Mad Money 03/17/26 | Audio Only
Speakers
Summary
- Despite a 3% oil rally, many stocks advanced, signaling investor focus on individual company fundamentals over macro headwinds.
- Delta Airlines demonstrated strong performance in both regular and business travel despite $95 oil, challenging bearish assumptions about the airline sector.
- Private equity stocks like Blackstone, Apollo, and Aries rebounded sharply on perceptions that the private credit crisis has been overblown.
- Enterprise software investments by Thoma Bravo are performing well, with 77 deals doing fine, countering narratives that AI has made such software obsolete.
- Bank stocks recovered from oversold conditions as panic selling created buying opportunities.
- Nvidia stock remained stagnant despite positive news from its GTC conference, attributed to full institutional ownership and option selling pressure from retail call writing.
- Jim Cramer is long-term bullish on Nvidia, viewing it as an AI infrastructure company beyond GPUs, with accelerating growth, expansion beyond hyperscalers, and potential to become a $10 trillion company.
- Vertive, a provider of power and cooling equipment for data centers, reported a blowout quarter, with stock up over 65% in 2026, benefiting from partnership with Nvidia and the AI-driven data center buildout.
- In the lightning round, Cramer gave a neutral view on Bangor stock, advised against Super Micro Computer (SMCI), and recommended Dell as a preferable investment in the computing hardware space.
- Mistral AI, a private French open-source AI company, partnered with Nvidia for the Neotron coalition to advance open-weight models and offers customized solutions for enterprises, particularly in financial services.
- Energy consumption for AI data centers is a growing concern, but Nvidia's architecture is highlighted as energy-efficient, and Vertive is scaling liquid cooling capacity to meet demand.
- Open Claw is emphasized as a groundbreaking open-source project, comparable to ChatGPT, enabling easy creation of AI agents and representing a significant growth vector.
Trade Ideas
Cramer explicitly advises viewers to "own it, not trade it" and not to lose faith in Nvidia despite short-term stock stagnation. Nvidia is transitioning from a GPU company to an AI infrastructure platform, with accelerating growth, expansion beyond hyperscalers, new technologies like agents and Open Claw, and potential confidential computing advantages. Long-term upside is substantial as the company executes on its vision, with Cramer citing potential for a $10 trillion valuation. Short-term pressure from full institutional ownership and option selling could keep the stock range-bound until new financial numbers are reported.
During the lightning round, Cramer explicitly tells a caller asking about SMCI to buy Dell instead, saying "you're buying Dell you're not buying SMC." Dell is highlighted by Jensen Wong as having a huge pipeline in on-premise computing, which is a growth area as AI expands beyond hyperscalers. Dell is presented as a superior investment to SMCI in the computing hardware sector for AI infrastructure. Competition from other hardware providers or a shift back to cloud-centric models could impact Dell's growth.
Cramer directly advises against buying Super Micro Computer (SMCI), stating "no you're buying Dell you're not buying SMC." Implied that Dell is a better alternative in the server and computing hardware space, possibly due to its broader ecosystem or valuation. SMCI should be avoided in favor of other investments like Dell, based on Cramer's preference. SMCI might still capture growth in AI server demand, but Cramer sees limited relative value.
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This CNBC video, published March 17, 2026, features Jim Cramer discussing NVDA, DELL, SMCI. 3 trade ideas extracted by AI with direction and confidence scoring.
Speakers: Jim Cramer · Tickers: NVDA, DELL, SMCI