The Rundown - Nvidia Shares Drop Despite Blowout Earnings, Salesforce Sends Mixed Signals

Episode Date: February 26, 2026

Market update for Thursday February 26, 2026Check out the Public app for incredible investing tools and to support the show (⁠LINK⁠)Follow us on Instagram (⁠@TheRundownDaily⁠) for bonus content and instant reactions.In today’s episode:Nvidia earnings show signs of continued AI growthSalesforce guidance disappoints, hurting consensus on software stocksCelsius earnings shows customer loyalty for energy drinksC3.AI shares plummet amid massive sales declinesKalshi goes after MrBeast employee for insider trading

Public.com presents the rundown. Your daily market update in under 10 minutes. My name is Zadadmani, and today is Thursday, February 27th. In today's episode, we'll break down Nvidia's monster earnings and tell you why the stock is still falling. We'll also break down earnings from Salesforce, Celsius and C3.A.I. Then stick around to the end of the show to find out how a Mr. Beast employee got caught insider trading on a prediction market platform.

We got a great show for you today. Let's go. Stocks rallied for the second straight day on Wednesday with the S&P up 0.8%, and the NASDAG jumped 1.3%. And get this, the best performing sector yesterday was tech. In fact, even Bitcoin saw some action jumping 5% to over $68,000 again. So the vibes are starting to get better after the brutal. Monday sell-off triggered by the Centrini Research AI Dumerism substack post. Markets have now made back all the losses and then some.

So shout out to everyone who bought the dip on Monday. I loaded up my IRA account on public.com. Picked up some IGV, which is the software ETF. And it's worked out so far. Zooming out, though, the macro picture is still pretty messy. And there's geopolitical tensions in the Middle East with the U.S. considering a strike on Iran. There's also uncertainty and confusion around tariffs. Remember last week, the Supreme Court struck down President Trump's AIPA tariffs on a 6-3 ruling,

and now companies are lining up for refunds. In fact, FedEx sued the government to collect their refunds. It estimated that more than $175 billion in tariff revenue was collected last year illegally and now subject to the refunds. So we'll see how that plays out on how long it takes for these companies to collect their refunds. And then don't forget, President Trump implemented more tariffs under a different set of laws, so the tariffs aren't going away. But there is a lot of confusion around all of this.

So I'm actually going to be talking to a tariff expert this week to break it all down. That conversation will be posted on Sunday. So definitely keep it on your podcast feed for that. And make sure you guys are subscribed to the podcast if you aren't already to stay in the loop. Let's run through some headlines. Starting with the most important earnings report of the quarter. Invidia reported earnings after the bell yesterday. And once again, the numbers were massive.

Revenues came in at $68 billion. up 73% from a year ago and beating Wall Street estimates of $66 billion. Profits nearly doubled to $43 billion. For the full year of 2025 $200 billion in annual revenue. The Data Center Division, which includes the AI chips, is the engine behind the growth. That segment brought in $62 billion up 75% year over year and now makes up over 91% of the company's total revenue. There's a fun fact, data center revenue has gone up. 13x since Chat GPT launched in November of 2022.

I mean, that's less than four years, which is just crazy. You know, every time the market starts getting spooked about whether AI spending is sustainable, Nvidia comes in and drops a quarter that reminds everyone just how much demand is out there. And there seems to be no signs of a slowdown. Nvidia is projecting $78 billion in revenue for the current quarter well above the $73 billion that Wall Street was expecting. And that doesn't even include any data center revenue from China. which is still in limbo due to export restrictions. So the actual revenue numbers could be even higher

depending on what happens with China. Now, you would think that an earnings report like this would cause the stock to pop, right? Well, Nvidia's stock did pop around 3% after the earnings initially dropped, but now the stock is down more than 3% at the time of this recording. I guess there is still concern

that AI spending is too concentrated by the hyperscalers. Google, Meta, Microsoft, and Amazon, these companies account for 50% of Nvidia's data center revenue. If any of these companies pull back on AI spending, that could impact Nvidia's business. Now, Nvidia's CEO, Jensen Huang, he wasn't too concerned about this. He was pretty upbeat on the earnings call. Something that stood out to me, he thinks that these hyperscalers are starting to be profitable with their AI products.

And if that's the case, these hyperscalers are going to have more cash and therefore spend that cash to buy more Nvidia chips to meet the demand for AI. But the market doesn't seem to be buying that right now. Investors just have some hesitation right now when it comes to buying into the AI. story. In fact, this is the second quarter in a row where Nvidia crushed earnings across the board, but the stock still fell in the aftermath. I even predicted this earlier in the week. I said, even if Nvidia reports a blowout quarter, it might not be enough to change the narrative. And that seems to be the case so far. Now, sticking with earnings, let's talk about Salesforce.

They also reported after the bell yesterday, and on the surface, the numbers looked pretty good. Revenue grew 12% to $11.2 billion, slightly beating estimates. And their earnings, per share of $3.81. Also beat estimates. Their AI product, Agent Force, hit $800 million in annualized reoccurring revenue off from the $500 million a quarter before. So Agent Force is growing fast. But despite the good numbers for Q4, the forward guidance wasn't so great. Sales Force is forecasting around $46 billion in revenue for 2026, which implies about a 10% growth. That is basically in line with last year's growth rate. And that's the problem right there. Investors were hoping that AI would accelerate Salesforce growth, not just keep it steady. And that's why Salesforce stock initially fell

5% after the earnings report. You know, Salesforce has become the poster child for the SaaSpocalypse sell-off that we've seen in software stocks this year with their stock down around 20% so far. But CEO Mark Benioff is pushing back hard on the idea that AI is killing SaaS. In fact, he seems to be pretty confident in the business. Salesforce authorized $50 billion in share buybacks. That share buyback news caused the jump in the stock price. It's up around 3% this morning at the time of this recording. You know, I've said this multiple times. I don't think that AI is killing software companies. There are going to be winners and losers, but we're not going to have software disappear completely. But it is a bit concerning to me that Salesforce's growth rate for 2026 is expected

to be the same as 2025. Let's talk about some stocks making moves today. Celsius shares are popping this morning after the energy drinkmaker delivered a strong earnings beat. Revenue more than doubled to $722 million beating expectations. Celsius drinkers have become hooked on the product. At an investors conference last week, the company said that 52% of its repeat customers make five or more purchases. In fact, for a lot of people, energy drinks have replaced coffee altogether. I think I'm a perfect example of this because I swapped coffee for Celsius about a year ago and yeah, I'm pretty much hooked. I drink a Celsius almost every day. Sometimes I skip on the weekends. So if more coffee drinkers switch to energy drinks

like Celsius, it could lead to more growth for the company. Investors like the growth and the growth story, Celsius stock is up around 15% this morning at the time of this recording. You know, I should really own some Celsius stock given how much I drink it at this point. Now, on the flip side, C3.AI is getting absolutely demolished this morning. The Enterprise AI Software Company reported $53 million in revenue, which is down from the nearly $100 million, a year ago. The revenues at this company basically got cut in half, which is just brutal. Now, C3 brought in a new CEO about six months ago, and he's trying to restructure the company to turn things around. He's planning to cut a quarter of the staff and flatten the sales organization.

And management still believes that C3.AI has a place in the enterprise AI market. Their guidance isn't so great, though, with management expecting $50 million in revenue this quarter and continued operating loss. Investors are bailing on the stock, though. It's down more than 20 percent. at the time of this recording, and if you zoom out and the picture gets real ugly. This company went public back in 2020. They traded in the triple digits back then. The stock is now trading under $8. So it just goes to show you that just because you have the word AI in your name or you were

early in the space, it doesn't guarantee success. Let's wrap the show with a fun fact. Someone finally got busted for insider trading on prediction markets. The prediction market platform, Cal she just busted an employee. of Mr. Beast. Turns out an editor working for Mr. Beast was betting on the outcome of what happened on the Beast Game Show. Kalshi noted that this user was hitting on every bet even with low odds and it was flagged

as statistically impossible. Now this better wasn't making big bets here. Kalshi said he made about $4,000 worth of trades racking up roughly $5,400 in profits. But his account has been frozen before he could withdraw the money. In fact, Kalshi suspended him for two years and fined him $2,000. thousand dollars and reported the case to the cfTC who was in charge of regulating this stuff. You know, prediction markets have gotten a ton of flag for being riddled with insider trading. I feel like every time it's a big geopolitical event, you hear about someone making hundreds

of thousands of dollars on a bet they made on these prediction markets. Now, this bust here is pretty small stakes, but Kalshi is trying to clean things up, and I think more importantly, trying to send a message. So we'll see if that works. I do find it funny that the first time someone got busted for insider trading was betting on Mr. Beast Games. Well, all right, guys, that's the rundown for today. Hope you guys enjoyed today's episode.

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Thank you guys so much for listening, watching, and comment. Shout out to Mike and Connor for all the work behind the scenes and we'll see you guys back here tomorrow. Rosen lasagna, medium power, 15 minutes. Sounds like Ojo time. Let's play.

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