저자: JimCramer · 외국인
요약 보기
AI 인프라 투자 지속 전제 하에 빅테크 실적을 평가하며, DeepSeek 사례와 달리 Kimi K3 우려 속 반도체 하락은 과열 청산 성격이라 보고 신중론을 폈다. 마이크론·SK하이닉스는 이익 대비 저평가지만 여전히 고가라 매수는 신중해야 한다고 언급. 아마존은 AWS 성장 가속으로 투자 확대가 보상받았고, 메타는 지출 대비 우려가 있으며, 애플은 AI 지연과 메모리 비용 상승으로 약세. 수요가 식었다는 증거는 없고 AI 인프라 사이클은 유효하다는 입장.
다듬은 글
many technology stocks that don't deserve to be crushed. So, I've been telling you how my investment trust diversified away from technology, using new funds, with the exception of Intel . More on that in a moment. for the club. I was happy to own industrial companies, not necessarily data center companies, but also healthcare, because we don't want to be the next SKH, a giant semiconductor company that gets taken over by desperate traders who should really be betting on the World Cup.
Bulls remember the beginning of 2025, the DeepSeek case, when stocks collapsed due to the emergence of a Chinese AI program, and then quickly rebounded. Now, the bulls are claiming that this new AI threat, Kimi k3 from the Chinese company Moonshot AI, is similar to the DeepSeek case, when everything else also went down the drain.
But if you bought technology, especially data center technology, you'll make a fortune, just like when DeepSeek was second-rate. I'm not sure we should step in and buy this time, because the stocks that could falter are the ones that remain incredibly expensive even after the drop, like Micron or SK Hynix.
So, they are ridiculously cheap based on profits, but they are expensive. We'll look at some of the hardest- hit stocks later in the program. You will be able to make your own decision. I think some will fall so hard that there will be a real opportunity here, and I see it. With that said, let me tell you what we do.
First, we are not touching on the trust's long-standing position at Apple. Apple's management has indeed come under sharp criticism from the technological intelligentsia. The intelligentsia says that Apple missed the most important story of our lives— artificial intelligence. They criticize Siri. They see the missed opportunity as critical to Apple's failure in the next generation .
However, do you know what these same people are posting from their iPhone 17 Pro Max? You know what they would rather do? They would rather cut their wrists than switch to Samsung. They remind me of the moment when I said AI costs. They explained the reason for higher memory prices. They even admitted that we will probably have to continue spending more because these prices are not going to come down anytime soon.
But they got a much more favorable reaction, Lisa. So what did Amazon do right? I think, Marley, in short, Amazon has confirmed that Microsoft's success in getting approval was no fluke. We have seen tremendous growth in AWS. In fact, the fastest growth in 18 quarters. AWS continues to be a real engine, right?
This is operating profit . But like Microsoft, and unlike Alphabet, investors rewarded Amazon, as you said, for increasing capital spending because the acceleration of AWS growth proved that those investments were profitable, which is exactly what they want to see. Now I mentioned the return on investment fallacy .
In fact, Andy Jesse even said that as demand for AI continues to outpace available infrastructure, which is a trend we're seeing everywhere, Amazon's AI and custom chip business will exceed, you know, $25 billion in annual recurring revenue. And what they showed yesterday is that Wall Street continues to support these massive infrastructure investments until—and here's the catch—companies prove that it delivers tangible business results.
OK. Now let's talk about Meta, because Mark Zuckerberg came out and said that all costs will be justified. We'll just wait and see. They were still met with a drop of almost 10%. They spend aggressively. In the notes I've read, there seems to be a little more composure about their spending, perhaps from the sell-side analysts .
More worrying is the miss on the main indicator. And what do you think about Meta ? I look at Meta from a marketing perspective because one thing that really changed my thinking, Marley, over the last quarter, is not Meta's spending on AI, but their messaging. Back in May, I was very critical of Zuckerberg for blaming AI for layoffs while investing, what, $31 billion in AI infrastructure last quarter.
As you said, they also increased capital spending. But as someone who has spent decades helping tech companies tell stories about innovation, I really think—and I think Meta is moving in that direction—the story a brand tells about innovation should be as important as the innovation itself. So, fast forward to today: Zuckerberg is talking about superpersonal intelligence, or more precisely, personal superintelligence.
AI that empowers people, not replaces them. And I welcome this shift because I've been saying all along that the biggest winners in AI won't replace workers, as Jensen says. They will use AI to make people more productive, and Meta has taken a good step in that direction. OK. And so I want to move on to Apple as well, because they had a similar reaction—a drop of about 8-9%.
It looks like it will hold as we approach the close of trading. Apple is not really considered a leader in AI. They are actually considered to be lagging behind . Maybe that's a different conversation, but this earnings report was important for many reasons. Tim Cook's latest moves, the unexpected price hike, the announcement of this new leasing program.
There were many questions surrounding Apple's future . What were your conclusions and did you expect the reaction you saw yesterday when the numbers came out? I was expecting this yesterday afternoon . I think Apple's most important story is n't about the iPhone. The story is that quarterly revenue has increased significantly.
You mentioned that Tim Cook is leaving a company that, when he led it, was worth about 350 billion. Now it is worth 5 trillion. Back in June, he spoke of the memory deficit as the " flood of the century," as he described it. And Apple says, "Hey, memory, storage, and power for advanced chips—all of that is getting a lot more expensive." They are also harder to get because vendors prefer Nvidia AI infrastructure and hyperscalers.
So we know that AI is no longer just a software story, but Apple has shown that it is becoming a hardware economics story. You mentioned their AI strategy. They're not known as leaders, but I think their strategy is evolving, because what they're doing is, in my opinion, the most serious test: is the AI boom really slowing down?
For months, investors wanted only one thing—everything related to AI. Shares of memory manufacturers soared, while semiconductor companies reached record highs. Data center providers couldn't keep up with demand, and then everything suddenly changed. Micron has lost almost a third of its value from its high.
SK Hynix and Samsung became incredibly volatile and began to show worse results, despite expected high profits. So what has changed? Has the demand for AI fallen? Not according to the companies that actually pay money. The biggest debate on Wall Street today is not about whether AI is growing, but whether the market has gotten too excited too quickly.
Many investors now believe that stock prices have already priced in years of future growth. Leverage reached extreme levels , and impulse traders rushed into the same assets. When the sale finally started, it took off like a snowball. Forced liquidation hit hedge funds. Margin calls have spread throughout the Korean retail market.
Large portfolios were dumped into the market, and suddenly great companies started falling together. Not because of disappointment with the profits, but because investors needed cash. This is an important distinction. Business fundamentals and stock prices do not always move in sync. Sometimes the market simply clearly overestimates expectations, and that is exactly what many institutional investors now believe.
Despite all the volatility, one thing has remained remarkably stable. The largest cloud companies have never shied away from spending on AI. Microsoft remains committed , while Amazon has increased its investment. Alphabet continued to expand, and Meta maintained its aggressive plan. If demand were to fall, continue to talk about expanding capacity.
This is because AI infrastructure benefits more than just one industry. Every dollar spent on data centers creates demand across multiple sectors. Chip and memory manufacturers, energy companies, network equipment, electrical infrastructure , construction firms, industrial automation, cooling systems—the AI investment cycle encompasses much more than any one person.
Take Micron for example. This stock was one of the most volatile on the market. One day it grows by double digits, and the next it gives it all back. But despite these price fluctuations, the company continues to sign long-term customer agreements. Management continues to talk about price stability, capacity remains stable, and customers continue to invest billions of dollars for years to come.
These are not signs that the industry is entering a recession, they are signs that demand is still outstripping supply. One portfolio manager made an interesting observation. If AI spending truly peaked, hyperscalers would start cutting capital expenditures. Instead, they do the exact opposite. They continue to increase investments because customer demand still exceeds available computing power.
This is one of the strongest signals that investors can hope for . Of course, there are risks. Funding these huge AI projects and the cost of debt has increased. Investors demand better returns before financing large-scale infrastructure projects. These fears are quite justified. No one would ignore them.
But higher financing costs do not automatically destroy demand. They simply raise the standards that every project must meet. Fortunately, the largest cloud companies are finally starting to show tangible results. The growth of cloud services is accelerating. Profitability continues to grow.
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