Mad Money w/ Jim Cramer 10/21/25

Summary

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Mad Money w/ Jim Cramer – October 21, 2025

Podcast Summary

Overview:

In this dynamic episode of “Mad Money,” Jim Cramer breaks down the current market landscape, arguing that “the real economy” is showing surprising strength outside the much-discussed tech-dominated “Magnificent Seven.” He dives into buoyant earnings reports from blue-chip industrials and consumer companies, pushes back on credit panic in the banking sector, interviews Viking Holdings CEO Tor Hagen on travel trends, discusses financial history with Andrew Ross Sorkin, and finishes with his signature Lightning Round and practical investing advice on speculation.

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Key Themes and Discussion Points

1. Market Leadership Beyond Tech: The Real Economy Surges

Timestamps: 01:54–14:35

• Cramer’s Take:
  The market perception is split between mega-cap tech/data center plays and speculative bets (crypto, rare earths, etc.). But Cramer highlights a “third economy” – real businesses delivering solid results amid economic uncertainty.

  “Bubble? What bubble? Today we saw what can happen when the real economy surfaces.” (Cramer, 01:57)

• Big Earnings Standouts:

  • RTX (Raytheon Technologies): Defense and aerospace surge, refilling missile stockpiles has “perfect timing” given geostrategic needs.

    “RTX makes the complex military systems… You may need a golden dome at home to shoot down everything incoming… That’s how stock rally is $12.7%.” (Cramer, 05:39)

  • 3M: A comeback after litigation woes, back to innovating with 70 new products this quarter.

    CEO Bill Brown: "Our third quarter performance gives us confidence we’re on the right track..." (quoted by Cramer, 06:35)

  • GE Aerospace, General Motors, Nucor, Danaher, Coca-Cola: Each posted robust quarters, signaling broad-based industrial and consumer health.
  • Financials Shine: Wells Fargo, Bank of America, Goldman Sachs, American Express – all reported strong numbers, bolstered by pro-business regulatory tone (linking to President Trump’s policies).

• Market Concentration Concerns:
  Cramer acknowledges permabears’ worries about the market being “dominated” by the Magnificent Seven, but today’s leadership came from real-sector names.

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2. Caller Q&A – Stock-Specific Takes

Timestamps: 10:15–12:30

• Netflix & Eli Lilly:
  Lilly needs a new, insurer-covered drug catalyst amid “Ozempic fatigue.”
• Micron:
  Cramer likes the DRAM upcycle story but advises to wait for a pullback after a sharp rally.

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3. Viking Holdings CEO Tor Hagen: Travel’s Resilience

Timestamps: 14:35–22:16

Interview Highlights:

• New Milestone: Viking launches its 100th ship; business booming – 155% up since IPO (~18 months), 39% year-to-date.
• Differentiation: Viking targets adults and lifelong learners with cultural, destination-focused, “floating university” cruises.

  “The others are… floating amusement parks. For us, it’s about health, dedication, enrichment.” (Tor Hagen, 16:28)

• Growth Trends: Ocean business outpacing rivers; 45 new ships on order.
• Guest Profile: Converts from mainstream cruise lines as guests age and seek thoughtful, quiet experiences – “egalitarian” approach (everyone equal onboard, no first/second class).

  “When you are on a Viking ship, you’re all together, it’s part of the community.” (Hagen, 19:49)

• Demand: 2025 virtually sold out; 64% of 2026 already booked.

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4. Credit Quality & Regional Bank Fears: Examined and Debunked

Timestamps: 23:10–31:27

• Recent Scares:
  • Multiple “bad loan” headlines: Tricolor bankrupt (subprime auto lender), First Brands bankrupt (auto parts, fraud/loan mismanagement), regional bank write-offs (Zions Bancorp, Western Alliance).
  • Jamie Dimon’s “cockroach theory” – when you see one bad loan, expect more.

    “When you see one cockroach, there are probably many more.” (Cramer quoting Dimon, 23:58)

• Cramer’s Judgment:
  • So far, these are isolated, mostly fraud-driven events.
  • Bank earnings are strong, systemic risk looks unlikely; “no sign of a credit wave.”

    “We simply haven’t seen enough credit problems to be worried about any kind of systemic corporate credit risk… the bottom line, so far, the credit headlines… amount to little more than a handful of bad individual situations.” (Cramer, 27:53)

• Wells Fargo Call: Cramer discloses it’s a Trust holding, likes the CEO and the bank’s valuation, but trimmed recently after a spike.

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5. Andrew Ross Sorkin on 1929: History’s Warnings

Timestamps: 31:27–37:58

Book Discussion – 1929: Inside the Greatest Crash in Wall Street History

• Parallels to Today: Market mania, everyone “all in,” meme stocks (RCA ≈ Nvidia today).

  “The hottest, the meme stock. RCA was the Nvidia of its time. Everybody was in.” (Sorkin, 32:41)

• Personalities & Lessons:
  • “Sunshine Charlie” Mitchell invented buying stock with borrowed money, fueled democratization of finance.
  • Market timing is notoriously hard; even famed contrarians looked “ridiculous” as markets went higher before crashing.
• Policymaking:
  • 1929 had no SEC, capital rules, or banking regulation; today’s market is safeguarded by reforms inspired by the crash.
  • Policy mistakes worsen panics (e.g., Hoover raising taxes, tariffs).

    “There are things that are happening in our economy too, that we need to watch out for.” (Sorkin, 37:36)

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6. Lightning Round: Rapid-Fire Stock Opinions

Timestamps: 38:05–42:31

Notable Calls & Quotes:

• AST SpaceMobile: Avoid – just did a big convertible, “most afraid of” that move.
• TQ (parabolic pattern): Sell – “You gotta sell that thing.”
• GRAIL (medical diagnostics): Avoid – “Absolutely not after this very big parabolic move.”
• Ticogen: Pass – “Losing money… just had a giant move up.”
• Aurora Innovation (autonomous trucks): Avoid – “Can’t seem to make money… even with those bloodlines.”
• RGPI (quantum computing): Avoid – “Giant insider selling does not work for me.”
• Innodata: Like – “Digital content… actually like this company. It does at last make money.”
• General Advice:

  “If you can’t describe what a company does and how it makes money, it’s not too late to sell.” (Cramer, 46:37)

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7. Speculation vs. Investing: A Cramer Primer

Timestamps: 42:45–47:24

• Spec Stocks Are Dangerous:
  Cramer cautions against speculative names, especially those with parabolic runs fueled by margin.

  “When you have big gains in a stock, you haven’t actually made any money until you sell something… take something off the table.” (Cramer, 43:53)

• Do Your Homework:
  Never buy purely on hype; understand what the company does and how it gets paid.
• Risk of Spec Bubbles:
  Parabolic moves typically precede rapid crashes, especially when money is borrowed. Sell while ahead.

  “If you weren’t doing the homework, today was your worst nightmare because you found out that your whole portfolio, speculative stocks, is linked together.” (Cramer, 44:38)

• Psychology:
  Hope is not a strategy. If you can’t explain a holding, profit-take.

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Notable Quotes

• Cramer: "Bubble? What bubble? Today we saw what can happen when the real economy surfaces." (01:57)
• Cramer: “If you can’t describe what a company does and how it makes money, it’s not too late to sell.” (46:37)
• Tor Hagen: “We like people should be really treated the same when they’re on board a ship… When you are on a Viking ship, you’re all together, it’s part of the community.” (19:49)
• Sorkin: “The hottest, the meme stock. RCA was the Nvidia of its time. Everybody was in.” (32:41)
• Sorkin: “…A lot of the rules that hopefully are the safeguards that have kept us safe for the last hundred years are bid in place as a result of that [1929 crash].” (36:12)
• Cramer: “You have to know what the company does, you have to know how it makes its money… If the valuation can ever be justified by potential profits down the road or will there never be?” (43:53)

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Key Timestamps

• Market/Earnings Analysis: 01:54–14:35
• Viking CEO Interview: 14:35–22:16
• Regional Banks & Credit Quality: 23:10–31:27
• Andrew Ross Sorkin Interview: 31:27–37:58
• Lightning Round: 38:05–42:31
• Speculation Advice: 42:45–47:24

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Tone & Language

The show maintains Jim Cramer’s signature urgent, colloquial, and passionate delivery. He is direct (“I can’t recommend stocks at this time that can’t seem to make money”), uses vivid metaphors (“cockroach theory,” “floating amusement parks”), and balances practical investing tips with historical and market context.

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For Listeners:

This episode stakes out a bullish stance on the real-economy stocks, tempers fears of a banking crisis, and urges discipline amid speculative fever. The interviews add useful perspectives on cruise travel’s transformation and the enduring lessons of historic market crashes.

Transcript

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[Jim Cramer]

Hey, I'm Kramer. Welcome to Mad Money. Welcome to Cramerica. Other people My friends, I'm just trying to make you a little bit of money. My job is not just to entertain but to educate. I put this stuff in context. Call me 1 873, CNBC tweet me @ Jim Cramer. Bubble? What bubble? Today we saw what can happen when the real economy surfaces. We got some tremendous numbers from actual businesses and I think we need to celebrate that. So many companies not connected to the data center Artificial intelligence can be doing this well and they're the reason why The Dow rallied 218 points. S&P is basically flat in the Nasdaq. So much I dip 0.16%. Why is this industrial strength so important? Because right now there's a perception that we only have two kinds of companies. There's the companies that are connected to the great data center build out and the speculative companies like the ones involved in nuclear power or rare earth minerals or some bitcoin play that may or may not be a real Business. Lots of people are repulsed by this market because they see it as being dominated by Alphabet, Amazon, Apple, Meta, Microsoft, Nvidia, Tesla, the bank 7. I totally get that. Those stocks do make up about 35% the entire SB 500. When people see that level of concentration, they often think that therefore the market must be really dangerous. Others are repulsed by out of control speculation when they see a market led endlessly by some uranium company with no earnings or quantum computing play Rigetti that's struggling to make money for debt. I mean, come on, that's not the market for them. I don't blame anyone who hates this kind of dual action. If there are really just two kinds of companies out there, then I too would be incredibly nervous if for example, OpenAI, a privately held company that's trying to dominate AI somehow can't raise all the money it needs to build out a massive number of data centers. It could take the whole air edifice, as the Wall Street Journal made clear and. But I hope it's not a pressure article. Down for the count. But what if there's another economy? What if there's a real economy, one that's trying so hard to beat a slowdown that seems to be engulfing so many sectors? If we can get some signs of life from the real economy, then I think money will flood into these stocks like it did today and that would keep the bulls far from the slaughterhouse and the bears would become endangered. Now we got earnings from the big financials last week and I was quite heartened by what they had to say. Wells Fargo put up extraordinary numbers indicating credit quality. Very strong. Bank of America showed us that consumer spending and saving terrific rates. We saw an extraordinary set of Savings numbers from BlackRock and Morgan Stanley. Oh, what a quarter the bank had. I like the Goldman Sachs quarter because they're starting to see a lot of good stuff from IPO, IPO and M& A advisory fees. Although I feel like a lonely alumni backing that one. Best of all, as I talked about last night, American Express reported a monster quarter that showed robust spending among younger people. Very solid credit metrics. Wow. You know what? Okay, so the regional banks are not as strong. They need interest rates to come down if they want to do more business. It's true that JP Morgan CEO Jamie Dimon had to deal with what might be a fraudulent bad credit. His his analysis is that if there's one cockroach, there'll be others. But aside from two of the large bad loans, I saw fewer cockroaches this quarter than I can recall maybe the analogy is bad. More on that later. I don't want to freak people out about credit quality when we've had so few examples of bad loans, but it is perfectly reasonable to wonder whether the banks are doing better because we have a new president who's extremely pro growth with new bank examiners who allow more loans and easier credit. The Trump administration doesn't seem to want to regulate the banks and regardless of how you feel about that policy, it's certainly good for the bank. Stocks today though, today changed everything. That's an incredible earnings from really fantastic companies over the map and I want to recount some of them so you know I'm not just cherry picking. The best quarter today came from rtx. Yeah, the old Raytheon United Technologies defense contractor, commercial aircraft engine maker that's putting up staggering numbers. Why RTX makes the complex military systems that are needed to defend our country and defend the countries of NATO with the former getting special attention from the President and the latter seeing worse betting by its members away from the US because of President Trump. It's perfect time for rtx. These guys are working overtime to replenish our missiles because we send so many of our stockpile to Ukraine. Management points out that while drones are important, you need a more comprehensive missile system as you as a deterrent to save a country. And you may need a golden dome at home to shoot down everything incoming. That's RTX. That's how stock rally is $12.7% the quarter from 3M. It was superb. This company used to be a fan of new products. They got bogged down by all kinds of litigation related to forever chemicals that wrecked groundwater. Now 3M is back to innovating. 70 new products launched in the third quarter. 196 year to date. The electronics and safety end market after putting up slow growth for ages. Both better expected. As CEO Bill Brown his tour de force quarter said, our third quarter performance gives us confidence we're on the right track and reflects the culture of excellence with we're building inside the company as we continue to drive the rigor up tempo necessary to deliver on our strategic priorities. End quote. Okay, that may sound like authentic Wall street gibberish, but it isn't. For those who know how low 3m had fallen, it's all you need to know is why 3M rallied $11.86 7.6% today. Not to be outdone, GE Aerospace put up incredible numbers for commercials and more important aircraft service. That's where the real money is. The Robust airline industry involves an incredible amount of maintenance and GE aerospace of it. I was blown away by how CEO Larry Culp could put up yet another stellar quarter. You know what though? If you're talking to them, I think there's more stellar quarters to come. Mary Barr's General Motors delivered a driven quarter. Strong demand for trucks that are exceptionally probable. The auto business may be benefiting from the President's laissez fair attitude toward carbon emission. There's the President again helping business. The electric vehicles, okay, not helping the skies. I get it. The electric vehicles don't, don't make as much money as the internal combustion hybrids. That's the strength of gm. And I know that when you have a president that's not all in on EV, they are going to pull back because EVs lose them a lot of money. When you get strength in gm, that has tremendous pin action. Which is how Nucor, the giant steelmaker, could rally nearly 3% today. Again, very impressive. Then there's Danaher Dhr, the life sciences and diagnostic equipment company, which has been a huge disappointment for my charitable trust for so long. Not today though. Today Dana gave us the quarter we've been looking for with a promise that next year could be even stronger. And that's why the stock shot up nearly 6% today. Finally, is Coca Cola CEO James Quincy showed remarkable execution, bringing out even larger profits by taking share and offering new products that are selling quite well. So even though the real economy may be slowing down, these execs aren't letting that slowdown get in the way of good numbers. All day today, I heard people wondering if the strength of the market's real. I think that's a fair question to ask when we've got a rally that's being led just by the Magnificent Seven. But the bottom line today we had a rally that by the many companies in the real economy that we put, that just put up excellent numbers when RTX and GE Aerospace and 3 and General Motors and Coca Cola and Danner are all delivering strong results, you know something's going right not for the data center of the high risk speculative stocks, but for the actual economy. House Jay in Connecticut. Jay, hey. Hi Jim. I want you to know that anytime I see your show, you're always like a breath of fresh air. You're really interested in people. So thank you for that. Thank you. Oh, thank you, Jay. I appreciate that. I'm trying to do it a little different. Thank you very much. How can I help? Yeah, true. Okay, I'll go real fast in I think it was last April. I got scared because what was going on in the White House and tariffs. So. Right. I sold my, my, my Netflix and my Eli Lilly. I'm only going to talk to you about one thing. You said I could still buy the wedding Netflix back. But I'm calling today about the Eli Lilly. Yeah, probably they need to have something else to come out. They need something that's big, that, that the insurance companies will cover that for their drug. Because right now a lot of people just feel, you know what, this Ozempic thing, it's played out. If you get something else, a new indication that will ignite the stock. Mark in New Jersey. Mark? Hello? Mark? Yeah, Is that you, Jim? Yeah, it's Jim. What's going on? Hey, I've been dying to tell you that I'm a big, big fan and admire your enthusiasm and your search for the truth and, and for the straight and narrow and going back to, all the way back to the Kudlow Kramer days. So, man. Yeah. Long time. Yeah. Larry, my partner for a very long time. How can I help? Well, I've been thinking about, I'm an investor and I'm thinking about this stock called Micron. And I was wondering what your thoughts were. Okay, I like Micron, but it just had a parabolic move and we can't buy parabolics. We have to wait for come back down. I think it's not that expensive because the numbers for drams are coming up. But I do believe that you have to let that one have a little bit of break before you jump in there. And thank you for the really kind words. Okay, look, when you have companies like RTX 3 Danner delivering strong results from all different sectors, you know something's going right for the real economy. And that's what we need to see for the stock market. Oh, man. Tonight, Viking holding just accepted two more ships, hitting 100 ships in his fleet. I'm sitting down with the CEO to hear more about what the company has in the pipeline as well. Street begins to fear a slowdown in the travel space that I don't see. Then credit concerns have entered the chat. So should investors be concerned that the other shoes about to drop or could these headlines be one offs? I'm digging into the situation and my CNBC colleague Andrew Ross Sorkin drops by. He's got a new book covering the stock market crash of 1929 and all of its ramifications. I'm hearing all that he learned while writing this fabulous book with the man himself. So stay with me Kramer.

[Show Announcer]

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[Jim Cramer]

Won'T find anywhere else. This is the story breaking right now. FOX one.

[Show Announcer]

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[Commercial Narrator]

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[Jim Cramer]

Lately we've heard a lot of hand wringing about how demand for travel finally tapering off. But all forms of travel are created, some more equal than others. And that's why the cruise lines have been holding up incredibly well. They represent tremendous value. Take Viking holdings, that's the parent of Viking Cruises, which is the world's leading river cruise play. So far, this stock's up more than 155% since it came public roughly a year and a Half ago putting a 39% gain year to date at these levels, Vikings within striking distance of its all time high. So can it keep chugging higher? Earlier today we checked in with Tor Hagen, the chairman and CEO of Viking holdings to find out. Take a look Tor. I understand that congratulations are in order. You just did launch your hundredth ship and you actually commissioned nine ships from really all around the globe.

[Tor Hagen]

Yeah, it's been, it's been a big day. We've been in existence for 28 years and to have reached 100 ships is not too shabby. We have been lucky but we also done a lot of things right. But today was nice to show what an international company we are. We started the naming ceremonies in Cambodia. We've been to Luxor, we've been to Porto, we have been to Rostock, we went to Paris and now we're in baseline. So it's a really international company we have and this of course on the rivers but you know, as you know we have two types of businesses, both the river business and the ocean business.

[Jim Cramer]

Now it does sound like when you listen to those destinations that you come to mind that you have a great customer base. The strength of your guests, they want to go to places where they can learn which is a terrific asset when it comes to Vikings differentiation from the other cruise lines.

[Tor Hagen]

Yeah, you know we like to think ourselves as, as different from the others. You know the others are of course hugely, many of the others are hugely profitable and successful in their own and their own right. You know, they're more, the way I view it, I shouldn't talk bad about them but they're more floating amusement parks and for us it's more of an and health dedication and enrichment. I think we even, we even got some confirmation today. We had a guy who used to be a monk in Cambodia and he thanked us for all we had done to establish school and so forth. In Cambodia it's, you know, our guests are as I said before, they're thinking people and you know, as you, as you grow up, you probably think more and more drink less.

[Jim Cramer]

Well, you did return to China end of last year, you were at the Mekong. Now I think when people think of the Mekong they think well that is pretty isolated, pretty different. I don't know anyone else is going down the Mekong. I know people might go down the Mississippi, but these are things where you must have people who are studying and learning online and also of course willing to pay a little more than a customer who wants to go to an amusement park. Kind of venture.

[Tor Hagen]

Yes. And of course it's for adults. We don't have children on our ships, so it's for, it's for adults. And we find of course as we open up these new destinations, it's people are queuing up to, to go there so we need more capacity. But that is also the case in our, on our ocean business. You know, we, we, we do that differently from, from, from the. What other cruise lines do. You can say that we don't really like the word cruise so much because you know, for us it's about the destination. Our guests like to explore new destinations and they like to see real culture. And I think you can, you can go to artificial islands in the bomb us and do whatever people do on these islands. But for, for our guests it's more a matter of how to get back into history and the things they learned about in school and would like now to experience firsthand. So I think when we see now what's, what's going on, we have probably been a bit more fortunate than wise. But, but we see that our ocean business is. There's been a lot of hype about river cruise business and new entrants into that. So that must be very exciting. But we find that our ocean business is growing even faster than the river business. So you can say we have another 45 ships in total on order. And you know, most of that growth will be in the ocean business.

[Jim Cramer]

Well, let's talk about that. I was trying to figure out how you would differentiate when it came to ocean because the typical ocean voyage, some of these ships, for instance the Norwegian cruise, they've got a section that is haven where it is for a wealthier client. I mean what is, what, what do you have on ocean that is that distinguishes you from the others?

[Tor Hagen]

Yeah, that's, that's a good question. I'm Scandinavian and we are a bit what we call egalitarian socialists or call it whatever you want. But we like people should be really treated the same when they're on board a ship. We don't believe in first class, second class havens or heavens or whatever it's called or non heavens. When you are on a Viking ship, you're all together, it's part of the community. So I say we travel with like minded people. Maybe that's a bit snooty or snobbish, but that's what we do. So come with Viking and you know exactly what you're getting. And it's interesting we look at where we get our guests from we, we show some press people there, a charter where they come from. So we see that the new people come to our ocean. The main source of business for us is people that previously cruised on Royal Caribbean. I said, wow, that's interesting. Maybe we should get into the Royal River Diet. I'm kidding. It's really what happens. People of course should go on entertain, floating entertainment parks when they're children and the like. But then they grow up and then so now I want to take my wife or my significant other, whatever and have some serious time and go on a quiet, relaxed, non persistent small Viking ship. So we find it very, very easy really to take converts from.

[Jim Cramer]

It's obviously working. Your numbers show that human nature says that let's be with each other. The numbers for this year virtually sold out already more than half for next year. So there's clearly it's a model that works.

[Tor Hagen]

It works. So I know we are conservative people. So if things works, we don't change. So that's, that's the old plan. Yes, I think last Sunday report to where I think was 64% sold for next year for 2026, which I think is quite unheard of, both the rivers and oceans combined. But the ocean business is fantastic too.

[Jim Cramer]

Well, I got to tell you to you just delivered and delivered and delivered and the stock's been great. That secondary performed very well. I've been recommending you since you came public. I want to thank Tor Hagen, CEO of Viking. Congratulations on having a great year, sir.

[Tor Hagen]

Well, thank you, Jim. And you know, shares go up and shares go down, but so far we've been lucky.

[Jim Cramer]

I like that. Thank you very much. Coming up, is the recent volatility in.

[Show Announcer]

The regional banks a sign of bad credit? Kramer is digging into the sector and telling you where he stands next.

[Jim Cramer]

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[Show Announcer]

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[Jim Cramer]

How worried should we be about bad loans? We started hearing about credit quality issues a month and a half ago when an auto lender called Tricolor holdings filed for Chapter 7 bankruptcy. That's the bad kind of bankruptcy where you just liquidate the entire business. Tricolor specialized in subprime auto loans for undocumented immigrants in The Southwest, not the ideal customer base in the current political environment. And there might have been fraud from the company itself. So it was easy to tell ourselves this was a one off. But before September ended, we got another one of the sudden collapse of First Brands, an auto parts company which filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy. Again, there was some chicanery here. Apparently billions of dollars might be missing from the company thanks to some dubious off balance sheet financing vehicles. There's a chance First Brands was double pledging assets as collateral for loans. And we heard some large banks might be on the hook. Hook. Ever since the first branch bankruptcy filing, more and more people have been worried about the state of corporate credit in this country. Specifically, there's a lot of concern about private credit. These are like private equity firms, except instead of buying equity, they offer debt financing mostly to privately held companies. Private credit's been red hot for years with tons of money going into the space. And now there's a good chance that some of these firms started cutting corners and got sloppy with their lending. But at least in the case of First Brands, they borrowed most of their money via syndicated loans from regular banks. After a couple of weeks of turmoil, the market finally seemed to get over this one. But then JP Morgan CEO Jamie Dimon, the elder statesman the financial industry, rolled out his cockroach theory of bad loans that I mentioned at the top of the show. When you see one cockroach, there are probably many more. And he know as his company took $170 million hit from that tricolor bankruptcy. That's around the error for J.P. morgan. But the cockroach comments suggest it might just be the tip of the iceberg. Those comments hit especially hard because the market was already on edge thanks to the 12 punch of the Triclo and First Branch bankruptcies. And as always the case, JP Morgan was one of the first banks report earnings. Suddenly investors had something to look for as the rest of the banks started to turn in the results. Within a couple of days we got a pair of bad examples. Last Wednesday night, Zion's Bancorp, which is a Utah based regional bank, disclosed that it was taking a $50 million charge related to two commercial industrial loans. Science said they were pursuing legal remedies after finding quote, apparent misrepresentations and contractual defaults by the borrowers and obligers and other irregularities with respect to the loans and collateral cannery, end quote. When that regulatory filing was was published, it wasn't exactly clear who the borrowers were, but a $50 million hit to a smaller regional bank like Zions is a much bigger deal than $170 million hit to Colossus like JP Morgan. Then the next morning, very morning, a different regional bank, Western alliance, announced that it too was having a credit problem, this time with a revolving credit facility that it issued. Western alliance named the borrower, it's a real estate investment fund called Cantor Group 5 and said that they initiated a lawsuit in August alleging fraud from the borrower. Now it turns out that Zions and Western alliance were actually both suing the same party, a California real estate investor and developer called Cantor Group. Those ions was suing some different funds managed by the company in question. Last Thursday, Western alliance even said that it was providing the information about its lawsuit because Zions had made its own announcement and they were starting to receive investor questions about their own exposure to this firm. But the combination, these two announcements, sent the entire regional bank complex into a tailspin last Thursday with the S and p Regional Bank ETF. That's the KRE plunging a 6.2% in a single session. Huge, huge decline after the dual bankruptcies in September. Jamie Dimon's cockroach comments and those two regional bank disclosures, well, investors were eager to shoot first and ask questions later. Well since then though, things have calmed down quite a bit. The carry has been up for three straight sessions and now it's only down about $1 or just over 2% from last Wednesday's close. There were no other big disclosures about credit problems from the rest of the region banks. In fact, bank earnings were generally pretty strong last night. Zion's Bancorp reported its full third quarter earnings report and the overall results were fairly solid with the top line beat, a better than expected efficiency ratio and a 2 cent earnings beat. After noting the previously disclosed $50 million credit charge, Zion CEO Harris Simmons said, I'm going to quote here. We view this as an isolated situation resulting from a particular couple of borrowers. We have no further exposure related to these borrowers or guarantors. I would note that excluding the impact of this matter, net charge offs were minimal at 4 basis points annualized on average. Loans and credit quality generally improved for the quarter as well. Emphasis me that went a long way towards easing the concerns about Zions and The stock rallied over 1% today. Response at this point it's rebounded so hard that it's down just 2.5% from where it was trading before management disclosed that credit loss last week. Hey, Western Allowance, by the way, reported tonight at the close and everything looked fine there as well Company did guide for an elevated credit charge in the fourth quarter, but investors were expecting much, much worse. But overall, after taking a closer look at all these individual credit issues that emerged over the past few weeks, I got to tell you, this really doesn't feel too bad at all. We simply haven't seen enough credit problems to be worried about any kind of systemic corporate credit risk. Instead, there have been three separate one off situations, idiosyncratic, they're calling it, with three borrowers that seem to have committed some type of fraud, leading to manageable hits for the banks that lent to them. Of course, we need to stay vigilant. We're flying somewhat blind at present, remember, without some of the most important government economic reports, so we don't have a clear sense of how the economy's doing. Some industries are definitely struggling, but the banks mostly seem to be doing pretty darn well. You don't get these kinds of earnings reports from corporate borrowers defaulting left and right. But the bottom line, so far, the credit headlines from the past few weeks seem to amount to little more than a handful of of bad individual situations. Could that change? Sure, and I'll tell you immediately when. I'm going to tell you when, when it feels like that's happening. But for all the fears about corporate credit these past few weeks, I just don't see it. Jamie Dimon, smart guy, says where there's one cockroach, there may be many more. He might be right. But for now, those additional roaches, they simply aren't showing up. Let's take some calls. Let's go to Sam in Pennsylvania. Sam. Jim, how are you? I'm good, Sam, how are you doing? I'm good. You know, Jim, with the recent flu bank earnings, I couldn't help but be intrigued by Wells Fargo given the recent lift of the asset cap that the Fed had on the bank. So I'm curious what you think about Wells Fargo with the. Okay, so I got to give you that because I play with an open hand. Wells Fargo is one of the large positions for my trust. When it went up, it spiked. Both Jeff Bunks and I said, you know what, we've got to trim a little. So we trimmed a very small amount. It's some stock that we bought in the 30s, so I can't tell you, go buy it. If I actually just sold some today. I happen to think the bank at 13 and a half times earnings is very cheap though. It's just that I can't have a huge position like I've been walking around with from Wells Fargo. As much as I like Charlie Sharp, the CEO. Look, I can't ignore the issues facing regional banks for the past couple of weeks, but for all the fear out there, I'm not seeing anything system systemic yet. Hey, much more mad money ahead in this new book, 1929 Andrew Ross Sorkin. Our own Andrew Ross Sorkin compared Nvidia to one red hot stock of that year that defined the moment. I'm hearing more about what we can learn from that dark time on Wall street with the author himself. Then do you really know what you own? I'm sharing why it's now more important than ever to have a thesis on your holdings and of course all your calls for rapid fire. Tonight's edition of the Lightning round. So stay with Kramer if you want to be a good investor. Need to understand what happens when things go horribly wrong. It doesn't get more wrong than the great crash of 1929 which led directly to the Depression. Last week Andrew Ross Sorkin, the co anchor of Squawk Box, Editor at Large, the New York Times dealbook and author of Too Big to Fail, the authoritative history of the financial crisis, came out with a new book, 1929 Inside the Greatest Crash in Wall Street History. It reads more like a terrific movie than a piece of historical nonfiction. Everybody's in it, so let's take a closer look. Andrew, congrats on the new book. Welcome to Man.

[Show Announcer]

Thank you for having me, Jim. I'm so appreciative. This is so much fun.

[Jim Cramer]

Okay, so first of all, one of the things that was just extraordinary in the book was everybody was in, in.

[Show Announcer]

The end, everybody was in. I mean the whole culture was in this stock market. And everything that was happening here on this floor had taken over the entire culture.

[Jim Cramer]

It was remarkable when you start off with the anecdote about Groucho Marx, which a lot of people don't, that he got trashed by it. But then throughout, there's all these famous people who we thought were so smart who were on the wrong side of the trade.

[Show Announcer]

Look, everybody in New York, every, every member of the elite, the billionaire class, and by the way, not inflation adjusted, there were billionaires in 1929. People were making millions of dollars. People were trading. There were brokerages all over the city. You could walk into a hotel and trade. It was unbelievable what was happening.

[Jim Cramer]

And it's clear from you at one point you say, look, the not so millionaires and the millionaires got along. There was actually hope that maybe capitalism was going to make everybody a millionaire.

[Show Announcer]

I mean, it was a period of great transformation in this country. I mean, you had automobiles, you had telecommunications, you had, you had, you know, radio. The hottest, the meme stock. RCA was the Nvidia of its time.

[Jim Cramer]

Everybody was in rca.

[Show Announcer]

Everybody wanted to be in. And these guys were trade. By the way, there was a specialist on this floor who ran rca and he was the celebrity down here.

[Jim Cramer]

Just great. But all these people come to life. You make them all come to life. No one comes to life more than Charlie Mitchell, who clearly, clearly is the Persona of the person who got everybody in and kind of ended up doing okay. I know the trial. But he ended up doing better than everybody else that lost money.

[Show Announcer]

Charlie Mitchell worked just, just down, just down the street. 55 Wall, corner of Pine there. And he ran a bank called National City becomes Citigroup, by the way, his home. He lived up on Fifth Avenue between 74th and 75th, what is now the French Consulate. That was his house. They called him Sunshine Charlie. And he was the guy who really created the idea of modern credit, that you could get a loan to buy stock. And he talked a lot about democratizing finance. He was Sunshine Charlie.

[Jim Cramer]

I know, and I talk a lot about democratizing finance, but I always have to run. Be sure I don't run afoul of what he did because I want people to invest. Although you do mention a book about confessions of a stock harbor that meant a lot to be my first book. But I do want to point out there were some people. Lethingwell, as a partner of JP Morgan, he comes off as someone who actually recognized that maybe things were getting crazy.

[Show Announcer]

By the way, there were a lot of people who thought things were getting crazy. Charles Merrill of Merrill 1928 told people to get out of the market. Now, interestingly, the stock market went up from the beginning of 1928 to September of 1929, 90%.

[Jim Cramer]

Oh, throughout it, you have these guys who kept calling the top and they look so stupid.

[Show Announcer]

I mean, that was. That was the thing. Timing is a very complicated thing. And then you had a guy named Carter Glass, who I think a lot of people know, who creates Glass Steagall, which is the bill that breaks up the banks in 1933. He was like the Elizabeth Warren of his time. And he was railing, screaming about this idea of Mitchellism, how Charlie Mitchell was going to upend the entire country.

[Jim Cramer]

But in fairness to Mitchell, and I don't like to say anything good about him, Irving Fisher, this Yale economist, the number one economists in the country, was saying, we hit a Good plateau, right, Absolutely.

[Show Announcer]

That, that was the thing. I mean, and by the way, that's what makes a market.

[Jim Cramer]

Right? Well, it's, it's just a great tale because one of the things that people didn't realize, it wasn't like there was one day that month of October which you, which you detail was just horrendous and the market came back, but it never got back.

[Show Announcer]

So that was the interesting thing for me. I think most people think there was like one terrible day in October, and, and by the way, then the Great Depression just happens and it's just not true. It's a series of dominoes, if you will, and then a series of terrible policy choices in Washington afterwards about how to deal with the ramifications of it. And interestingly, the stock market by the end of 29 was only down 17%.

[Jim Cramer]

Wasn't that something?

[Show Announcer]

Isn't that something? And so, but, but where they got.

[Jim Cramer]

In, where people got in, where people.

[Show Announcer]

Got in and the fact that they were, were, you know, 10 to 1 in terms of the margin. So you had so many people like Groucho Marx who get a call in October and he's effectively mortgaging his home. And so, so many people were hit so badly.

[Jim Cramer]

All right, so I do need you to, to compare here. All in now versus all in then. What's the difference? Maybe it parallels.

[Show Announcer]

Okay, so the good news is there was no SEC then, right? Insider trading, by the way. That was okay. That was fine. There was no capital requirements. There was no banking act. A lot of the rules that hopefully are the safeguards that have kept us safe for the last hundred years are bid in place as a result of that. I also like to think a lot of the lessons that we learned in 29 were learned, by the way, in 2008 by Ben Bernanke, who, by the way, he was. His PhD at Princeton was on the Great Depression. And what was the lesson? You have to unfortunately, throw money at the problem.

[Jim Cramer]

You know, don't say that Hoover was so against that. Oh my God, he had the most conservative group of people. But you detail all this stuff so.

[Show Announcer]

You'Re in the room with these people and you actually get to see the decisions.

[Jim Cramer]

And I did feel like I was in the room.

[Show Announcer]

I mean, to me just that's. That that was what I was going for. That if you could actually see the way they were feeling and why they thought what they thought, it, it makes it understandable. You can.

[Jim Cramer]

Okay, I was going to say. I wasn't going to say. Unless you're minute I felt sympathetic for Hoover. I'm not kidding.

[Show Announcer]

Yeah.

[Jim Cramer]

I think Hoover was the zeitgeist. He was trying to do what's right. He knew that people were bad off, but he didn't know how to. He felt just, you know, toughen up.

[Show Announcer]

He. He thought it was a psychological problem. He thought he could jawbone his way exactly out of this thing. But he also then made a bunch of poor choices. He decided to raise taxes at the worst time. By the way, the tariffs. Talk about parallels.

[Jim Cramer]

Smoot Hawley smooth holy tariffs we have now.

[Show Announcer]

So there are things that are happening in our economy too, that we need to watch out for.

[Jim Cramer]

Absolutely. Well, if you. If you were fascinated by the markets and fascinated by history, this is it. Okay. Andrew Ross Sorkin, co anchor of Squawk on the street, author of 1929, which is on sale now. Hey, listen, you can mark it up. Like I didn't get a lot out of it. May have I back in the break.

[Show Announcer]

Coming up, Cramer takes your calls and the Scott sky's the limit. It's a fast fire lightning round.

[Jim Cramer]

Next. It is time for the white round. By myself soldiers, we plan us down and then the lightning round is over. Are you ready? Ski, dad, cover the light. Mount Cravers of money. Let's start with Stephen in New York. Steven, Uncle Jim, what's going on? Booyah, buddy. Booyah. Thanks for calling, man. Thank you, sir. Big daddy back NASCAR from Ron conquer New York. Big fan, Jimmy. Few things said you said it best. Uncle Jimmy. You changed lives. That's what your show is all about. Oh, thank you. Thank you, sir. Got a question regarding AS FTS Space Mobile has partnered with. This is the kind of company. All right. This is what I hate. I know that they filed a big convertible after the close. That is exactly what I'm most afraid of. That's an equivalent of a big corporate finance. It's going to push the stock down. That's what I'm seeing with a lot of this speculative stuff. No, no, no. Let's go to Frank in Florida. Frank. Yes. Gialla, longtime listener TQ hold or sell it is a parabolic move that's just now declining. You gotta sell that thing. Let's go to Dan in New York. Dan. Yes. Hi, Jim. I've been watching you for years. You are wonderful. You are great. Oh, thank you. Thank you, buddy. I have a question. I have a question about a stock. It's called grail ticker symbol D R A L. And a medical company that developed tests. Yeah, I just read a really good piece the other day written by Dr. Topol has been on the show a number of times. It did not make me feel that it was worth a, you know, I just didn't think it was worth owning. After this very big parabolic move. I'm going to say absolutely not to that one. Let's go to Kyle. New York. Kyle, what's going on? Jim, Kyle from Long island here. Thanks for having me me on. I'm a big fan.

[Commercial Narrator]

Sure.

[Jim Cramer]

Absolutely. What's going on? My question is on Ticogen ticker tgen they signed a letter of intent with vertiv for over 500 megawatts of natural gas. It could be good but they're losing money. I, you know, it just had a giant move up anticipating exactly that. I'm going to have to say I'm taking a pass. Let's go to Sal in New York. Sal, Jimbo. What's up brother? Man, I don't know, man. A lot of stocks. Okay, what's up? Hell yeah, let's do it. All right. I got one of the leaders, if not the leader in the autonomous trucking space with heavy backing from an array of companies like Amazon, Uber, Toyota and your favorite gym. Ding, ding, ding, ding, ding. Nvidia. What do you think? And I'm just going to say this, I'm not going to speculate but I'm just going to say this. It sounds like there could be a Trump administration stake in this company. I am speculating a little bit but you know what, who knows? What do you think about Aurora Innovation, Jim? Yeah, it can't seem to make money. I can't recommend stocks to this time that can't seem to make money and they are definitively even with those bloodlines not making money. Let's go to David in Illinois. Dave. Jimbo, how you doing? I'm doing good. How are you, Dave? Good. Hey, listen, I want to talk about this quantum computing stack rgpi. This computer being the one that just had a giant seller. A giant insider selling a director. No, I don't want to be there. Giant insider selling does not work for me. And let's go to Brad in North Carolina. Brad. Hey, thanks, Mr. Kramer. Thanks for taking my call. Of course. What's up? I'd like to know what your opinion is on GL O B. Go B. Go B, go B. I don't know that one. I'm gonna have to some work on that one. I don't know that. I don't know that player. Let's go to David in New York. David. Hey Jim, how you doing? I'm doing well. Beautiful Southampton. Thank you so much for all you do. I'm calling about a company calling about a company called Innodata. Symbol in O. Yeah, digital content. I actually like this company. It's very high priced. Earnings vulnerable but it does at last make money. I at least got to end the call. Got to have lightning round on one company that seems like a very real company. And that ladies and gentlemen, conclusion of the lightning round.

[Show Announcer]

The lightning round is sponsored by Charles Schwab. Coming up, Kramer's teaching you how to make money in any market and laying out some warning signs to watch out for when investing in speculative names.

[Jim Cramer]

Next.

[Show Announcer]

Tomorrow, kick off the trading day with Squawk on the street live from post 9 at the NYSE.

[Jim Cramer]

Oracle is basically the credit rapper. Open AI some of it David. Not all of it. Some of it.

[Tor Hagen]

Some of it.

[Jim Cramer]

Some of it. I like the editing. You guys editing each other and real time this most exciting and by the way and you're the benefit of our.

[Show Announcer]

Viewers cuz Jim is absolutely right.

[Jim Cramer]

Some of it.

[Show Announcer]

It all starts at 9am EAS.

[Jim Cramer]

What does OCLO really do anyway? But the new scale power. What does QPTs stand for? Should I Buy More Gold? Time to average down on Red Cat. If these questions cross your mind today, then I think you need to recognize that you're not investing, you're speculating and you're speculating poorly. We've had a huge wave of debt fueled speculation that now threatens to wipe out your savings in a heartbeat. These stocks are moving straight up for a long time now and there's a huge cohort of people who only know how to chase them and nothing more. So first let me make something crystal clear. When you have big gains in a stock, you haven't actually made any money until you sell something. At this point, it's vital that you take something off the table. If you own stocks, like I just mentioned, it doesn't have to be your entire position, but at least take out your cost basis. So you're playing with the house of money. Second, why actually condone speculation? In my new book, how to Make Money in Any Market, you know what I say you got to do it wisely. What does that mean exactly? Simple. It's okay to speculate in these high risk stocks, but you have to know what the company does. You have to know how it makes its money. Is it making money? Is it doing something proprietary? If the valuation can ever be justified by potential profits down the road or Will there never be? You can't just buy these things really, because it's keep going higher. Someday that stops, and you won't know what day that is, and you won't know what to do unless you've done some homework. If you weren't doing the homework, today was your worst nightmare because you found out that your whole portfolio, speculative stocks, is linked together. That's right. I knew today would be a fulcrum day, a day where things would reverse because gold had been at the heart of the speculative bubble late. And when I saw it start to roll over, close down more than 5% today following the extremely speculative silver, which shed 7%, I realized the entire spec complex would just get hammered. Why? Because lots of people buy these things with borrowed money. And the people who are like, who are in gold are likely to be in many other speculative situations because it moved viciously. When you buy something on margin and it goes down, you need to raise money. And you usually do that by selling other stocks. And that's why these specs tend to trade together. Terrible pin action. How can you tell if you're in a dangerous stock? Oh, just look at the trajectory plays. If it looks like the right side of a parabola, something, it turns into almost a straight line going up, then you need to worry. If you see a parabolic move, history says you're likely to get smashed. Because when something goes wrong, these things will come down even faster than they went up. When I see one of our holdings in Chapel Trust go parabolic, you know what I do? I take profits immediately. Now, a lot of people don't want to hear anything that I've been saying. I spend a huge amount of time in how to make money in any market, explaining how to do the homework for specs, how to assess a company and its stock. I do that because I need you to understand what you own so you know what to do. If you don't understand and you get a day like today, you'll have no idea what to do. In these situations. It's human nature to pray and to hope. Maybe it'll reverse. Even as prayer and hope has nothing whatsoever to do with the process of investing. The stock will then drop and drop and then drop some more until it's below your cost basis. If you bought it on margin, you'll be cashed out, having turned again to loss, or you'll just sell and give up, and then you'll end up being, let's say, losing a lot of money because you'll sell a lot lower than you bought it. So if you can't describe what a company does and how it makes money, assuming it makes money at all, then I got to tell you, it's not too late to sell. Nail down those profits with these specs. Please live the play again because if you stick around, there's a good chance you'll lose all of your gains. And if you borrow money to buy these things, you'll lose a lot more than the that Alex said As always, just for your mid money. I'm Jim Cramer. See you tomorrow.

[Commercial Narrator]

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. Kramer'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 It's Cybersecurity Awareness.

[Jim Cramer]

Month and LifeLock is here with tips to help protect your identity, use strong passwords, set up multi factor authentication and report phishing scams. And for comprehensive identity protection, LifeLock is your best choice. LifeLock alerts you to suspicious uses of your personal information and also fixes identity theft, guaranteed or your money back.

[Commercial Narrator]

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[Jim Cramer]

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