Fast Money Blog- 5/16/25
Here’s the big fat, story on Wall Street this week.
On Tuesday, May 13th, S&P component NVIDIA’s (NVDA) CEO Jensen Huang announced that the company will sell more than 18,000 of its latest artificial intelligence chips to the Saudi company, Humain.
Nvidia’s cutting-edge Blackwell chips, which are among their most advanced AI chips at the moment, will be used in data centers in Saudi Arabia.
This agreement between Saudi Arabia and Nvidia sent the stock higher on anticipation of future earnings growth.
However, as much as I believe that NVDA will continue to see revenue growth, owning the stock is still risky, and depending on your tolerance, not everyone should own shares. If you do, be sure the stock makes up no more than 10% of your portfolio.
On Thursday, February 15th, Applied Material's Inc. (AMAT) released its Q2 2025 earnings.
Quarterly revenue came in at $7.1 billion, up 7% year over year.
AMAT’s semi-conductor segment brought in $5.26 billion, up 7% year-over-year
However, the U.S. government's export restriction of certain semiconductor equipment to China is impacting the company's results and outlook.
Sales in China, which totaled $1.77 billion, accounted for a quarter of the company's total revenue. This is a significant drop from $2.83 billion, which represented 43% of the company's revenue just a year ago.
While consumer demand in the U.S. is strong, once again AMAT is a high risk stock and should make up less than 10% of your portfolio.
Walmart, Inc. (WMT)
This week Walmart released its Q1 2026 earnings report with top-line revenue of $165.61 billion, up 2.5% year-over-year.
Highlights
Comparable sales jumped 4.5% for Walmart in the U.S.
E-commerce sales increased 21% in the U.S., marking the 12th straight quarter of double-digit gains.
Global e-commerce sales jumped 22% year over year.
Average ticket, or the amount that a customer spent, rose 2.8% year over year.
Customer transactions increased 1.6% compared with the year-ago period in the U.S.
Sales for its U.S. advertising business, Walmart Connect, increased 31% year over year in the first quarter.
All of this is great news, however the problem for Walmart, like other retail companies, is that current trade uncertainty makes it difficult to plan for the future.
The company said it will begin raising prices on some items as President Trump’s global trade war increases the company’s costs.
Tariffs on China are raising costs on electronics and toys, and some food costs are going up from tariffs on Costa Rica, Peru and Colombia.
Still, around 60% of Walmart’s US sales are groceries, which are largely tariff-exempt if they're produced domestically or in Mexico and Canada.
I think in the end, Walmart will be a winner over the next 2 to 5 years, BUT for the stock to maintain favor, tariffs on China will have to decline year-over-year.
Looking ahead, I expect volatility and uncertainty to reign over the stock market in the next 7 days.
3 week out-of-the money covered calls still are a consistent income generator in this market.
Tyrone Jackson, The Wealthy Investor