Squawk on the Street SOTS 2nd Hour: Cramer Interviews Nvidia CEO, Apollo's Chief Economist, & Iran's Fed Impact 3/17/26
Mar 17, 2026
Torsten Slok, Chief Economist at Apollo Global Management, offers macro perspective on inflation, Fed policy, and geopolitical shocks. He discusses why rate cuts are unlikely this year. Short takes cover oil-driven inflation risks, AI-driven growth tailwinds, and timing uncertainties around productivity and labor effects.
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NVIDIA Hits An Inference Inflection
- Jensen Huang says NVIDIA reached an "inference inflection" and now sees accelerating growth across AI workloads.
- He reported high-confidence visibility of $1 trillion in Blackwell and Rubin GPU demand with 21 months left to 2027, not counting other products.
Watch Break-Evens And Oil Curve Before Betting On Fed Cuts
- Markets re-priced Fed cuts after the Iran conflict, pushing expected first cut from midyear to December.
- Watch inflation break-evens and the oil forward curve to judge whether higher energy prices are transitory or persistent.
Fed Survey Sees Oil Raising Inflation But Also Hitting Growth
- CNBC Fed survey respondents expect higher oil (about $88 in six months) to add ~0.5ppt to CPI and shave ~0.3ppt from GDP.
- The panel still priced ~1.5–1.8 rate cuts for the year, more dovish than futures, because growth effects may dominate.