One market theme that may steal attention from Nvidia next week

Being dark, as they call it, isn't the only thing that's overrated. I've been talking about the last few weeks about "Mad Money" being taken off the air to make way for the Winter Olympics. I was going to lay out my game plan for next week on the regular Friday edition of the show, so let's do it here. “Mad Money” returns to Monday, a light day on the calendar. But I'm obviously sensitive about the tensions in the Middle East and what President Donald Trump might do with Iran. The dispute is all about regime change. The president appears to believe that Iran has the freedom to do whatever it wants with nuclear energy and that it is time to teach the country a lesson that previous administrations refused to do. This will lead to a volatile situation that will be unplayable, but we recently raised some money and will be excited to implement this at some of our favorite companies. Alphabet is a position I'm looking to build on now that we've reduced exposure to some stocks that I feel don't meet our standards. Oil enthusiasts might want to take a look at Diamondback Energy. We did not emphasize fats. I did not expect the sharp rise resulting from the US-Iran conflict. Oil prices hovered near six-month highs on Friday, heading for their first weekly gain in three weeks. Tuesday is big. We start with Home Depot's quarterly results, whose locations have become hotbeds of ICE arrests and an endless roundup of immigrants looking for work. Going after Hispanics doesn't help the Hispanic customer. It may be a tough quarter, but we care most about rates falling, and that's what's going to happen when Kevin Warsh becomes the new chairman of the Federal Reserve in mid-2026. I'm not that worried about actual store sales numbers. After Tuesday's close, we have one of the most important enterprise software data points: Workday's earnings report. First, some background: The biggest battleground in this entire market right now is AI eating software. In this case, there is a belief that agencies, especially those made by Anthropic, can reduce the number of seats the customer will pay for. Anthropic needs to be able to undo what Workday has done in human resources and finance. Leave aside that Anthropic is said to actually be a Workday customer; That company was hit by an underwhelming final quarter that led to the return of Aneel Bhusri and the departure of Carl Eschenbach, seen by Wall Street as an incompetent CEO. I have known Bhusri for years. She's amazing. Salesforce CEO Marc Benioff is a great spokesperson for the power of Agentforce, but the software-as-a-service (SaaS) business appears to be hurt by the decline in seats. If anyone can tell people a clear story about SaaS and AI and how they can coexist, it will be Bhusri. Wednesday is one of those days that will be referred to as a "fulcrum" day, meaning that nothing may ever be the same after that. That's because as Nvidia reports, investors and analysts are all over the map on how much money Nvidia makes and how much they might owe to hyperscalers. We will hear the demands. We will hear a road map. We will hear about the gate factor of memory failure. If Nvidia goes well, we will see a monster push in technology that will put it back as the market leader. I remain firm in my belief that you should own Nvidia, but I also know that there are many who do not believe that a semiconductor company should be the largest in the world. I beg to differ. Club stock Nvidia is at the heart of the fourth industrial revolution, and Alphabet and Amazon are still good customers even if they produce their own chips. Meta Platforms is an extremely good customer. I don't play quarter matches. I'm playing the long game, which means considering how valuable Nvidia's chips are in terms of total cost of ownership (TCO). Salesforce also reported on Wednesday and those Club shares were crushed. This is one of the worst stocks in the S&P 500, and it's not because the company is missing estimates. This is because people don't believe in earnings and the "old" Salesforce will be killed by AI agents. At 15 times forward earnings estimates, we may be seeing a bottom. But I am at my wits end as I have watched multiple compressions continue for over a year. Your patience was not rewarded. Additionally, Anthropic's corporate, cybersecurity, human resources, etc. The software industry crashes every time it releases a new AI tool designed for I'm sure Marc will go head to head with the bears. I don't know if it will matter. We also have important stock reports on Wednesday morning. TJX gives us numbers. Last quarter was so strong that shares are on the rise. This broke a consistent pattern: The stock rises before the market opens, then declines. I expect another big quarter this time. TJX operates based on how close to a product it can get its hands on; There are a ton right now. Great setup. Home Depot and Lowe's are generally neck-and-neck. Right now Lowe's has the advantage and I expect Home Depot to post better numbers. But Home Depot has built a sizeable presence in the professional home builder segment, and that comes into play as rates drop. On Thursday, one of our biggest winners reports: Qnity Electronics. This is the materials business that emerged from DuPont's heavy exposure to semiconductors. This is the best market in the world. Since the company's shares were in full parabolic motion, we decided to cut back a bit on Friday. We just want to size it right. Even though he works so hard it may not matter, I expect good numbers. After Thursday's close, Nvidia's partner in building data centers, CoreWeave, will report and provide clarity on its performance. The stock is down big, but it's still worth twice what it was when it went public in March 2025. This stock is played out between bears and bulls. It's a complete war zone. You know I don't like battlefields. CoreWeave knows how to run a data center better than any other company. If Nvidia has a great report, this will fly. Dell Technologies also reports, and that company has a superior business in racks and PCs, certainly better than Hewlett Packard's. However, there are major concerns that high memory prices will slow sales. I don't like to bet against Michael Dell. Finally, there is a conundrum regarding Intuit. This too is under attack by artificial intelligence agents. We constantly hear that they have agents that are superior to the software offered by Intuit. I want to see products that compete with those from this excellent company. Intuit has established itself in many small and medium-sized businesses. I see him as a survivor; I don't know if anyone would pay more for this. It's an important week. No stock is more important to this market than Nvidia, but the decline and possible collapse of software may be the theme that runs through much of the market's mindshare. (See here for a complete list of stocks in Jim Cramer's Charitable Trust.) When you subscribe to the CNBC Investing Club with Jim Cramer, you will receive a trade alert before Jim makes a trade. Jim waits 45 minutes after sending a trading alert before buying or selling a stock in his charitable foundation's portfolio. If Jim discussed a stock on CNBC, he waits 72 hours after posting the trading alert before executing the trade. THE ABOVE INVESTMENT CLUB INFORMATION IS SUBJECT TO OUR TERMS AND CONDITIONS AND PRIVACY POLICY, TOGETHER WITH THE DISCLAIMERS. 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