering the same long-term deals that Micron and Applied Materials are offering. The price-to-earnings ratio will increase accordingly, which will cause the stock price to rise further. Seagate, Western Digital, and Sandisk already have long-term supply agreements. What we saw with Micron last month was that the company was touting 16 strategic customer agreements (SCAs) after saying in March that it was excited to enter into an initial five-year SCA. Importantly, the number of these contracts has increased significantly in just a few months. But then consider Solstice Advanced Materials’ acquisition of Element Solutions, a $14.5 billion deal, announced last Monday. We spoke to Solstice CEO David Sewell about “Mad Money,” and frankly, the rationale for this deal is great. While the company awaits closure, it is putting together a colossus of potential modern materials, including critical materials needed to manufacture semiconductors (the club’s name, Qnity, is a big competitor) and run nuclear power plants. At any other time, both stocks would have risen. That’s how forward-thinking and thoughtful this deal is. Instead, it looked like a definite loser from the start, with Solstice stock plummeting 15% on Monday and ending the week down more than 23% (Element stock is down almost 9% for the week). This is not a loser. I want to own a Solstice. However, we currently have too much stock. But I put it out there as a great combination. Now let’s consider other possibilities. I don’t know if you saw it, but Nvidia stock had a nice rally on Friday, up 4%, coinciding with the debut of SK Hynix on Friday. This was actually a big problem because Nvidia has been testing our patience. I have believed that the SK Hynix buyers sold NVIDIA stock to participate in the deal. Why Nvidia? Because it’s big, it’s liquid, and it’s not doing anything (entering Friday, the stock had been roughly flat since April 22nd, but was up nearly 35% in a basket of semiconductor stocks). If you sold a lot of Nvidia to buy SK Hynix, you might have gotten less market share in the deal than you expected. Unlike those of us in charitable trusts, for example, these investors can simply go back and buy Nvidia without any embarrassment or need to explain the move. I don’t think anyone else would play with open hands because it hurts too much. But don’t get me started on that. Buyers then pushed Nvidia to a closing price of $211, its highest since June 15. Could the stock price go up significantly from here? No, I don’t think so. Unless the company does what I’ve been saying it needs to do, it will significantly increase the size of its share buybacks and cash in on some of the investments that have been making huge profits. It could take a portion of Intel’s profits and use it to acquire Nvidia. More specifically, Nvidia paid $23.28 per share for 5% of Intel last year, giving the company a 372% return based on Friday’s closing price. The point is, Nvidia needs to make the case that Apple once made to me when I questioned why it was being so aggressive. That’s because there is nothing cheaper than own stock. It’s not enough to just buy back your own shares when the stock price appears, so that’s how this buyback seems to be happening. You need to walk right behind the buyer and stay there. If I were to perform a stock buyback, I would offer to buy 1 million shares on Monday at a bid price of $209. If he doesn’t get any, he’ll keep his bid and say he’ll buy 1 million for $210. If the stock price rises, NVIDIA would have to proceed with the buyback until it gets as close to its bid as possible at 3:50 p.m. ET, when the safe zone for stock buybacks ends at 3:50 p.m. ET. For example, if a stock starts to fall sharply at 3:55 PM ET, I look at option volume to see if it is doing its part to push the stock back, as options do. The public is hungry to buy Nvidia calls. Professionals know this and love to keep calling at the end of the day. To me, this is manipulation. If Nvidia went to the Securities and Exchange Commission and asked for a “no action” letter saying that the share buyback would provide stability in the final hours of trading, I think they would get it. Again, plain and simple, there are things technology can do to change the equation. The sin of all is not caring what kind of company or sector you own. I only care about the number of points I can earn. If Slim Gym maker ConAgra Brands ($14) goes to $20, I’m all in — an increase of more than 40%. If Pfizer, a $24 name, were to go up 25% to $30, I’d be behind it lock, stock and barrel. However, these will be hard-fought battles, and victory is unlikely. On the other hand, consider if Google’s parent company Alphabet announced on Monday that it would spin off its robotaxi subsidiary Waymo as an independent company. At this point, I believe Waymo could receive an outrageous valuation because it is significantly ahead of Tesla in terms of testing and actual passenger data. If that happens, I think Alphabet’s stock price will rise dramatically. You don’t need anything. Then you’ll see how undervalued Alphabet is. Don’t forget the behemoth that is YouTube. The company behind this move is Microsoft, which is down almost 30% from last fall’s highs. That’s much more difficult. Could Microsoft spin off Xbox? Probably, but I’m not sure who would want it unless it happens to coincide with the long-awaited release of the new Grand Theft Auto VI in November. It’s a big moment for the video game industry. Do you want to sell LinkedIn? What does it bring? I’m not sure what value they can create at Microsoft, as it has a seat-based enterprise software business, but it’s large enough that it may be difficult to meet Wall Street’s growth expectations. Perhaps all we can do is wait for OpenAI to cower and skim it off. I want to find bank stocks that have the potential to rise 20% this week. I picked up Capital One and started a position last March at around $176 per share prior to the completion of the Discover acquisition. However, as the stock price rose to the $250 range in January, I neglected to take the profits when they came. The decline from then on was tremendous. We’re still holding on to it because we truly believe this will be the quarter in which co-founder and CEO Richard Fairbank reveals the “new” Capital One. I think the club name Goldman Sachs reporting on Tuesday morning could be a huge quarter. But a huge quarter could give you a 4% gain. So I stick with the endless technology talk, occasionally pivoting to a health care company with good news, or perhaps a viable retailer like Target, or a drug distribution company like Cardinal Health that shows it’s pivoting to help small and medium-sized physician groups. I will keep trying. That’s my job. But after 10 days of monster success, with Meta scoring 100 points doing the obvious and SK Hynix talking about worldly commonplaces rather than business cycles, there appears to be fertile ground to plow. (Jim Cramer’s charitable trusts are long META, COF, CAH, GS, MSFT, GOOGL. See here for a complete list of stocks.) 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