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Jensen Huang stood on business last night and told the entire planet that compute equals revenue like he was dropping a new law of physics.
NVIDIA beat every number, raised guidance by $5 billion over consensus, shipped Vera Rubin samples, and the stock is trading around $197 pre-market, up less than 1% from Wednesday's close.
Meanwhile, Salesforce beat everything too, and the stock dropped anyway. Welcome to the SaaSpocalypse (SaaS stock collapse), where no earnings report is good enough.
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MARKET PULSE
THE SCOREBOARD
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PRE-MARKET • THU FEB 26 ~8:40 AM ET
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| S&P 500 (SPY) |
$693.92 ▲ +0.1% |
| NAZZY (QQQ) |
$616.87 ■ FLAT |
| DOW (DIA) |
$496.09 ▲ +0.3% |
| BTC |
$68,065 ▲ +0.1% |
| GOLD |
$5,188 ▼ -0.4% |
| 10Y YIELD |
4.04% |
| WTI OIL |
$64.14 ▼ -2.0% |
| VIX |
17.69 ▼ -1.3% |
Pre-market is quiet across the board, futures barely green. Oil dumped 2% overnight. VIX calm at 17.69. The real action starts at the 9:30 open.
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Jensen dropped a new law of physics last night.
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THE INSIDER EDGE
JENSEN'S NEW LAW: COMPUTE = REVENUE
NVIDIA posted $68.1 billion in quarterly revenue, up 73% year over year, beating the $66.2 billion estimate by nearly $2 billion, with non-GAAP EPS of $1.62 vs. the $1.53 consensus.
Q1 guidance: $78 billion (±2%), blowing past the $72.6 billion estimate, implying 77% YoY growth.
NVDA closed Wednesday at $195.56 and is trading around $197.23 pre-market as of 8:40 AM ET Thursday, up about 0.9%.
But the number isn't the story. Jensen said it three times on the call: "Compute equals revenues."
Every token an AI model generates is a unit of economic output, every GPU cycle translates directly into dollars, and "AI compute demand is 1,000 times greater than traditional compute."
Data center revenue hit $62.3 billion (+75% YoY), networking surged 263% to $10.98 billion, and Vera Rubin samples already shipped with production ramp in H2 2026.
Rosenblatt raised their price target to $300 this morning.
Bull case: We're early innings in an infrastructure buildout that could rival the electrification of America, and NVDA is selling the transformers (the electrical kind, not the model kind).
Bear case: 91% data center concentration, the stock initially popped ~3% after hours then faded to under 1% by end of call, and NVDA has sold off the day after earnings two quarters in a row.
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PSA FOR THE APES
WHY YOUR NVDA CALLS MIGHT BE COOKED
Every earnings season. Without fail.
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If you bought NVDA weekly calls yesterday hoping to ride the earnings beat, you might be staring at a red screen wondering how the stock could be up less than 1% and your calls are down 30%.
It's called IV crush, and it gets someone every single quarter.
Before a big earnings event, implied volatility (the market's estimate of how much a stock could move) spikes, inflating every options contract with an uncertainty premium. Once the event passes and uncertainty disappears, IV collapses, often wiping out most of the extrinsic value in short-dated options even if the stock moved in the right direction.
The options market was pricing in roughly a 5% move for NVDA, and the stock is up less than 1%, which means call buyers needed a much bigger gap-up just to break even against the volatility collapse.
If you want to play earnings with options, the Dough (unrealized gains) is in buying before IV ramps up (1-2 weeks out), using spreads to offset the crush, or trading the stock directly and skipping the Fanum Tax (hidden costs) altogether.
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SAASPOCALYPSE UPDATE
BEAT EVERYTHING. STILL GOT SOLD.
The SaaSpocalypse we've been tracking claimed two more victims last night, and neither one of them even missed.
Salesforce ($CRM) posted its fastest revenue growth in two years (+12% YoY), Agentforce annualized revenue topped $800 million, and Benioff dropped a $50 billion buyback saying "because these are some low prices," which is Diamond Hands (holding through pain) energy from the CEO seat.
CRM closed Wednesday at $191.75, dumped to ~$181 in after-hours trading (down about 5.6%), recovered some overnight, but is still sitting around $188.37 pre-market as of 8:40 AM ET, down 1.8% from yesterday's close.
The FY2027 revenue guide of $45.8 to $46.2 billion came in right at the $46.06 billion consensus, implying 10-11% growth, and the market initially panicked because it wanted 12%+.
CRM is down roughly 26% year-to-date, and it just put up the best quarter in two years. That's the SaaSpocalypse in a single stat.
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CRM beat. CRM walked away from its own gains anyway. Nihilistic penguin energy.
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Snowflake ($SNOW) told a similar story with a different ending: product revenue of $1.284 billion beat the $1.25 billion estimate (+30% YoY), non-GAAP EPS of $0.32 smoked the $0.27 consensus, and the stock closed Wednesday at $169.21 after rallying nearly 5% intraday.
SNOW is trading around $173.34 pre-market (+2.4%), but Q1 guidance of $1.26 to $1.27 billion implies growth decelerating from 30% to about 27%.
Two days ago, a blog post about COBOL cost IBM $30 billion in market cap.
The market is sorting every company into two buckets: are you building AI infrastructure, or can AI replace what you do? If the answer is the second one, no earnings beat is going to save you.
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Your portfolio innie vs. your portfolio outie. The severance is real.
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THE BLUEPRINT
$NVDA — THE INFRASTRUCTURE PLAY
THE TICKER: $NVDA — NVIDIA Corporation
The Vibe: Jensen just told you the next decade runs on his chips. $78 billion guidance when the street expected $72.6 billion, Vera Rubin sampling now, networking up 263%. This is the picks-and-shovels play, and the mine just got deeper.
The Blueprint (trade setup):
| Entry Zone |
$195 - $198 (pre-market range, watch today's open) |
| Puke Point (stop loss) |
$188 (below the 20-day moving avg) |
| Cookiez Target 1 (PT1) |
$215 (prior resistance from January highs) |
| Cookiez Target 2 (PT2) |
$230+ (GTC in March could be the rocket fuel) |
Risk Level: 6/10. The earnings beat de-risks the thesis, but the stock has sold off the day after earnings two quarters in a row, and 91% data center concentration means any capex slowdown whisper could trigger a violent pullback.
GTC 2026 in March could be the next catalyst if Jensen drops Vera Rubin benchmarks or new sovereign AI deals.
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PREDICTION MARKET CORNER
WHAT REAL MONEY IS PRICING IN
Fed rate cut by March: Polymarket at 1.6%, CME FedWatch at about 6%. Not happening. The Fed (Jerome Powell remains chair until May 15, 2026) is staying put while corporate America spends like rates don't exist.
Fed cut by June: CME FedWatch around 49-58%, essentially a coin flip. PCE data Friday could move this number hard in either direction.
US strikes Iran by Feb 28: Polymarket at 9.5% with $3.2M in volume. Low probability, but enough real money behind it to watch. Oil down over 2% today says the market isn't pricing it in yet.
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ON DECK
THE NEXT 48 HOURS
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THU FEB 26 — HIGH IMPACT
NVDA opens post-earnings. Q4 GDP Second Estimate (8:30 AM ET), Durable Goods, Jobless Claims. Watch for gap fill to Wednesday's $195.56 close or breakout above $200.
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FRI FEB 27 — THE BIG ONE
PCE Inflation (8:30 AM ET), Personal Income and Spending. The Fed's favorite inflation gauge, and the number that moves the rate cut timeline. Earnings: Dell (DELL), HP (HPQ), Zscaler (ZS). DELL/HPQ could tell us if Jensen's demand story flows downstream. Stay Locked In (focused, no noise).
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THE BOTTOM LINE
THE MARKET HAS ONE QUESTION FOR EVERY STOCK.
Are you building AI infrastructure, or can AI replace what you do? That's the only question the market is asking right now.
Know your levels, it's not wise to be a Squatter (bag holder) in names the market has already sorted into the wrong bucket, and learn how IV crush works before buying weeklies into earnings.
— The Lead Editor, Main Street Betz
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DISCLAIMER
We are a bunch of apes who figured out how to use a Bloomberg Terminal and a group chat at the same time. That combination is either genius or a liability, and we honestly aren't sure which one yet.
Nothing here is financial advice. Seriously. Do your own research. Talk to an actual licensed professional before you YOLO your savings into something you read in a newsletter written by an ape in a hoodie.
Past performance doesn't guarantee future results. The market doesn't care about your feelings, your conviction, or your 'diamond hands.' It will humble you. It humbles us too. That's the game.
We may hold positions in securities mentioned. Trading and investing is risky. Trade at your own risk. Eat Cookiez responsibly.
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