← Mad Money w/ Jim Cramer
Mad Money w/ Jim Cramer
Mad Money w/ Jim Cramer 04/17/25
00:43:01
Listen to Jim Cramer’s personal guide through the confusing jungle of Wall Street investing, navigating through opportunities and pitfalls with one goal in mind - to help you make money. Mad Money Disclaimer
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- [00:00]
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Bank of America Representative
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- [01:00]
Jim Cramer
All rights reserved. My mission is simple. To make you money. I'm here to level the playing field for all investors. There's always a bull market somewhere, and I promise to help you find it. Mad Money starts now. Hey, I'm Kramer. Welcome to Mad Money. Welcome to Cramerica. Other people, my friends, I'm just trying to make you a little money. My job is not just to entertain, but to educate, to teach you. So call me at 1-800-743- CNBC. Tweet me. Jim Cramer. President Trump, what took you so long? This man went almost 100 days before he finally said he'd like to see Fed chief J. Powell ousted for keeping interest rates too high. I thought he would have done it weeks ago. Of course, it's illegal for him to fire Powell as the Fed's an independent agency. But it certainly sounds like the White House wants more control over the Federal Reserve. I guess this was expected because it didn't really have much of an impact on the stock market. Dow sinking 527 points. Hey, that was a huge chunk of is explained by a shortfall from UnitedHealth. While the S&P advanced 0.13% in the NASDAQ declined.13%. The fact is, the President wants lower interest rates to help offset the pain from higher prices that are going to be caused by the tariffs. But higher prices represent inflation. The Federal Reserve never cuts rates when inflation is out of control, which it very well could be once the tariffs are all in. I think the Fed chief wants to find out if that's going to happen. I like how you know that. I think he's generally done a good job, good public servant. Unfortunately I stuck between a rock and a hard place. Now history says he should be doing exactly what he's doing. But history is now in the eye of the beholder. And there's only one beholder in this whole country and it ain't Jay Powell. Hey, with that mind that's most political as I want to get. Believe me, I'm getting real tired of this political stuff that my. Let's talk about the game plan for next week. Good. We're talking stocks. That's what I like. Now we're getting right into the thick of earnings season and that means snap judgments. Washington overlaid on Wall Street. The roar of the grease paint, the smell, the crowd. Yeah, it's still that kind of, kind of weakened when I look at it. It's very daunting frankly. I'm canceling everything I'm doing every night next week and the week after because you can't do a good job if you're me. Now, it all starts with the banks. Specifically two really incredibly boring banks, Comerica and Zions Bancorp. Now both are considered suspect. We have high yields, you can tell that. But the banks have been outstanding. This environment, no tariff exposure, low charge off decent loan growth and hopefully some boost from deregulation down the road, which is what a lot of people voted for President Trump for. Okay, now to me though, the bank to own is on Tuesday. That's Capital One, which you probably know from the credit cards. Capital One is the last resort credit card for people who have a hard time getting credit. They've mastered the business of lending to the less credit worthy. And now they're trying to acquire Discover Financial, a competitor that also owns a payment group. Now we own this one for the trust. And I can't wait for this deal to close. Talk about deregulation, please. Because Capital One plus Discover could put up a real fight against many of the credit card companies. Racial banks, but also Visa, MasterCard. One relative Bright spot in this market has been aerospace and airplane engine maker ge. Aerospace reports they've great grass margins last time they report Tuesday. This has been a huge winner since the old General Electric started its breakup over two years ago. That's Larry Kulpzman engineering that and he runs aerospace. This one, largest backlogs in the business. Tremendous visibility into its outlook. We don't see any reason why that changes now. They have a terrific business that is just in repair model. I've been liking the defense stocks lately because if our trading partners want better treatment from the Trump administration, traditional go to move is to go buy some planes to go buy some military hardware. Northrop Grumman, RTX and Lockheed Martin all report on Tuesday morning. I think each one can be bought. But let me tell you something right now RTX is the one that's the best of the lot. People love the soft goods today. They like Procter and Gamble and Colgate, right? I say take a look at Kimberly Clark. It's really gotten its act together under CEO Mike Mike Shu. I don't think people realize that they ought to now. No earnings season is complete without Tesla. Okay, it's kind of like Netflix. Yeah, great number Netflix. No kidding. People keep talking about how Tesla needs to redefine itself as a technology company replete with life size robots and a game plan for the national roll out of self driving car cars. Without that, this is just some struggling EV play. Elon Musk, bring on the Humanoids. It's their time.
- [05:24]
Nick Pinchuk
Give him a break.
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Jim Cramer
Wednesday is a nightmare. It starts off with atc, which I still think one more good quarter after stumbling. Initially it's now one of the strongest stocks the entire market. Then we have pretty much the opposite with Boeing. Now I want to own this stock because nothing cures a trade deficit faster than buying dozens of airplanes from Boeing. That's assuming most countries decide to play nice rather than antagonizing the White House. Just one problem. Boeing is a hard time making planes, so its cash flow is weaker than I'd like. But if they can cure it, you'll have a buy. I want to see the cash flow. I've told Jeff Marks that if the cash flow here is turning up, then you must own the stock of Boeing. Now not that long ago everyone was jazzed about the prospects of G.E. vernova. That's the old General Electric power division. These days it's essential to build out the electric power for the grid which no longer has enough juice to fuel and cool all these data centers. Of course, the moment the data center stocks went out of style, G Vernova got hit. It's still up nicely versus last year. But without a recognition that the data centers continue to be built, this stock could languish. People have cooled on the Chipotle with this excuse that it's too expensive to give you the same huge same store sales numbers that we used to have. I disagree. Have the critics even tried the new Chipotle? Honey, Chicken. Limited time only option. I think Chipotle could ignite here. When it reports, I usually split it right in half. Okay. When I do at lunch, I save the rest for dinner. I ate the whole honey chicken. I shouldn't have done that. It made me too full for dinner. Okay, now here's an intriguing one. People are concerned about service now. All right, this is enterprise software powerhouse has too much government business at a time when Doge doesn't like paying consultants. From what we can tell, that's one reason why the stock's down 27% for the year. Now I am betting its CEO Bill McDermott, many people say best in the business is going to prove these people wrong when ServiceNow reports after the bell. Matter of fact, I'm counting on the company to be able to do better than expected. All right, that's what I see anyway. One of the most reliable companies reports on Wednesday and it's usually greeted with a burst higher. That's IBM. Ever since the spun of Kindle, the legacy business, this thing's been hunting as a consultant, they've been winning a lot of contracts, lucrative ones. I like that. I like the stock. Now it's been an awful lot of talk about how much tech we sell into China, right? And when it comes to American made technology, intellectual property, it doesn't get any better than LAM Research, the semiconductor capital equipment maker. Lam so good. But it's already had to take a hit in the Chinese business. The government didn't like how much they were selling. Kind of like what in video is doing. Wow, that was. I told you about Nvidia. What can I say? Will Lamb be hit again? Look, our government's eviscerated Lamb's China business once already. Can it do it again? Does whatever it was. Now we had a rotation in the soft goods going on today and I don't know if it's going to last but if it does, then there is a chance that Procter and Gamble will when it reports, blow the numbers away. By the way, they really benefit from the weaker dollar. I know all the buzzing heads say listen, weaker dollar bad. But again as I will emphasize almost every night because they keep emphasizing it's good for our companies, we're going to hear from PepsiCo. That's going to be a tougher lift. They used to be that used to be recession resistant. But Proctor's a lot of business in China. PepsiCo's got potato chips, they become too expensive. The airlines, they've been a mixed blessing between Delta bad, United good. The Weak and the strong, which is southwest and which is American. I think they're in the Delta camp but their stocks are cheap. It may not stay that way after the close. We have a very compelling night. We get results from Alphabet and I'm not sure how the core Google business can be doing if people are still are Starting to use ChatGPT, Grok, Claude and even Alphabet's own Gemini. Although I use that last. There's too much cannibalism here. At the same time the company was just dealt a severe legal defeat in its ability to handle both sides of the advertising business. Tonight we have on the former justice department lawyer who originally brought the case to help figure out what this all means. I am sure Alphabet will tell us not to worry. They always tell us not to worry. You know, you know when people tell you not to worry, what do you do exactly? All right, now here's what you need to know. You can't model the advertising gross margins in 2027 because of that lawsuit loss. So if you can't model 2027 then you can't model it. And now we discover why it sells at 16 times earnings because it may be expensive. Next T Mobile. Listen to this. It's been roaring again. It's the most aggressive. The phone companies tears have excellent deals to get an iPhone go to Costco if you want to. That's where I got I look really good deal but you got to switch of course out of Verizon. Now as long as Mike Sievert is run or as long as Mike Stewart is running the show at T Mobile, T Mobile's got it. Now people want gold stock, right? I got one. I got the only you need say me go Eagle. It's the best is the highest quality or it mine's in North America which last I look is a lot safer than a lot of other places. On Friday we have two recession resistant stocks we got and historically they've done really well. Colgate and abbvie. The last time Colgate reported was only fair to Midland. They don't do fair to Midland there twice in a row. So that stock's going to do well. AbbVie stock is volatile but when it reports you typically see some really good numbers to send it back towards its 52 week high. I would buy the stock of Abbvie ahead of the quarter. I wish I owned it for the trust. I'm trying to figure out whether I should buy still one more drug stock for the trust. But we got a lot of drug stocks. Here's the bottom line. I know it's supposed to be a terrible time, right? I mean, like, who's scary, but I don't know, the companies themselves, they keep delivering and delivering. And you know what? I don't think next week's going to be any different. Hey, why don't we go to Amy in California? Amy.
- [10:43]
Caller (Amy)
Hey, Jim, thanks for taking my call today.
- [10:45]
Jim Cramer
I'm glad you called. What's going on? I have a question about Nike. I bought it six months ago. It's tanked ever since. And I'm worried about what's going to happen with the new tariffs and with the imports with China. Well, I'll tell you, you got Elliot Hill there. He's an old hand. You have a 2.8% yield, but it is from China. It is China. The stock's still $82 billion. Maybe it shouldn't be $82 billion. I think the stock's going to do very little. We own Starbucks for the charitable trust, and a lot of people feel that's the same way. And I think Starbucks is a better company than Nike. So just understand that if it's got China in it, people just say, sell, sell, sell, and then there's nothing more to say. All right? Markets are volatile and there's a lot of political rhetoric to parse, and I can't stand that. But companies themselves keep delivering and I like that. Oh, man. Money tonight, fresh off an antitrust loss for Google. Today I'm getting to an expert read on the ruling with the guy who actually did the government side. Attorney General. Attorney General Jonathan Ketter. He's a former though, and he works for cnbc. Don't miss his take on the case. Plus, Abbott bucked the market to that trend today. Ending in the green after was yesterday, but I'm writing about it today. I'm checking up on the health care stock to see if it has more growth ahead. And later, I'm sitting down with the CEO of Snapple, an old friend of the show, to hear how businesses are bracing for future tariff impact and whether we still know how to make things in America. So stay with Kramer.
- [12:17]
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- [13:34]
Jim Cramer
With local communities to grow programs and.
- [13:36]
MultiCare Representative
Services, and expanding healthcare access to those.
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Bank of America Representative
Who need it most.
- [13:42]
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- [14:26]
Jim Cramer
Today, a federal judge in the Eastern District of Virginia well, the Google holds illegal monopolies in publisher ad servers and ad exchanges. This is the second major antitrust loss for Google in the past year, as a separate federal judge ruled that they've been exploiting their dominance in online search to crush the competition. Last summer, the immediate impact wasn't that while Google's parent, Alphabet only dropped 1.4%, some of its competitors put up big gains. But the longer term implications here are enormous. We've got two different federal courts ordering Google to either sell assets or change its business practices. It's not a good sign for the company that they keep losing these antitrust cases. Fortunately, tonight we have the perfect guest to walk us through this. CNBC contributor Jonathan Kanter is the former Assistant Attorney General for the Antitrust division under the Biden administration who originally brought this exact case against Google. Mr. Carrel, welcome back to Mad Money.
- [15:20]
Jonathan Kanter
Great to Be back with you, Jim.
- [15:21]
Jim Cramer
Well, it is terrific to see you, Jonathan. I figured, if you don't mind, could you walk us through what happened here? Because this was a huge victory and a lot of times Wall street doesn't seem to understand how big something can be.
- [15:34]
Jonathan Kanter
This is an enormous victory for the Department of Justice and state attorneys general. Essentially, when we think about advertising, people, people often think Mad Men, but it's actually more like an equities or commodities exchange. People buy and sell ads the way they would stocks or commodities. And the allegations here were that Google represented the buyers, they represented the sellers, they owned the ad exchange, they bought and sold on their own ad exchange, and they manipulated markets. And the judge agreed with us.
- [16:06]
Jim Cramer
Well, if that's the case, anybody who used their exchange, I think is aggrieved and has a right to be able to get some money back.
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Jonathan Kanter
This is. The consequences here are enormous. So let's think about publishers. People in the news industry. They create original content. News do work really hard to bring information to society, and they need to monetize that through advertising. They rely on this infrastructure that Google provides. And today the court concluded that they have been wronged and that publishers are making less money because Google has monopolized the advertising infrastructure and machinery.
- [16:47]
Jim Cramer
Well, it's pretty clear that until this, I think a lot of people didn't realize that if Google took both sides, they can pretty much hide how much they make if they want to. I'm sure Hyde's a pejorative. They can make as much as they want, basically. But if there were two different representatives, one representing the publisher, representing the advertiser, the publisher would get a fairer price and the advertiser could get a better price. But the only people get fair price right now is Google.
- [17:15]
Jonathan Kanter
It's common sense, right? The buyers are using Google as a representative. The publishers, the sellers are using Google as a representative. Google's coming up with the algorithms that determine the terms of trading, and then they're buying and selling on their own market in order to pump or inflate or deflate demand or supply at any given moment in time. These are basic principles that were violated and the trust of the industry has been violated.
- [17:41]
Jim Cramer
Jonathan, I would think everyone's just saying, oh, big deal, doesn't matter. But when I think about it, one of the remedies could be that Google can only be on one side. If that's the case, then Google is much less lucrative a company.
- [17:57]
Jonathan Kanter
That's exactly right. And it's important. You mentioned in your opening Jim, that this is now the second case in less than a year that the Department of Justice won to find that Google has violated the antitrust laws as a monopoly in advertising. The first case involves search advertising. This case involves advertising everywhere else on the Internet. Where does Google make money? Advertising. It has monopolized. The antitrust cases here go to the monopoly around Google's core businesses, the core businesses that generate revenue advertising. The remedies in both of these cases are going to deal with advertising.
- [18:34]
Jim Cramer
I think that there are a lot of people who are pretty jaded. They've seen court decisions. The court decisions don't really impact anything. Or in the end, hey, listen, the company's worth more. That's an in the end situation. I looked at this and I said, now wait a second. Google is an immensely lucrative company, but it is, according to the other decision, a monopolist. And in our country, you are not allowed to be a monopolist. Which does not mean, therefore, let's find even more ways to have you make money. It means that we're going to punish you.
- [19:08]
Jonathan Kanter
Well, this is about exploitation of that monopoly power. And so Google not only illegally maintained its monopoly, but it used that monopoly to screw over others in the industry. And the interesting thing here, Jim, is now this is the third antitrust case in a row that Google has lost. There was a search case that we brought at doj. There was the ad tech case that we just won today. But right before that was a case that Epic Games brought against Google for abusing its app store and overcharging developers. And it lost that case, too.
- [19:39]
Jim Cramer
Now, I've studied antitrust with Phil Reid, a smart fella. Wish he were still with us. But more importantly, I've read the book about, about Standard Oil and I read Tarbell, but of course, I mean, I've read Turn Up. And one thing is certain, that when you're a monopolist, you drive others out of business. It's not just that you get it and it's like really terrific because you earned it. It's because you drove others out. I question, has Google driven or almost driven many companies out that did a lot of things, both publishers and companies that tried to help publishers get the best amount for the writer's work.
- [20:20]
Jonathan Kanter
That's exactly what happened in this case. So Google monopolized the exchanges and the tools that publishers rely on to make more money that advertisers rely on for fair dealing. Right. This is so. And the result of that, this is something we're seeing throughout the economy frankly, is these intermediaries, these middlemen, are grabbing out more money out of the system. And the people who actually make the products, in this case news, publishers and other content providers are getting less for their return on investment for their original content because the infrastructure is being monopolized and they are being overcharged and underpaid.
- [20:57]
Jim Cramer
Now, Jonathan, one of the things that happened are companies that do represent one side, their stocks went up. And I wonder whether that's in some, in part because maybe there are some people who are recognizing, hey, maybe we're being ripped off. I mean, no judge would rule in favor of the government unless they thought that we were being ripped off.
- [21:17]
Jonathan Kanter
Yes, somebody's ox is always being gored in an antitrust case. And so who is being harmed here? Well, it's the entire ecosystem. It's the inability of publishers to get a return on investment. It's the inability of other ad exchanges who might want to offer better matching, better services at better prices, which the court found being excluded from the market, which the court found they were. And then of course, it's the opportunity for advertisers to get access to all that infrastructure that's real harm for real people. Think about advertising again, whether it's search advertising or others, it's actually one of the most significant costs for most businesses. Lead generation online advertising. It's for all businesses, not just online business. The corner store needs search and display advertising in order to drive people to their, to their shops. This is one of the most significant costs for businesses and one of the most significant costs in our economy. And this case is really important to help reduce those costs and open the market up for businesses who want to innovate, compete and take advantage of advertising in order to drive customers.
- [22:21]
Jim Cramer
One last question. The cynicism is just so rife. I heard over and over again, bullets the justice system. It's going to be years, going to be maybe two. You're not going to have to even worry about it. I, when I read the decision and the previous decision, by the way, I didn't feel that way at all. I felt that there might be some expedience here because of the harm and because the idea is sure, you can appeal, but the justice system doesn't always crawl. Sometimes it acts with alacrity. Is there a chance that this goes faster than the cynics think?
- [22:56]
Jonathan Kanter
Absolutely so. Sometimes the wheels of justice move at the speed of a Pinto. This case moved at the speed of a Ferrari. We filed it in January 2023 and now we have a decision here in 2025 and we're going to move to remedies. The remedies in this case as well as the search case are going to be forward looking in nature. They're not going to deal with the market as it was when the case was filed, but it's going to deal with the market as the case, as the more as it exists today and will exist in the future. That means the infrastructure for selling advertising against AI, for example, is going to be highly relevant to formulating the remedies in this case and hopefully will create opportunities for new businesses, new technologies and new innovations to monetize AI through advertising through means other than Google.
- [23:48]
Jim Cramer
I've just got to ask one this thing. I've been following the career of Mr. Vance, Vice President Vance. He completely agrees with your view from what I understand. And I wanted to know, people should know that this new Justice Department isn't going to walk away from this. They actually share your orientation.
- [24:07]
Jonathan Kanter
Yeah. Well, I certainly wouldn't speak for this Justice Department, but I will say that so far, thus far, all signs are that this Justice Department and this administration will continue to support the work that we've done. I will say when I was in my job at the US Department of Justice, I received bipartisan support for antitrust cases. There is wide recognition across the political continuum that if we believe in capitalism, if we believe in businesses and markets, we need to have lines on the road. We need to have opportunities for new businesses, old businesses and everyone in between to succeed. The antitrust laws do just that.
- [24:43]
Jim Cramer
Well, I want to thank you, Jonathan, for explaining to people there are way too many people who don't understand the importance of this. Now I will confess, I mean, as the person who started thestreet.com, i saw this happen, never thought that the government would ever figure it out, didn't know that the government could be smarter than the people who were doing this. Jonathan Cantors, the former Assistant Attorney General for Antitrust at Department of Justice and I am proud to say he is now a CNBC contributor. Jonathan, thank you so much for being on the show.
- [25:11]
Jonathan Kanter
Thank you Jim. Great to be with you all.
- [25:13]
Jim Cramer
Absolutely. Matt Monies back here for the break.
- [25:14]
MultiCare Representative
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- [25:27]
Jim Cramer
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- [26:11]
Jim Cramer
As you know, every day we're staggering our way through this brave new world searching for stocks that can work under the new tariff regime any easy. But if you look hard, some stocks are genuinely working here and I bet many of them are going to keep working. I want you to consider longtime Kramer fave Abbott Labs, which we own for the charitable trust. Yesterday Abbott reported an excellent quarter, one that was strong enough to send the stock up 2.8%. It was a broader market got poleaxed. It didn't even matter that management refused to raise their full year forecast, citing tariff uncertainty. At this point, the stock's now up almost 16% for the year versus roughly 10% down for the S&P 500. I'm glad we stuck to this one for the trust because after spending a few years lost in the waters, Abbott stock is on fire again. Now this is a medical technology company best known for its cardiovascular, diabetes and diagnostic franchises with smaller neuromodulation and generic drugs and also nutrition business. Now we owned Abbott for the Chapel Trust from February of 2018 to March of 2022. I was terrific position. Their diagnostic tests sold like crazy during the pandemic. But then we decided to ring the register on this one as Covid faded from the headlines. Another really good call. All stock then tumbled in 2022 before languishing for almost the entirety of 2023. Now we finally circled back to Abbott Labs for the Travel Trust at the beginning of last year because the company had gotten over its post Covid hangover and its corpus never really deteriorated in the first place. Unfortunately, the Abbott story got totally hijacked again last year by what should have been at most a minor subplot. Around this time last year we started seeing lawsuits against Reckitt, Ben Keyser, that's a European company, and then Abbott Labs over a specialized type of premature baby formula. Plaintiffs claim that it was causing a rare, potentially fatal disease called NEC terrible and they won the first couple of court cases. I don't want to get too deep in the weeds on this one, but this was actually, quite frankly insane. Every major Regulator medical organization said there was nothing wrong with these baby formulas. And this was a tiny business for Abbott. 9 million in revenues. Something they only made because it was so essential for the health care system. They kind of did it. I don't say it's like pro bono if it was like a law firm, how about that? Thankfully this issue started to fade away last fall when Abbott won its first big jury decision for one of these trials. While the litigation scared some people away, the actual business here was terrific with tremendous strength in medical device especially for cardiology and diabetes care. My thesis in Abbott Labs has always been that the fundamentals are great. But there always seemed to be some distraction that made things tough to own. Now those distractions gone. When we last spoke to CEO Robert Ford in January, he told a great story of how the companies invested heavily in R and D and manufacturing, also returning an enormous amount of capital shareholders. Classic Abbott. He sounded very, very confident about Abbott's prospects. About a week later we found out why. As the company reported a solid quarter with strong full year forecast. The highlight was organic growth. So hard to find these days in the drug companies. Abbott delivered better than expected. 10.1% organic growth ex Covid guided for 7.5%, 8.5% organic growth for the year ahead. The stock rallied in response, reaching fresh three year highs. And as the broader market wide sell off got rolling in late January, more and more investors piled into safety stocks like this one. Abbott's a textbook recession play because their medical technology sells just as well on a bad economy. If you need this stuff, you're going to get it regardless of the macroeconomic outlook. And besides, your insurance company is the one that pretty much pays for it. Eventually the stock got ever so close to a new all time high, peaking at $141 and change in early March. That was a huge rotation that was going on. It's about a point away from its all time high at the end of 2021. After that, Abbott pulled back a bit in part because of tariff concerns. Just like everything else in the market. That took the stock back down to 120 and change a couple of times earlier this week. And it sat at 126 as of Tuesday 19 night heading into their latest earnings report. So what did we learn yesterday morning when the numbers came through? Well, first Avid Labs technically reported an oh so slight revenue Ms. Bear with me here, bringing in 10.36 billion. Wall street was looking for 10.4 billion. Now usually that's going to kill a stock, but this is practically A rounding error and the entirety of the miss came from their diagnostics division. That's because of a larger than expected decline in sales of those Covid tests that you always see at the at drugstore. At this point I just want that business go away, frankly, allowing investors to focus on the core company. One more point. Abbott took a big hit from currency fluctuations thanks to the strong dollar. But with the greenback getting weaker now look out. That could be less of a problem going forward. In fact, I'm calling it a tailwind, a helpful breeze that will take numbers even higher. A lot of the people on Wall street don't understand that and they constantly chatting about how a weak dollar is bad. But that's because they don't know what they're doing talking about. And you're certainly allowed to not know what you're talking about and still be on TV. Now, when you exclude COVID testing, Abbott put up 8.3% organic revenue growth which was much better than expected. On top of that, all their key profitability metrics exceed expectations, including a 2 cent earnings per share beat off a $7 basis. Nice. Now Abbott's largest segment, medical devices led the way in the first quarter. Get this, 12.6% organic growth. Other drug companies would kill for this with medical device Diabetes care put up 19.8% organic growth. Structural heart at 14.7% organic growth. Heart failure at 12.4% organic growth. Those are very strong numbers. In fact, other than diagnostics, which was weighed down again by the endlessly falling Covid sales, all of Abbott's major divisions beat expectations and beat them big. While the companies declined to raise its full year forecast. They mentioned on the conference call that they've been planning to raise numbers before the big liberation day tariffs were announced and threw the entire economy into chaos. Given the tariffs though, CEO Robert Ford felt that simply reaffirming the full year guidance was already a pretty strong statement. Plus, when looking into the potential impact from the trade war, Ford said that their damage from the tariffs would only be, quote, a few hundred million dollars, end quote. It just doesn't sound like it's a big deal to Abbott's business. That's what you need if you're going to stick and win in this environment, the weak dollar will be a nice offset. So let me give you the bottom line of this fantastic story for this particular moment. Despite the new mass tariff agenda from Washington, I'm feeling pretty darn good about Avid Labs after these strong first quarter results. This was a name where we had to overcome some red herrings that shook a lot of people out of the stock last year. But we stuck with it for the Travel Trust because we had conviction in the strength of the core business. Now Abbott's become one of just a very few stocks that are working in this crazy market. And I bet it keeps working because Abbott's long been the gold standard, the paradigm for a great American company, and it's not too late to buy it. I feel like taking some calls. I'm going to start with Jim in California. Jim.
- [32:44]
Caller (Amy)
Hey, Jim. It's Jim from California.
- [32:47]
Jim Cramer
Hey, out here, I'm doing great.
- [32:50]
Caller (Amy)
You know, I want to start by saying I really appreciate how pragmatic you are, and you've cut through all the frost and you get down to the bottom line. You just say, this is life and you got to deal with life. And I've been watching.
- [33:02]
Jim Cramer
Thank you.
- [33:02]
Caller (Amy)
Not let my. Not let my poor 401k turned back into 201k like it did during the financial crisis.
- [33:08]
Jim Cramer
We're going to help you make. We're going to help you make sure that that doesn't happen. And we're going to do it in a variety of ways. Sometimes we're going to say, raise some cash. Sometimes we're going to say, start. Don't buy that. It's too wild. It's too crazy. Sometimes. We're going to recommend dividend stocks. Maybe that's too boring for people, but we're going to keep that from happening. How can I help you?
- [33:27]
Caller (Amy)
Well, I'm in the boring stock. I've been watching Pfizer go down from 60 down to about 25. And I thought one of my rules is never try to catch a falling safe. But this time I'm out of caught one around 25. I want to park some cash and just get a good dividend. Thinking Pfizer. All they do is keep increasing their dividend, but now it's down, you know, it's down more.
- [33:48]
Jim Cramer
This is a quandary. And I'll tell you what, a Dr. Borla's terrific guy. He bought CGEN. I think it's going to be great. Right now it's caught in. In a vortex where they can't seem to be able to produce things to offset things that are coming off patent. I want to stick with it. But that 7.7% yield is not a sign of strength. It's now a sign of weakness. I'm feeling pretty darn good about Abbott after its earnings. I think this could be one of the few stocks that can actually keep working in these turbulent times. We got much more money ahead, including my post earnings exclusive with tool and equipment maker Snapple. And it wasn't a good quarter. Plus, after Trump's latest comments on Powell's tenure at the Fed, I'm looking at where the macro environment stands against the backdrop of uncertainty. From Washington, of course, oil calls rapid fire in tonight's edition of the Lightning round. So stay with Crinkle. But what is going on with Snap On? Yes, Snap On Incorporated. That's the maker of tools and diagnostic equipment for the auto repair business, along with agriculture, aviation, construction and the military. I mean, this morning, step one put a tough one. A tough quarter sent the stock tumbling 8%. Culprit management blamed heightened economic uncertainty. In other words, just the jitters caused by the trade war already caused. Snap wanted to take a hit in the first quarter. The technicians who usually buy from them have apparently began to pull in their horns. And the numbers they provided made me believe this is not just some excuse, it really happened. This is a very important story. So let's take a closer with Nick Pinchuk, who has been on the show in a very long time. He's the chairman CEO of SNAP1 to learn more. Mitch, welcome back to Mad Money. Thanks. Good to see you. Yeah, it's great to see you again. I want people to know at home that I've known you for, for 20 years and you're a straight shooter. And so when I saw the numbers, I didn't think it was any excuse making. You really have a problem with people who are cash rich but confidence poor.
- [35:41]
Nick Pinchuk
Right now technicians are cash. They've been that way for a while. They were worried about the two wars, the tit for tat with China, the high prices, things like that, the border. And then what happened in the first quarter when the administration got in there, they started to see this rapid fire stuff in Washington. You know, the idea we're going to shake up the government. They want the government lower but they seeing everything changing. And then they hear Gaza and Greenland and Panama and then of course, the tariff bombs we've seen. And so you can see it in consumer sentiment. Consumer sentiment since December is down 30%. So what happens is you go into these garages and people are cash rich because the people are still spending more money, 10% more in the first quarter than last year on home repair, the household repair. So they have the cash but they're worried that, boy, this is like a space mountain. It's going left and right, left and right, left and right. And it's going so fast it may go off the rails before they get to the final destination, which they agree.
- [36:37]
Jim Cramer
They agree. This stuff you have to explain to people that the equipment that you sell is the best, but it's not cheap because the best isn't cheap. And that sometimes people have to borrow money to get this. So it's not like they have to pay. They give a check and feel better. They have to borrow. And that is worrisome.
- [36:53]
Nick Pinchuk
Exactly. That's exactly what's happened. And one third of our activity is for bigger ticket items. Like a tool storage box might be 10,000 bucks. A downtown billion, billion record database might be 5 or 6 or $7,000. And so people finance that. So what happens is in its uncertainty is that technicians say, wait a minute, the world's going to go, may go off the rails. I don't have the cushion to survive that. So I'm going to pull back from the things I have to finance and commit to paying over three or four years. I'm willing to buy the smaller stuff, right, that maybe I can pay off over 12 weeks. Now it's not cheap either. A ratchet we have is 150 bucks. We, we sell the best, but people can pay it off over 100, you know, 15 weeks. And so they're comfortable with that. So our tools group has been pivoting to provide more and more of that. More focus on the shorter payback items. The problem was in the first quarter, that split spike in all the news, the hits just keep coming from Washington, raised the uncertainty and overran the progress the tools group was making.
- [37:53]
Jim Cramer
What surprised me is given the fact that the tariffs are going to cause people to probably keep their cars longer, if I were in these people's shoes, I would be wanting to get as much good equipment as I could because I think there's going to be annuity stream from people who don't want to give.
- [38:08]
Nick Pinchuk
And I think when it comes down, that'll, it'll happen. That'll, that'll will happen. Now you look at our other two groups, the one that sells to, to repair shops, they had a baffled quarter, right? They were up and they set a record in terms of profitability. The group that sells to the commercial people like aviation and oil and gas and industry and mining and so on, they also had a record quarter. It was the tools group in the middle that sells to the technicians directly. You see, we call on a million technicians right away. Raw steel comes in the back of an American factory, goes through, they're forged in your net shape. He treated to make it durable and flexible at the same time. A black art, by the way. We put it right into the hands of the end user. And that's the tech, that's the population we're seeing. Hey, I'm a little worried. I maybe better, better pull back. They're not so dumb.
- [38:54]
Jim Cramer
No, but if it was a more constructive view in Washington, I think they would not be so. Exactly, exactly.
- [38:59]
Nick Pinchuk
They would get used to this kind of thing. That's one of the problems is, I mean, you think about it, you got to believe that this is one of the most uncertain times we've seen in a long time in terms of the headline.
- [39:08]
Jim Cramer
But there's also a lot of misinformation. You can help us. It is true. Maybe it takes a long time. Although I know in Arizona it took three years, but they've got it. They can make semiconductors. But in fact you guys have been making really top notch equipment, best equipment in your shops, in your factories for a long time. We can bring, we can bring. No kidding.
- [39:29]
Nick Pinchuk
This is the thing. I mean, look, here's the thing. I don't think we need the tariffs at all. I don't think we need them at all, you know, because after, after the pandemic when Xi Jinping closed Shanghai and closed the ports, it interrupted this long and efficient supply chain. Like putting a, putting a piece of dirt in a, in a really tightly machined equipment and it screwed up the supply chain. So industrialists found then that we couldn't depend on those supply chains. They wanted to bring stuff back. Not enough workers. We need to upskill the workers. 500,000 manufacturing jobs open now. And then the regulation here piles on top of on top on top. And so the national Social Security manufacturer says that the Average manufacturer pays $25,000 per year per employee on regulation. If they ease those things upskill, and that's the workforce force and start to talk like manifestation, that's what the court voted for. Come back, they don't need the tariffs.
- [40:25]
Jim Cramer
Well, they should listen to you and I'm glad that you're not that you speak the truth because sometimes people are cowed and yet the truth always wins out. One of the things I'll tell you.
- [40:35]
Nick Pinchuk
Is that we're not shaking in our boots over the tariffs because we already make here the tariffs. If they keep the tariffs in place, it's going to be a race to kind of adjust. Well, our factories are already here. We have 15 United States states. And here's the Most important thing, we make almost everything, a version of almost everything we sell right here in America. So we have the know how it won't be three to five years for us, but for other companies it will be longer. You know, somebody tried to build hand tools, you know, try to automate it. People say it'll be. Automation will happen quickly. That's wrong. Automation makes a startup harder. It brings productivity in.
- [41:07]
Jim Cramer
Right.
- [41:08]
Nick Pinchuk
And so we'll be able to. We'll be able to have an advantage. Advantage in the, in the, in the tariffs. We're not immune.
- [41:14]
Jim Cramer
We'll pay. No, but that's why I think, you know, I rarely see your stock down and I know. Know you're stuck long enough and you long enough that. That you buy when the stock goes down. You don't sell.
- [41:24]
Nick Pinchuk
One of the things I want to say before we leave, I want to say, look, people worry about bringing stuff back, but one thing they shouldn't worry about is the American worker. The American worker is not a question. The American worker is the answer.
- [41:35]
Jim Cramer
Thank you. Let's keep that in mind, everybody, including Washington, okay? Because we don't need all the rancor. The rancor starting to really get under my skin. I hear you. All right. Nick Pitchick is a. Is a real American. All right. You're Chairman, President and CEO of Snap1. Hey, by the way, dividend for how many years?
- [41:50]
Nick Pinchuk
Dividend Since 1939, we have paid a dividend every quarter and we have never reduced it.
- [41:54]
Jim Cramer
There we go. Mad money's back in for the break. It is time. Shop for the white room. Chris Ruiz or rap calls on me saying the stock said above by social and then the lighting round is over. Are you ready to get that done? Lighting cameras. Let's start with Brandon in Kansas. Brandon. Hey, Zim. How you doing? How you doing, buddy? Movies coming out this summer and next summer. I was wondering if AMC Entertainment could get some more growth like they had back pre pandemic. No, the answer is, is that they should have reorganized by now and they haven't. They have way too much debt. I want you to stay away from that one. Let's go to Weston in Colorado. Weston, hello. Hey, Jim. Hey, Weston. How you doing?
- [42:45]
Caller (Amy)
I'm.
- [42:46]
Jim Cramer
We're doing pretty good. Well, I just got a question about Cal, Maine. I know that you almost no eggs have had their eggs have had their day in the sun. All right, let's go to Charlie in California. Charlie. Hey, Jim. So I got an IPO I released this week. Monster spike is kind of settling down now. What do you think about Weeble? Weeble is missing one word after bull. I'm going to say absolutely no to that one. All right. No, I'm not done. I guess I'm done. And that laser conclusion of the lightning round. If we're going to recession, someone should tell all these people who are using their American Express cards they need to scale back, Amex reported say. And while it didn't blow away the estimates, it did put up excellent growth. Tons of travel, entertainment spending as well as very few charge offs. Once again we saw hordes of young people taking down cards, no doubt because of the ample perks. And I was astonished at the lack of restraint these people show. Of course, not everyone can get an American Express card, so it's not like we're looking at a great cross section of the country. But you have to be astonished at the contrast between the sheer level of negativity in the air and the ridiculously elevated level of spending at the cash register. I put all this positive out because it always helps to remember that as long as Americans have job and they remain in abundance, the idea of recession might be a little further off than most journalists think. Just saying it now I know this time is a little different because we have no idea where the global trade war is headed. There's a real chance that it does a lot of damage to the economy. China's like a squid with its tentacles in everything from auto parts to rare earth minerals to anything made of plastic in almost all textiles. Very hard to wean our economy off that merchandise overnight. We're about to find out if people will keep spending as much on the American Express car when oil prices are higher os there's a price to pay for tariffs, the potential cessation of international commerce. And that's what happened the last time we laid down big tariffs right before the Great Depression. Sometimes I think the Fed chief Jay Powell is the only man in Washington who's read a real history of the worst financial disaster in the 20th century. And now President Trump wants to get rid of him. When I grew up, which is now ancient history, we knew two names, Smoot and Hawley, whom all the teachers told you were stupid centered and a moronic representative. Two knuckleheads who teamed up to help throw us into depression. We're thinking ridiculously high set of tariffs and those smooth hauling tariffs look relatively tame compared to the Trump tariffs. So call call Powell worried. He's read the history, he knows his facts. Some wonder President Trump wants to fire him. Powell's considered his style must just drive this man crazy. The fact that Powell wants to wait and see gives him the cachet of, like Carole King, who should be recruiting too late, baby, in anticipation of the tardiness that Trump's complaining about. If I were Trump, I'd stop trying to fire Powell, which he can't do, at least not legally, and keep him around as a whipping boy if we really do go into recession. That's what Reagan did with Paul Volcker. Worked out great. In the end, we all know that we could wake up and see someone else, maybe former Fed governor Kevin Morse, coming in earlier than Powell and installing himself behind Powell's desk and refusing to leave. Trump can then get, I don't know, Paul Weiss or any of the law firms he's rolled, have them sue Powell for trying to go to work. Then, boom, we got a constitutional crisis. I can see the Netflix stock. Two men enter, one man leaves. It's a master blaster Fed contest. Televised, of course. Has a good man. Here's a thought. He deserves better, I like to say. There's always a bull market somewhere, I promise. Try to find it just for you, right here on Mad Money. I'm Jim Cramer. See you Monday.
- [46:16]
Bank of America Representative
All opinions expressed by Jim Cramer on this podcast are solely Kramer's opinions and do not reflect the opinions of cnbc, NBC Universal, or their parent company or affiliates, and may have been previously disseminated by Kramer on television, radio, Internet or another medium. You should not treat any opinion expressed by Jim Cramer as a specific inducement to make a particular investment or follow a particular strategy, but only as an expression of his opinion. Kremer's opinions are based upon information he considers reliable, but neither CNBC nor its affiliates and or subsidiaries warrant its completeness or accuracy, and it should not be relied upon as such. To view the full Mad Money disclaimer, please visit cnbc.com madmoneydisclaimer the Internet's flooded.
- [46:56]
MultiCare Representative
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