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Hey, I'm Kramer. Welcome to Mad Money. Welcome to Kramer Friends. I'm just trying to make you a little money. My job is not just to entertain you, but to educate, to teach you. So call me at 1-800-743-CNBC or tweet meyimkramer Today, take a cut to the quick. David Faber, my partner on Squawking the Street, said that as of this morning, Amazon stock had only rallied 29.5% since July 6 of 2021, while the S&P 500 had double that performance. He suggested that I had overstayed my welcome in Amazon for my charitable trust on yet another update with Dow gained 162 points. SB advanced.23%. Nasdaq jumped.8%. David's job, his ride post his upgrade got me thinking because that is some serious underperformance. I can't deny I've been wrong about Amazon for the past four odd years. But let me tell you how I think about this. I'm not wrong. First The Chapel Trust takes a long term view. Longer than the period since Andy Jassy took over CEO after running the incredibly successful Amazon Web Services. I talk a lot about time frames and how to make money in any market. You need stocks that you can work on for over long, long periods of time, longer than Jassy's tenure. I make it clear that as long as you still like what the company does, and I sure do with Amazon prime, proud prime member. As long as you think it's a valuable part of your life and Amazon is probably the most valuable service I use. As long as you find it reliable and trustworthy and I don't know of a more reliable and trustworthy service in my life, other than maybe the Apple iPhone universe, then you want to stick with it. I actually don't care that the stock's only up about 30%. Suggested became CEO. I am a huge believer that Amazon stock will eventually catch up with my judgment. Now, when I was a hedge fund manager in the 80s and 90s, I probably would have agreed with David. A hedge fund can't afford to own something. Through four years of underperformance, I had all these rich partners who were always looking over my shoulder, constantly criticizing my mistakes and they'd never let me stick with something like this. I'd be saying stuff like if Jassy were an NFL coach, he'd be fired. But he's not an NFL coach and he has not presided over four seasons worth of football. Plus, this period of stewardship included the pandemic which probably impacted Amazon more than any other company on earth. And it came through, I think, rather remarkably. I don't know about you, this company is losing fortunes in Europe now. It makes a lot of money there. When Jassy started to run the whole company, it had very few competitors of size in the web services division, the one that made it into a lucrative powerhouse. Now it's got Microsoft Azure and Google's cloud and you know those are, those are tough, potent rivals and they're on with what some say are superior semiconductors. Lot of video. I think when Amazon reports on Thursday, we'll see Amazon Web Services actually pick up its growth rate. Right now it's at 17.5%, something that's disappointing. If it gets closer to 20%, well, guess what? I'll look darn smart. The stock will climb because it's that division that seems to be all anyone cares about now. Last night we learned of something pretty interesting. Amazon's laying off 14,000 corporate workers to as the Journal said slim down and conserve cash. Slim down and conserve cash. This is one of the most lucrative companies on earth. But if Amazon can find a way to make its shareholders more money, it's going to take it as a shareholder. I like that. I like that Amazon is never done trying to make you money. I criticized Amazon a couple years ago for hiring hundreds of thousands of people during COVID to make it work and then not quickly firing the surplus workers who weren't needed when the pandemic was over. Their reaction was much smarter than anything I had thought of. What happens if we fire the wrong people and you don't get your package the next day I said that it won't matter. I'm not going switch anyone, any anyone else. They thought that was just a wise guy answer. You know why? Because they said we got a higher standard that standard than that, Jim. That's not what we're about. Now you could argue that Amazon's been slow to rationalize. I'd say that they took their time to get it right. Now they're firing people because they figured out how to make the remaining workforce more productive using AI. It might have taken longer than any of us hope. But I've got to tell you, I believe at last AI is ready indeed to help big companies figure out who can do more with less. But there's another reason why we keep this stock in the Chapel Trust and it's a little bit more ephemeral. But I'm going to tell you about it because it's the way money management works. See, look at the action in Alphabet. You see it earlier this year, concerned about just apartments, attack on the company or monopoly over monopolist behavior. Worried that Gemini, its agent, would cannibalize the search function. We sold this stock to the trust. Now, you know I believe in no woulda, shoulda, coulda. Don't be a second guessing so and so, especially over winning position. We had a winning position going, worry about the losers. But man, we sold Alphabet at the wrong time. We left 100 points on the table. My worries, they were misplaced. The Justice Department was no more able to hobble Google for any competitive practices than it was with Microsoft at the turn of the century. Yes, a judge found that Google was a monopolist. Yes, the judge sounded hell bent on taking Google apart and do so in a way that would decidedly not make shareholders money. The remedies were all over the place. People close to the Justice Department were making it very clear that when they were finished, justice was going to have Google Hobbled, maybe beyond recognition. Now I knew that Alphabet, parent of Google was much more than just search. It had the cash machine that is YouTube. Incredibly fast growing cloud service business led by Thomas Currie and one of the smartest I know. It has its self driving kingpin that is Waymo. It has a whole bunch of great projects that we barely even know about it as the NFL Sunday ticket for every sake. Oh, and did I mention Ruth Porat, Alphabet's president and chief investment officer. She may be among the top five smartest people I've ever met in business. Not only that, but my wife loves her. But I couldn't get over the supposed cannibalization from AI. And I certainly couldn't handle a judge who seemed eager to destroy Google as we knew it. So the trust sold the stock despite the fact that it was inexpensive on a price earnings ratio. But what happens? Google beats the cannibalization route by coming up with a brilliant synergistic link between Search and Gemini. They're on the same page for Evans saying oh, and that judge, he takes it all back and says the technology of competitors has made it so whatever monopolistic behavior he detected basically didn't matter anymore because the marketplace is so robust. In other words, Google's lawyers who made it clear to anyone who talked to them were right. Google hasn't done anything wrong other than be a better competitor than almost any other company out there. Except let's see, how about Apple, Metta, how about Microsoft, Nvidia, Tesla, and yes, Amazon. Only those six companies can take Alphabet on and you need to worry about it. If they do maybe one day open I will join them. But I want you to think about this. I already made one of the worst investment decisions of my child trust run. I booted a fabulous company stock because I was waiter of Justice Department and a fine young cannibal named Gemini. The bottom line, dumping Alphabet was a huge mistake. And I'm not going to make the same mistake a second time. A gigantic company run by brilliant people figures out a way to win. Amazon stays in the dark portfolio. Madeline in Texas. Madeline. Hi Jim. Thank you. As a new investor, your show has really helped me. So I just ordered your new book.
