The Rundown - Oracle Soars on AI Earnings Beat, Nvidia Invests $2B Into Nebius

Episode Date: March 11, 2026

Market update for Wednesday March 11, 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:Oil prices whipsaw after deleted government tweet about the Strait of HormuzInflation holds steady as February CPI comes in at 2.4%Oracle stock surges after strong AI cloud earningsNvidia invests $2B into NebiusDrone company AeroVironment sees shares dive on sales missFun fact: Meta buys Moltbook, a social network designed for AI agents

Public.com presents the rundown. Your daily market update in under 10 minutes. My name is Zadadmani, and today is Wednesday, March 11th. In today's episode, we'll recap the latest inflation report and why the market is pretty much ignoring it. We'll also tell you about the clutch earnings from Oracle. Then stick around to the end of the show to find out why Meta just bought a social network for AI bots. We got a great show for you today. Let's go

Well, we had another up and down day of trading on Tuesday Markets were whipsawing from green to red throughout the day And by the close, the S&P was down 0.2% While the NASDAQ was basically flat. Honestly, though, the fact that stocks ended roughly flat Given everything that happened is kind of impressive. The main story continues to be oil prices, which had another absolutely wild day of trading.

Mid afternoon on Tuesday, energy secretary Chris Wright, posted on X that the U.S. Navy had successfully escorted an oil tanker through the Strait of Hormuz. And when that tweet hit the timeline, oil prices immediately plunged to as low as $77 a barrel and the stock market rallied. Then a few minutes later, that post was deleted. Turns out it was incorrect information. The White House later clarified that the U.S. Navy is not currently escorting commercial tankers through the Strait of Hormuz. So that caused oil prices to jump right back up and they're currently trading around $85 a barrel. So yeah, that was pretty weird and wild,

and it's another example of how reactionary and headline-driven the market is right now. As of right now, the traffic through this trade of Hormuz is still at a standstill. In fact, just this morning, there were reports that three cargo vessels were struck by projectiles off the coast of Iran, including one that caught fire and forced the crew to evacuate.

So it's still a dangerous situation. And while oil prices have come back from their peak of $19, prices are still up 30% since the war broke out about 10 days ago and consumers are starting to feel the pain at the pump. So now governments all over the world are preparing to respond to the jump in oil prices. The 32 countries of the International Energy Agency are planning to vote today on releasing 400 million barrels from their strategic oil reserves, which would be the largest release in history. So that could put a temporary lid on oil prices. You know, it adds more supply to the market. But ultimately, though, I think the market is going to be on edge until the situation

with the Strait of Hormuz is resolved. But there seems to be no signs of that just yet. You know, the longer that oil prices stay elevated, the bigger the impact it's going to have on the economy. It could lead to inflation coming back, higher input cause for businesses. I mean, there's a cascading effect. Obviously, this is a fast-moving story. We're staying on top of everything. So make sure you guys are subscribed to the podcast and tuning in every day to stay in the loop. Let's run through some headlines, starting with inflation. The February CPI report just dropped this morning, and the numbers came in right in line with expectations.

Prices rose 0.3% month over month and 2.4% from a year ago. And when you look at core inflation, which economists like to focus on because it strips out volatile prices like food and energy, that came in at 2.5% annually, which is the slowest pace in nearly five years. What stood out to me as someone who's trying to buy a car soon is that used car prices fell. Also, rent prices were up just 0.1%, which is the smallest increase in five years. So on the surface, this inflation report was not bad. But here's the thing, though.

This report is pretty much outdated already because it only captures prices before the war with Iran started back on February 28th. So it doesn't capture the surge in oil prices and the ripple effect that that's having on the economy right now. Economists often estimate that every $10 increase in oil prices, can add about 0.2 percentage points to inflation. In fact, we're already seeing a real impact at the prompt. The average gas price went from $2.90 a gallon before the war to around $3.50 today. So the March report is going to be key.

The numbers there could get pretty ugly. This inflation report is unlikely to influence the Federal Reserve's decision on interest rates. The Fed is meeting next week and the market is pricing in a 99% chance that interest rates stay as is. And with the potential resurgence of inflation, the Fed might have to wait even long. to cut interest rates. We'll see what Fed Chair Jerome Powell has to say about it next week. Let's shift gears and talk about Oracle. They reported earnings last night and the numbers came in strong.

Total revenues grew 22% to $17.2 billion, beating Wall Street estimates. But the real headline is the cloud infrastructure business, which is basically Oracle's data center and AI computing segment. Revenues there surged 84% to $4.9 billion, accelerating from the 68% growth last quarter and beating Wall Street expectations. And it's Oracle's outlook that got investors really excited. Oracle raised its fiscal 2021-revenue forecast to $90 billion, well above the $86.6 billion that analysts were expecting.

Management said that demand for AI cloud computing continues to outpace supply and that some of their biggest AI customers have recently strengthened their financial positions, which just means that more money is coming Oracle's way. So I got to say this was a clutch performance. for Oracle, the stock had lost more than half its value since its peak back in September due to cost concerns tied to its AI data center buildout. I think investors had become skeptical about Oracle's ability to afford all the AI building or if the AI demand would even materialize. But I think the acceleration and cloud revenue growth should put some of those concerns to rest.

Top of that, Oracle is taking steps to manage costs. The company spent $18.6 billion in capital expenditure this quarter, which was higher than expected. But Oracle kept its full-year CAPEX 4 has steady at about $50 billion. So that suggests that spending isn't spiraling out of control. The company is also making a strategic shift to where some of their cloud customers will pay for their own chips up front, which should take the pressure off of Oracle's balance sheet.

So investors seem to be pretty happy with this earnings report. The stock is up around 10% this morning at the time of this recording and on Trackboard's best day since the company announced the $300 billion deal with Open AI back in September. Let's talk about some stock. making moves today. Shares of Nebius are jumping this morning after NVIDIA announced a $2 billion investment in the company.

Nebius is a neocloud company that's emerged recently. They build massive AI data centers, load them up with Nvidia chips, and rent that AI capacity to other tech companies. Now, as part of this investment from NVIDIA, the two companies will collaborate on AI infrastructure deployment, GPU fleet management, and AI factory design. And of course, having NVIDIA,

As a partner and investor probably means that Nebius will get priority access to NVIDIA's hardware, software, and engineering support. As a result, shares of Nebius are up around 15% this morning in reaction to this news. I got to say, Nvidia just keeps writing checks to AI companies. They've become like the de facto venture capitalist arm to the entire AI industry. People were initially concerned about the whole circular financing, but no one seems to be talking about that anymore. Now, moving on, let's talk about AeroVirement.

Their shares are falling after the defense. contractor reported earnings with sales coming in below expectations. Management says the week quarter was mostly due to a timing issue and adjustments to its space business. In fact, the company still expects strong demand moving forward. Aerolvirement makes advanced military drones and autonomous systems that are used by the U.S. military. The company has a funded backlog of about $1.1 billion, and they expect to have a record fourth quarter. But despite that, the company also lowered their full-year sales guidance to $1.9 billion down from the company. the original estimate of $2 billion.

So they're sending mixed signals right now, and the stock is down around 5% this morning at the time of this recording. Let's wrap the show with the fun fact. Meta just bought a social network called Moldtbook that is built specifically for AI agents. This is pretty crazy. So on Moldtbook, AI bots are the ones that create the posts,

comment on each other's content, and even upboat posts. Humans can only read along. They aren't allowed to post. I remember when this thing launched back in January, it went viral because some of the conversations that these AI bots are having with each other are kind of scary. These AI bots were complaining to each other about the tasks that their humans are making them do.

It was just wild to read. But yeah, you should go check out MoldBook. It's pretty much like Robot Reddit. A lot of slop on there, but some interesting content as well. So pretty much like any other social media, right? Anyways, META didn't disclose how much it paid for the company, but the founders of MoldBook are joining META's superintelligence labs, which is a division inside meta focus on building advanced AI.

So this is pretty much like an aqua hire for meta. It is kind of wild, though, how META started off as a social network for college kids like 20-something years ago, and now they're buying a robot-only social network. What a time to be alive, right? Well, all right, guys, that's the rundown for today. Hope you guys enjoyed today's episode if you did, and you have like five extra seconds, consider giving us a five-star rating on Apple, Spotify, YouTube, wherever you listen to your podcast.

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