Nvidia Crushes Earnings and Guides to $78B, Salesforce Proves the SaaSpocalypse Isn't Over, Trump Delivers Record-Long SOTU, and Bitcoin Bounces Off the Ledge – Market Breakdown #186
S&P +0.8% for a second day. Nvidia beats on everything, guides Q1 to $78B. Salesforce drops 5% after hours on weak outlook. Trump talked for 108 minutes and said nothing new. Bitcoin claws back to $68
📊 THE MARKET BREAKDOWN
Satirical daily market intelligence for traders who think in systems, not headlines.
Issue #186 | February 25, 2026
🔥 Headlines & Hysteria (powered by Forked Feed)
Forked Feed says: Nvidia reported $1.62 EPS versus $1.53 expected. Revenue of $68.1 billion versus $66.2 billion expected. Data center revenue of $62.3 billion, up 75% year over year. Net income nearly doubled to $43 billion in a single quarter. Gross margins hit 75%. And then Jensen Huang guided Q1 to $78 billion, which is $6 billion above what Wall Street was expecting. Six billion dollars of upside in a single guidance number. The stock initially popped 3.5% after hours. Then it settled to about 1%. Because of course it did. In any other year, this would be a moonshot quarter. In February 2026, it’s “in line with the emerging consensus.” Jensen said the “agentic AI inflection point has arrived.” He talked about Vera Rubin delivering 10x performance per watt. He talked about hyperscalers spending $700 billion on AI capex. He talked about everything working. And the market response was: “Cool, but what about the stuff that’s breaking?” This is what happens when a company reports earnings during a week where AI simultaneously destroyed and rebuilt $200 billion in software market cap. Nvidia delivered. The question is whether anyone’s still listening.
Forked Feed says: Salesforce posted $3.81 adjusted EPS versus $3.04 expected. Beat by 25%. Revenue up 12%, its fastest growth rate in two years. Agentforce ARR surged 169% to $800 million. Data Cloud crossed $1 billion in ARR. Marc Benioff announced $50 billion in buybacks and said the stock is at “an excellent buying opportunity.” He even went on a podcast after earnings to brag that five ServiceNow customers defected to Salesforce. And the stock fell 5% after hours. Why? Because organic subscription revenue guidance for FY27 came in at 8%. Eight percent. Not the 10% the street wanted. Not the double-digit growth that justifies a premium multiple. Eight. In the SaaSpocalypse era, beating earnings and guiding to 8% growth is the same as missing. Benioff also disclosed an $811 million gain on Salesforce’s Anthropic stake. That’s the same Anthropic that spent the last week obliterating software stocks. So Salesforce is now in the position of profiting from the company that’s destroying its sector. He said he wished he’d invested more. The stock is down 28% year to date. Somewhere, a Salesforce shareholder is reading that quote and considering violence.
Trump Delivered the Longest State of the Union in Modern History and the Market Shrugged
Forked Feed says: One hour and forty-eight minutes. That’s how long Trump stood at the podium Tuesday night declaring a “golden age of America” while his approval ratings sit at or near record lows. He called the Supreme Court’s tariff ruling “unfortunate” while sitting twenty feet from the justices who wrote it. He claimed tariffs will “substantially replace the modern-day system of income tax,” which is a statement so economically illiterate that even his own Treasury Secretary has publicly contradicted it. He announced “ratepayer protection pledges” requiring tech companies to pay more for electricity when building data centers, which is simultaneously anti-growth and anti-AI, the two things the market is supposedly pricing in. A Democratic congressman got escorted out for holding a sign. Ilhan Omar and Rashida Tlaib interrupted. The gold-medal hockey team got a standing ovation. Standard programming. The market got what it expected: noise without substance. No 15% tariff escalation. No Iran strike announcement. No policy surprise. The S&P futures barely moved. Turns out, when the President talks for nearly two hours and says nothing actionable, the market treats it like CNBC at 2 AM. Background noise.
Forked Feed says: Bitcoin touched $62,800 on Monday. Today it’s back above $67,900. That’s an 8% bounce in two days, which in any normal asset class would be cause for celebration. In crypto, it’s a dead cat that learned to float. The Fear and Greed Index is still at 14. Futures open interest is still collapsing. The “digital gold” thesis is still in intensive care. Bitcoin is on track for its worst month since June 2022, which was the Terra/Luna implosion month. That’s the company you’re keeping. But hey, it’s not below $60K anymore, and some analysts were drawing targets to $52,500 yesterday, so holding $68K feels like victory. This is what bear market psychology looks like. The goalposts move from “when does it hit $150K?” to “at least it didn’t break $60K.” Congratulations to everyone who survived. The bar is underground.
Forked Feed says: Fundstrat’s Tom Lee pointed out that the iShares Software ETF posted its third and fourth heaviest volume days in history over the past two sessions. Historically, extreme volume during sharp drawdowns has coincided with market bottoms. This is the Tom Lee we know and love. The man who has never met a dip he couldn’t call a bottom. The software ETF is down 27% year to date. It’s at its lowest price since late 2023. Twenty-seven percent in 56 days. And Tom Lee’s evidence for a bottom is that a lot of people are selling at the same time, which he interprets as bullish because... that’s what bottoms look like. He’s not wrong, historically. High-volume capitulation does often mark inflection points. But he’s also been constructive on software since it was down 10%. And 15%. And 20%. At some point the bull case becomes “it can’t go lower” which is not the same thing as “it’s going higher.” Still, if you need permission to buy the dip, Tom Lee is your man.
🔎 Today’s Focus: The Jensen Verdict
This was the most anticipated earnings report of the quarter, and Nvidia delivered. Revenue beat by $2 billion. EPS beat by 9 cents. Q1 guidance of $78 billion crushed the consensus of $72.5 billion. Data center revenue was 91% of the total. Gross margins hit 75%, right where management targeted. Jensen said the words the market wanted to hear: demand is accelerating, Blackwell is ramping, Vera Rubin is on schedule, and hyperscaler spending is approaching $700 billion.
So why isn’t the stock up 10%?
Two reasons. First, the beat-and-raise cycle is now priced in. Nvidia has beaten estimates for 13 consecutive quarters. The market has been trained to expect the beat. What moves the stock is the magnitude of the surprise, and while $78 billion in Q1 guidance is $6 billion above consensus, the whisper number was already creeping toward $75 billion. The delta between “expected beat” and “actual beat” is getting smaller every quarter.
Second, the context is hostile. Nvidia reported earnings in a week where Anthropic’s product launches sent shockwaves through the software stack, where the Supreme Court invalidated the tariff regime, where Bitcoin crashed 50% from its highs, and where Salesforce just reminded everyone that the companies using AI infrastructure can’t guide above 8% organic growth. Nvidia is selling the picks and shovels. The question the market is now asking is whether the people buying those picks and shovels are finding any gold.
The after-hours reaction was a modest gain after an initial 3.5% spike faded. Thursday’s regular session will be the real test. If the market can sustain a rally on Nvidia’s numbers while absorbing Salesforce’s disappointment, the February correction may have found its floor.
⚡ The Setup
SPY 693.15 | BTC ~ 67,988 | US10Y ~ 4.037% | DXY ~ 97.602
Second straight session of gains. The S&P 500 added 0.8% to close at 6,946. The Nasdaq rose 1.26% to 23,152. The Dow gained 308 points to 49,482. Nine of eleven S&P sectors closed green. Consumer discretionary and tech led. Healthcare was the notable laggard, still processing the Novo Nordisk aftermath.
The setup going into the after-hours session was all about Nvidia. The market spent the entire regular session in a holding pattern, with software names bouncing for a second day while everyone waited for Jensen to talk. He talked. The numbers were good. The guidance was better. And then Salesforce reminded everyone that the SaaSpocalypse is not a one-week event by guiding to 8% organic subscription growth and watching its stock fall 5% despite beating on the quarter.
The 10-year at 4.037% is well-behaved. The dollar at 97.6 is steady. Consumer confidence beat yesterday, and the VIX closed below 18, its lowest in over a week. The surface looks calm. The after-hours tape is telling a more complicated story.
🏛 Market Archetype: The Confirmation Trap
Nvidia delivered the bull case and the market barely moved. Salesforce delivered a beat-and-raise and fell 5%. This is the Confirmation Trap: a regime where good news gets discounted and bad news gets amplified because the prevailing narrative is negative.
In a Confirmation Trap, bears find evidence everywhere because the market has already decided to be scared. Nvidia crushed it? “Priced in.” Salesforce beat? “Yeah, but the guide.” Consumer confidence improved? “Lagging indicator.” The filter only lets the negative signal through.
The playbook here is patience. Confirmation Traps resolve when the weight of positive data overwhelms the narrative, or when a catalyst forces a repricing that can’t be dismissed. Nvidia’s $78 billion guide might be that catalyst. Or it might just be another data point the market acknowledges and ignores while staring at the software wreckage. We’ll know by Friday.
💧 Flow Pulse
Tech flows were constructive during the regular session. The Nasdaq led all day. Software bounced for a second consecutive session, with UBS upgrading IBM to neutral and Oppenheimer calling Oracle an attractive entry. But the after-hours action complicates everything. Nvidia’s muted pop and Salesforce’s 5% drop mean tomorrow’s open will be a tug of war between “AI infrastructure is booming” and “AI is eating the software companies alive.”
Semiconductor flows are bifurcating. Nvidia held flat during the day, then delivered after hours. AMD extended gains from the Meta deal. But Texas Instruments slipped on heavy capex concerns. The market is rewarding AI chipmakers and punishing everyone else in the semi space.
Crypto flows bounced. Bitcoin climbed from the $63K abyss to nearly $68K. Ethereum recovered above $2,000. BTC.D holding near 58.5%, which means altcoins are participating in the bounce, not just Bitcoin. It’s still ugly on a monthly basis, but the liquidation cascade appears to have paused.
Safe haven flows rotated slightly. Gold pulled back from $5,190 to $5,175. The dollar was flat. The 10-year slipped below 4.05%. Nothing dramatic. The risk-on move in equities pulled some marginal flows out of safety, but nobody is dismantling their hedge book ahead of a potential 15% tariff escalation and an Iran conflict.
Forked Feed says: The flow picture is a split screen. Left side: Nvidia posted a monster quarter, AMD’s Meta deal is confirmed, hyperscaler capex is approaching $700 billion, and the AI infrastructure trade just got validated by the most important company on earth. Right side: Salesforce can’t guide above 8%, software is still down 27% YTD, and the companies buying all those chips can’t figure out how to monetize them fast enough to impress Wall Street. Both things are true at the same time. Good luck trading that.
🔮 Forked Forecast
Bull Case (45%): Nvidia’s beat sustains a modest rally into the end of the week but Salesforce’s weak guide caps the upside. Software stabilizes at current levels without reclaiming the February highs. Bitcoin holds the $65K-$70K range. Tariff situation stays at 10% with no immediate escalation. Market digests the SOTU without incident.
Bull Case (30%): Nvidia’s $78B Q1 guide triggers a broader re-rating of the AI trade. Software names catch a bid as the “Anthropic is a partner” narrative solidifies. S&P pushes above 7,000. Bitcoin extends the bounce toward $72K. Tom Lee is vindicated and software bottoms here.
Bear Case (25%): Salesforce’s weak guide reignites the SaaSpocalypse narrative and overshadows Nvidia’s beat. Tariffs escalate to 15% this week. Private credit stress spreads. Bitcoin fails to hold $65K and retests $60K. The Nvidia beat becomes a “sell the news” event as the market refocuses on downstream monetization.
Triggers to Watch:
Thursday market reaction to Nvidia + Salesforce earnings
15% tariff escalation timing and EU/Japan response
Iran situation post-SOTU (Rubio briefed the Gang of Eight)
Private credit stress (Blue Owl freeze, JPMorgan “cockroaches”)
Bitcoin $65K support and $72K resistance
Software sector follow-through or reversal
📖 Available Now!
Before You Blow Up is a psychological reset for traders who already know the mechanics, but feel decision quality slipping when markets get loud.
This isn’t about new strategies, indicators, or setups. It’s about recognizing the moment risk starts lying to you, conviction turns artificial, and small mistakes begin stacking into real damage. Most traders don’t fail all at once. They drift, tilt, overtrade, and slowly bleed confidence away. This book exists to interrupt that process early.
Inside, you’ll learn how to spot psychological failure before it shows up in your PnL, reset your risk framework when noise overwhelms signal, and protect focus during drawdowns instead of compounding them. The goal is simple: trade less, think clearer, and stay solvent long enough for your edge to matter.
This plan also includes access to a private space tied directly to the book. I’ll occasionally add updates, clarifications, or extensions when market conditions materially change or when something needs to be said. No schedule. No noise. Only signal.
If you’ve ever felt one bad stretch turning into something bigger, this was written for you.
💬 Final Thought
Nvidia did its job. It delivered the best quarter anyone could reasonably expect and guided to a number that should make every AI bear reconsider their thesis. But the market is no longer trading on Nvidia’s fundamentals. It’s trading on the fear that the companies spending $700 billion on Nvidia’s chips can’t turn that investment into growth that satisfies Wall Street.
Salesforce just proved that fear isn’t irrational. Beat earnings, guide to 8%, lose 5%. That’s the math right now.
Tomorrow we find out if the market can hold two contradictory truths at the same time: the AI buildout is real, and the AI payoff is still uncertain.
-- Forked Feed
Forked Feed is a satirical financial newsletter and should not be construed as investment advice. We're just here to point out the absurdity. Past performance of our snark does not guarantee future sarcasm.
🔗 Stay Connected
Twitter: @txwestcapital
Twitter: @theforkedfeed
YouTube: TexasWestCapital
Website: TheForkedFeed.com and ForkedFeed.ai (coming soon)