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Jim Cramer
Hey OB Kramer, welcome to Mad Money. Welcome to Crame America. Other people make friends I'm just trying to make you a little money. My job is not just to entertain, but to teach you how everything works here. So call me at 1-800-743 CNBC. Tweet me Jim Cramer after an agonizing period where Wall street decided it was done with one of the greatest growth stories in history, artificial intelligence and everything attached to it. Today we got a reprieve, maybe even a second wind that showered money on the cohort. For those of us with positions that rely on the data center build out like my travel trust. Do you know that this is one of the best days of the year? Although that wasn't fully reflected the averages dow advancing only 183 points. SB gaining 1 point getting point at 8% but but the NASDAQ did jump 1.31%. I got to say to you is a real relief because owning the air stocks has been a very rough ride lately. First, we now realize that there may be not enough money to to go around and keep the data center build out going. Lately we found real obstacles to building these. Everything from a shortage of workers, lack of materials, not, not enough power to the fact that the stock market's now punishing the hyperscalers for their ambitious expansion plans that were once lauded on Wall Street. These companies keep spending fortunes to keep up with each other and Wall street can't take it anymore. At the same time, the theme lost its luster did buyers moved on to other more exciting areas that consumers resurgence out of nowhere. That's an exciting story. For example, it's ignited retail anything connected discretionary spending. And that's what drove say the stock of Carnival CR almost 10 points higher today on greater numbers that released just this morning. And also by the way, they reinstated the dividend. I've always been partial to cruise lines because they're so inexpensive and Carnival Corp. Offers a real bargain. That's one of the reasons why the stock is exciting to people. Meanwhile, there are plenty of IPOs and acquisitions which have caused furious buying of the bank stocks. We saw a very positive article about Wells Fargo in the Journal. Goldman Sachs up 56% for the year now eclipse most of the performance of the Magnificent Seven. There's a reason for that. Goldman Sachs may be growing faster than almost all the stocks in tech, let alone the Magnificent seven. And by the way, at a lot less risk, which is what really matters. These financial and consumer spending companies just keep delivering better and better and better expected numbers as expectations are incredibly low versus the monstrously high expectations for anything related to the data center. High expectations can be a real killer of tech stocks. And expectations are staying way too high. Now the good news. The good news is that the year of magical investing has ended. So almost every one of the speculative stocks being the quantum computing, the nuclear stocks, the under capitalized data center builders, the bogus bitcoin extensions, alternative power companies, they've all gone out of style, thank heavens. I find those groups nauseating because so many of you were losing money. I was doing my best to try to get you out of but I didn't really matter. Today though is the possibility that funding for the datacenter build out. So something that was beginning to seem chimerical has tantalizingly returned to a degree of certainty. The possibility that there are many pools of capital that may still want to get in to data center into AI could drive a whole host of down and out tech stocks higher. Rather than limping into 2026, these stocks have erupted.
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Jim Cramer
It's very unexpected, but can it last? This is the question. Look, I'VE been a hyper critical person when it comes to the data center promoters of late, their big dreams are starting to sound more like nightmares. I've questioned the way that some of these companies sound so certain when certainty seems to be in very short supply. I don't like deals like the companies are doing where one company gives another company money and the recipient then buys product from the donor company. These are called lazy Susan deals or circular deals. They often hide the real weakness that's going underneath. You don't discover that until it's too late and you lose a lot of money. I'm trying to protect you. My confidence perhaps as well as yours has been sorely tested by the news flow which has been very negative. So let's do this. Let's talk about what needs to happen, what could go right. Little more optimistic to get the data center theme back on track. Right now the biggest ambush in this market comes from Oracle, the debt laden software company turned datacenter builder. They've got a huge client called OpenAI, the privately held company that's been a pioneer artificial intelligence intelligence and the bots that go with it. You know it is chat CBT. Oracle's charged with building out $300 billion worth of orders for these guys. What a great story. An old fashioned tech company reinvents itself as a data center builder and crows about it. Not only is Oracle having a huge order from OpenAI, they got another $223 billion in orders from other companies. Oracle has put the potential revenue into something called RPO or remaining performance obligation. Most of the time that's almost as good as money in the back. The open air order. The revelation initially sent Oracle stock from 241 to 345 and change in a single September trading session. Although closed that day at 328, many other stocks in the data center complex took off to in sympathy. Of course, Oracle had to raise the money first. So they hit up the bond market for $18 billion. And that's when the problem started. Bonds can be insured with what's known as credit default swaps, which you can actually use to bet against those bonds too, even if you don't own them. If you fear that Oracle might default default, you buy the credit default swaps. The value of Oracle's credit default swaps soar when the value of the bonds goes down or the perceived value. This spike was picked up by the media and it derailed everything. Suddenly Oracle's grand plan seemed impossible to pull off and we now believe that the whole data center complex may be stalled. Oracle stock went to free fall, going from 328 down to 178 where it landed two years ago until it went up a little bit today. At the same time, Open Air, which is counting on the build out to stay ahead of all comers, chose not to address the situation except by leaking to the media that it could still raise an endless amount of money because so many funds want a piece of the business ahead of its potential ipo. Oh, and they also mentioned a possible government backstop, which was incredibly discouraging, although they later walked that back. This week we heard from the leaks that OpenAI could be raising as much as $100 billion at a valuation more than 500 billion, maybe 657. Only 830 billion. Then we just. But there was a weird stair step. They said it was going to be 750 billion just a couple of days ago, and then it was just 800. Then it was 830 billion yesterday. I mean, that's terrific if it has ferocity. And the reason I question is that every day it kind of went up a little, but nothing really happened at the company. Which brings me to what needs to happen now. First, Open Air should strike while the iron's hot and, and try to raise $200 billion at $1 trillion valuation. That trajectory that we got this week would seem to allow that. To me, that seems like the only way forward for them. Without fundraising, they can pay Oracle the money it needs now to build out these data centers. At that point, every other hyperscaler will have to keep spending on infrastructure to keep up with them. That's how we get to where all these datacenter stocks, from Vertiv and Caterpillar to Core Weave and Broadcom, can reignite. Now the. A lot of the stocks were up big today, and that's how we stay on top in the most important race in the world. Could it happen? You know what? At first I thought it was pie in the sky. Trillion dollars, 200 billion. But you know what? Maybe it is a possibility. People are still very excited about this group. Even if Open Air raises to say, 100 billion now in a private round and then comes back for another public round for another hundred billion next year, the data center theme could continue to hum. Of course, if Open I can't raise enough money, then we just reverse everything we saw today and we go back down. That's the way it works. I'm optimistic that OpenAI can raise the money even as I don't like the way they're doing it with these leaks and the forced march valuation. I do think that they can pull it off. OpenAI does have monster hubris though. It has no idea how to tell its story. It's way too self assured. Management has zero humility. This could be a humbling moment or it could demonstrate that they're right to be arrogant. I'm not sure which one it is but. But the bottom line, no matter what Open Air needs to raise a lot of money and it needs to raise it now or else the whole data center edifice will go down and stay down. But if they raise $100 billion the next couple of weeks, then we will live to play again and we'll see plenty more days just like today. Let's go to Patsy in Texas, please. Patsy.
Caller
Oh, Mr. Kramer. Yes, I would. What's your opinion on Dell? Ever since I bought it it started to slide and it keeps going down, down.
Jim Cramer
All right, you're right to worry because a lot of people are concerned that their parts themselves have gone up a lot in and the raw costs are going down. I think they can fall from here. I think you can fall but not below much much maybe 115, 110. And you should buy because Michael Delby in there buying with you and he is a very smart fellow and he's not going to let those component costs bottom the bother the bottom line too much. And stock is still up for the year. Let's go to Mary in Idaho.
Caller
Mary, Good afternoon, Jim. It's been a minute since last time I talked to you.
Jim Cramer
Okay.
Caller
And I want to congratulate you on your 20 years with Mad money, the publication of your book which I downloaded an audio copy of about 10 days ago, as well as well as all you do with the investing comp. I really believe that you would any investor would benefit from any or all of those items.
Jim Cramer
Oh, thank you.
Caller
Congratulations.
Jim Cramer
Thank you, Mary. I mean I got a long weekend. I have not had a weekend where I haven't had to work in a long time. And I really appreciate your comments. It makes me feel like it's okay.
Caller
It's all worth is worth it. But it does. You do pay a price for it?
Jim Cramer
Yes, I do. Thank you. Thank you very much.
Caller
You're welcome. The stock I'm calling about has been in my portfolio which is very small for a while and it's a company I do a lot of business with. They have a wonderful large quality product line. Their prices are in line with others in the industry. I've looked at their balance sheet. I've listened to their earnings calls, although I did miss this last one. And their customer service is absolutely incredible.
Jim Cramer
And which company is it? Which one?
Caller
It is Chewy.
Jim Cramer
Oh, okay. So Super Tim was on the show recently, and I got to tell you, I totally agree with you, but we are fighting a trend. People feel that Amazon can't be beaten, and I think that's wrong. Chewy's got a lot of ancillary businesses that will really help them. I'm with you. I'm a buyer of Chewy. All right. This could be a humbling moment for Open Air. Maybe pull it off. I don't know. I just wish they just stopped being. I wish they had less viewers. How about that? And let's leave it at that. That's not a mean way to put it. Okay. Anyway, Mad Money tonight, the government shutdown caused all sorts of data to be delayed. So I'm going straight to the source with paychecks to get a sense of the employment situation in our country. Then we are wrapping up our homework assignment for the year by taking a closer look at biotech company cura. And we're playing America's favorite game. Am I diversified? Where I survey portfolio to see if it passes the test using the new rules that I put together for you and how to make money in any market. Stay with Kramer.
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Jim Cramer
If you want to get a real read on employment, I always like to check in with Paychecks. That's the payroll processor and outsourced human resources play mainly serves small medium sized businesses. This morning, Paychecks reported a modest top and bottom line beat Management, raising the midpoint of the full year earnings forecast for the second quarter in a row. So far, so good. But when some of these analysts dug down, they saw things they didn't like. The company's management solutions business narrowly missed its revenue estimates. They say the full year revenue outlook could come in closer to the low end of their previous forecast. I wouldn't be sure about that, but that is why the stock got hit today. Although then again, Paychecks tends to sell off on earnings even when the quarter's pristine. So let's dig deeper. John Gibson is the President CEO of Paychex. The Lord Morbid welcome back to Man Money, Jim.
John Gibson
Happy Hanukkah and holidays to you and all your viewers.
Jim Cramer
Great to be with you. Thank you. And right back at you. Now I know I read through all the analyst commentary and all I could think of was that you had 18% revenue growth, earnings per share up 11%, generated a huge amount of free cash flow, 38% increase year to date, and it was an extraordinarily good quarter. I maybe I'm reading a different quarter for some of these negatives.
John Gibson
Well, Jim, as you said, this happens a lot. And I got to tell you, I'm only halfway through your book, so I'm not sure I can even explain. I'm a slow reader. But but to your point, we had a strong first half in the fiscal year. We delivered solid earnings, 18% revenue growth. We continue to demonstrate we're the best operators in the industry with the operating income, we actually raise earnings per share guidance Again, this is the second time this year because we continue to get More confidence in the execution of our strategic plan. So client and revenue retention remains solid. As I said, our full service HR outsourcing business, our PO business continues to perform exceptionally well and quite frankly we've just never been better positioned. I think the capital capitalize on the market opportunities to both drive growth, I think continue to expand margins and really strengthen our leadership position in really what is now an AI era for our human capital management industry.
Jim Cramer
Okay, so let's go over the Paycor acquisition, which you know, I thought was a terrific idea. Still do some as we're talking about moderating inside paychecks. The growth is moderating Paycor. I again couldn't see that, but maybe you could explain with what they were seeing. I just didn't get it.
John Gibson
Yeah, Jim, look, first I will say there's a lot of confusion with the analysts and trying to understand the numbers. Remember when we purchased Paycor back in January, we announced in April we fully integrated paychex enterprise business into the pay core brand. And so we've commingled a lot of things and so they're trying to do comparisons back and forth. That being said, we continue to make good progress on the Paycor integration. We remain on track to achieve the revenue synergy targets we set out for the fiscal year. We now expect $100 million in cost synergies for the fiscal year. We started with a commitment of 80. We've raised that both quarters. We're very happy with the activity. We're seeing the bookings. We continue to see quarter over quarter in our enterprise marketplace. And so again we feel good about where we are. We understand there's some confusion in the numbers. And I think as all of this gets sorted out, I think what everyone's going to understand that paychex and Pay Corp are better together and that this is really expanded our Runway. It expanded our market opportunity. $10 billion and I think the cross sell opportunity we have of our HR advisory solutions into Paycor's client base is just beginning and we continue to build momentum.
Jim Cramer
At the same time, I also think that there's this perception that your business is small mid sized business will be hurt. Employment growth by AI it's actually the opposite. From what I can tell, the businesses that are most insulated from that are small, medium sized, the large ones. I don't know, if I were doing a large, I'd be worried that maybe there are some places where I can replace workers. But at your level, workers can replace workers, not AI.
John Gibson
You're absolutely right, Jim, but I would, I would even say, I'm not sure I even buy into this concept that you know AI is going to lead to mass unemployment. The fact of the matter is tech does not destroy jobs, it evolves them. You go back and look at all the technological revolutions that we've had, we've continued to evolve. Now I think it's true when you have disruptions, one of the things that we know happens. A Fed study would say there's about two times increase in the number of new business starts. Guess who does most new business starts paychecks and we are less exposed. From an AI risk perspective, if this would happen, I don't think it will, but if it does, 70% of our clients are blue and gray color workers. Think plumbers, electricians, restaurants and 95% of our clients are in basically companies that are less than 100 employees. So we really feel that we don't think small business are going to be impacted as much both because of our composition but we don't necessarily buy into this. AI is going to be a big job killer like many people believe.
Jim Cramer
Okay, so let's deal with reality. I think business seems to really be good. Small, medium sized business seems to be strong in the country. That I don't see. I still see businesses being created. It's not. We don't. We will of course we. Everyone would like the Fed to cut because there's some businesses that are really hurting. But you're not seeing any diminution in the starting of small businesses, are you?
John Gibson
No, no. Look, I think when you step back at a macro basis, you know, our small business job index really has remained relatively stable in 2025. Really with. We also see continued moderation in wage inflation when what we reported today is our same store workforce levels for our clients. Now that's more broadly across our entire base, not just the small market which is 50 employees less. That's essentially flat for the quarter. What we see is continued challenges, particularly in the small end of the market, finding qualified employees. The other thing I will tell you Jim is of course there's, there's businesses are trying to manage their costs and that's one of the things we reported today as well. One of the things that we've seen thus far is that a lot of our clients are not buying as many of our ancillary attachment products as, as we've what we expected for the quarter and that led to some of the guidance discussions that we had today. But overall small businesses are healthy. I think the macro environment is solid. We see no signs of recession. And I think going into 2026 with some tax clarity, interest rates, as you mentioned, beginning to ease, I think we have some things to look forward to.
Jim Cramer
Yeah. Is there anything in the big beautiful bill that, that people would say, listen, I got to call paychecks, figure this out, how it's impacting me.
John Gibson
Oh, my goodness. So tax on, no, tax on, on tips. That's a, that's a, that's going to be a good one for us. You're trying to figure that out and then trying to help every one of our clients, employees fill out the right form so they can get credit. Now we've got one year kind of grace period, but I think as we go into 26, that's going to be an opportunity for us.
Jim Cramer
And then I know you're involved with the Federal Reserve if you've told them, look, there are possibilities of a slowdown, we've got to be aware of it.
John Gibson
I think what I've relate to the Fed is what I've relayed to you, which is what we continue to see is moderation, that, that labor growth in small businesses is solid but not as strong as it was last year. And the things that I continue to see is small businesses trying to manage their cost. And so I do think that the Fed again has taken actions to try to, to hedge, hedge their bets on the employment front. But at this time, Jim, we're not seeing any signs in our other data or indicators that would indicate some looming unemployment issue or some recession.
Jim Cramer
All right, that's very good. That's why I wanted to hear because that keeps me from saying, listen, you got to sell a lot of stocks. If you were to tell me otherwise, then I'd have to rethink because you have the best display of everything in front of you. I want to thank John Gibson, president CEO of Paychex. John, thank you for coming on the show.
John Gibson
Thanks for having me, Jim. Happy holiday.
Jim Cramer
Thank you. You too may have money's back in for the break.
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Coming up, you called in looking for answers on Cura Oncology. And after a night of studying, Kramer is ready to deliver his report on the biopharmacy pharmaceutical company next.
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Jim Cramer
All right, so last night we got this call from Harlan in Washington, if you remember. But he wanted to know about a small cap biopharma company. It's called Cara Oncology. He made a good pitch pointing out that Curra just earned $135 million milestone payment from its Japanese development partner. And that's Kiawah Kieran. Man, that's a pretty substantial cash injection. We thought maybe check in this thing. Key here is that this is a development stage biotech that's working on cancer treatments. Often those are indeed worth speculating on as long as you realize that what you're doing is speculation, not investing. I mean, it's not like betting on Kalshee. It's a little more toward putting some money down, but it's certainly not something you expect two or three years to work. It may, it may not. If Cara makes a big breakthrough, you're going to see huge gains. If it doesn't or if there setbacks, it will be eviscerated and you'll see what I mean about it being a spec. And that's why I thought it was worth doing some more homework and circling back from good old fashioned speculation Friday. So let's go to the backstory. Current Oncology was founded by two organic chemistry PhDs a little over a decade ago. They sold the previous company intel, kind of to take the pharmaceutical for $190 million upfront, $120 million in potential milestone payments way back in 2011. Meaning if they hit certain things, that's a legitimate track record to me. Eventually they founded Cara and licensed a promising early stage cancer treatment from Janssen Pharmaceuticals. Now these guys thought the drug could achieve greater results if they could more precisely identify patients who might benefit from it. And that philosophy of precision medicine, very big right now, has been at the core of the current story since then. Today, Cara Oncology is a larger Mostly clinical stage biopharmaceutical company that's working on a number of targeted cancer treatments. Companies primary product candidates fall into two buckets. The first is called Menin, MEN inhibitors which work by getting cancer cells to prevent the expansion of cancer cells. Their lead drug is a MEN inhibitor that's aimed at stopping the spread of leukemia. The other bucket is what known as FTIs. These drugs focus on a specific enzyme that helps cancer cells resist all sorts of targeted treatments. Cara wants to inhibit that enzyme, making it easier to for other cancer drugs to do their job. See, it's done as a combination. That's what's going on here. Now if you look at the stock performance as it came public in 2015, again not much of a winner. Cara came public at $8 a little over 10 years ago. Today the stock sits at just under 10. Not unusual for a lot of these biotechs. This one caught fire during the COVID era speculative mania peaking at $43 December 2020. But it came right back down the next year. More recently, car roared in late 2023 and early 2024 thanks to some positive data from an early stage clinical trial studying their company's lead drug as part of a combination therapy. No result with another drug for acute myeloid leukemia. But in late November of last year, Cara announced a collaboration with Kiwa Kiran that Japanese drug member mentioned earlier and the stock up poll actually response why? Because many investors were hoping to come and be acquired. The collaboration with the Japanese factory took that off the table. Earlier this year investors were still pretty down on Curry with its stock sinking to its lowest level since 2016. In February, the company announced some phase two data on its lead leukemia drug. But there's also pretty controversial. Some like them, some hated them. White House even downgraded this talk citing a lack of clarity and a lack of differentiation from its competitors. Whether we're talking about efficacy or the drug safety profile, in retrospect, the bulls were right. Kara submitted the drug for FDA approval in April and we got more positive data on the one, this one throughout the year before the FDA approved this drug and it's now known as com zifty. Earlier this month, the first commercial sale was made, triggering the latest milestone payment. And that's why Carter's stock has roughly doubled from its springtime lows. At the same time, we've seen more positive clinical trial results from this drug across various different types of acute myeloid leukemia. Plus there were a lot of very positive conversations about Curra coming out at the Annual American Society of Hematology conference that occurred earlier this month. Analysts at Cantor Fitzgerald had dinner with current management at the conference. And while most of the conversation was about the commercial prospects for Comzifty, there was also lots of talk about how this whole class of drugs could be used to treat acute myeloid leukemia, especially in combination with other treatments. Right now this drug is approved for one type of disease that's a 350 to $500 million end market. But if it gets approved for every type of acute leukemia, well then you know what, that's a five to ten billion dollar market. Separately, analysts citizens pounded the table on CURA because they really believe in the technology and the company is now sitting on a big pile of cash. This is a company with a pro forma cash position for $745 million, very little debt when you consider that its market capitalization is just 500 million. Oh come on, you're practically getting their whole cancer franchise for free. And you know what, I agree with the bullish analysts. Of course I stand by what I said to Harlan as I purely speculative stock. But if you want to speculate on cancer treatments, I think this could be a great way to go. Overall, I see lots to like here. And by the way, everything I've mentioned so far only relates to cars first class of drugs, the men inhibitors. I haven't even considered anything from their other big category, the FTIs because those are earlier stage. I also like the car now has plenty of cash flowing into the business and I love the fact that the stock has pulled back hard over the past two weeks despite all the good news coming out of the American Society of Hematology conference. This stock peaked at $12.49 mid November the day the FDA approved the lead drug. It's now down to just under 10 bucks back to where it was trading in mid October. In other words, you're actually getting that FDA approval for free at this point. So here's the bottom line, Harlan and Washington brought us a good story with current oncology and we were right to look into it. While it's very much your typical speculative biotech story, it's one of the stronger ones I've seen in a very long time. So what I say is thank you, Harlan. Now we're going to go to Lee in New York.
Caller
Lee, hi Jim. I've been a member of your investment club for a long time. You've made me a lot of money.
Jim Cramer
I always.
Caller
As the last resort when I before I pull the trigger on buying all right.
Jim Cramer
I like that.
Caller
I had. I had to reduce some of my gains, and what I did was I did it through my ira, so I didn't have to pay taxes. And I was looking at United Health Care. Unc.
Jim Cramer
Okay. That's a joke. With what was going on, I don't. I'm not worried anymore. I think that they can handle pretty much anything that's thrown at them. What I do worry about, just so you know, is that that's not a great part of business right now, because the president, I don't. If you ever, you know, when you hear him, oh, my God, does he hate these companies? And if I were in the business, I would say, wow, the president's coming after me. But it's out of favor, and it's a great company and it will come back. I salute you for the patience that is needed. That one could be a good one. How about we go to Colby in North Carolina? Colby.
Caller
Jim, what's up? Booyah.
Jim Cramer
Booyah. Colby, what's going on with you?
Caller
What's up? I'm doing good. Just wanted to shoot you a call of. I've got a value stock for you, so I want to hear your thoughts on Align Technology. You know, they've got Joe Hogan leadership with Invisalign, but I. You know that the competition in the industry is increasing. Do you think?
Jim Cramer
Yeah, well, that's the problem. I loved this company when it was the only game in town, but the fact that there are others makes me very, very circumspect about it. I'm going to have to say take a pass on what was once a company that really had a feel to itself, but no more. Anyway, I want to thank everybody, for our guests, our callers, for bringing attention to things like Cara. Oncology is very much your typical spectacular body, but I would never have known about it if it weren't for Harlan. I think it's one of the stronger ones I've seen in years. Much more. Including an exciting round of mi Diversified. That's where you tell me your top five holders. I tell you, if you're diversified enough, maybe just switch it up. And in a lot of cases, these. There are too many tech stocks in people's portfolios. We're going to look at that. Then I see not one, but two superstar CEOs in two different companies deserve your attention. I'll reveal the names. And I got to tell you something. They're going to surprise you after today, of course, all your calls. Rapid fire. In tonight's edition of the Lightning rounds of stake with Kramer. We've had a roller coaster of a week. Have we? With the market being swayed up and down by the outsized influence of tech and AI stocks. And if you don't have diversified portfolio, I mean, you could end up being crushed weeks like this. And that's why tonight we're playing a very important round of my diversified. This is where you call me, you tell me your top five holdings. Kind of like in the book, right? You know, in how to make money. Any market where I say pick five. I tell you if your portfolio is diversified enough or if you need to mix it up a little. Let's start with Louis in Massachusetts. Louis, you're up first. What have you got for me?
Caller
Hi, Jim. Happy holidays. Booyah to you.
Jim Cramer
Booyah right back at you.
Caller
As I pivot from the year of magical investing to a year of practical investing. Will 2026 be another great year? My five stocks are JP Morgan, Google, Boeing, Procter and Gamble and Broadcom. Tell me, Jim, am I diversified?
Jim Cramer
Let's go to work in A year of practical investing. It's upcoming. I may have to steal that from you. I'm sorry, it's too good. I'll credit you periodically. Okay, so Broadcom, we know, is that great semiconductor, fabulous semiconductor company that's in, just riddled through the data center. I love it. Big position. Boeing is probably what my. Right now. My favorite stock for the next three months is doing great. Proctors the other one. We have new CEO coming in, obviously personal care products. And then we're going to see how this doesn't be, I'd say maybe the best second half stock for next year. JP Morgan is to me, my number two bank after Wells Fargo. They hate to hear that. They get very upset. And then Alphabet is, you could say, was that too close to Broadcom? No, Alphabet's also Waymo. Alphabet is also YouTube. It's way bigger than Gemini, although I love Gemini. I was on it like 100 times today. So we have diversified tech, we got semiconductor, we have air, aerospace, we have consumer product and we have banking. I got to tell you, I think that's perfect. That's Lewis's portfolio is just nothing short of perfect and I thank you. Now we're going to go to Tony, all the way down in Florida. Tony. Hey, Jim.
Caller
I want to wish you and your family and everybody that works for you a mad money, a happy holiday season and be a safe one.
Jim Cramer
Right back at you. Thank you.
Caller
And my five stocks is Amazon, Costco, Eaton, Palo Alto and Home Depot MIT versified.
Jim Cramer
Good. This is like our previous call. A lot of these people are club members. These are many, very many of our club member stocks at Home Depot. That's a play on housing. I'm not calling it a retail. I'm going to play on housing. Palo Alto is really cybersecurity okay. And growing and growing it a big deal. Google today Eaton is primarily not data centers. Primarily electrical equipment does have a huge data center business we call electrical equipment. Amazon is obviously Amazon web services and retail. And then Costco is a retailer whom I think is actually a little more trouble. We've had to sell a lot of our Costco for my travel trust because we did not like the way the conference call went when they reported last. But retail and retail. But remember I told you this is housing. Palo Alto cybersecurity. Eaton is electricity producing it, keeping it good and making sure that the data center is hooked into the grid. And then Amazon obviously is one of the great tech companies but it's really also a retailer. I think Tony's fine. Now some would say wait a second, you got three retailers here. I remember I'm taking Home Depot as a housing play. Costco is a club company and Amazon is a tech company. So we're okay. Now we're going to go to Michael in Arizona. Michael. Booyah. Jim.
Caller
Happy and healthy new year.
Jim Cramer
Oh thank you.
Caller
Same five stock of the 27 I own are in video Crowdstrike, Apple, Goldman Sachs and Robinhood. Am I diversified?
Jim Cramer
Interesting. We're going to go so we'll do some time on this crowdstrike we know Datalong Paltrow after amazing cybersecurity coming Nvidia. That's the, that's the largest semicircular company in the world. Apple is a consumer product company. That's tech. Goldman Sachs is a boutique but not so boutique anymore bank. In other words, they're not as big as bank of America, not as big as JP Morgan but they have an amazing brokerage business and they're terrific in their investment house. And then Robinhood which does nothing like Goldman. People may say well wait a second, two brokers. This is for retail. Goldman is for the ultra rich and for company. So they're very different and I don't want anyone to confuse them. Now Apple and Nvidia are both pure tech. I own Apple and I say own it, don't trade it. And I say in video on it, don't trade it. So I'm in a jam here myself. I am undiversified because I own both of these, but I understand exactly why Michael could feel I should be in it. A real classic person would say Robert and Goldman get one, get rid of one Nvidia. This is tricky toe Nvidia, Apple and CrowdStrike. Get rid of two because there are three. There are three tech and two fin. But I showed you how I divide them so you understand why if you were playing, if you were doing this say for how to make money in any market, my five stock program, it would work for you. And that's why I am teaching this this way, because of the way we do it and how to make money in any market. And I think you'll understand it and like the book and understand what we're trying to accomplish here. Rick in Illinois.
Caller
Rick, Jim Cramer, so nice to talk to you. I hope you had a good day.
Jim Cramer
Right back. Yeah, I died of my day. I don't know. Like a lot of the guys were looking at different catalogs. I was busy working. Just kidding, just kidding. I was looking at catalogs. No, I haven't looked at a catalog since Sears was in business. What's going on?
Caller
I want to tell you about five stocks I own.
Jim Cramer
Okay.
Caller
Eli. Eli O', Lilly, S.L. green, Mr. Softy, Chevron and Taiwan Semi. Am I diversified?
Jim Cramer
Really interesting set up here. Okay, so Taiwan Semi is the actual fabric that makes the chips for Broadcom, makes chips for amd, makes chips for. Yes, Nvidia. All right, that's in Taiwan. Very important. Eli Lilly is the company that has GOP Dash 1, Manjaro, very powerful drug. They're going to have a pill form next year that's going to revolutionize everything. I think stocks go up another $500 billion. I kid you not. Chevron is my favorite large oil company with a good yield that's run by Mike Worth. So Green is a company that's come back from the dead, basically. And it's a, a REIT in man in, in New York. I'm not really, I don't really want to meet in Europe, but that's what they do. And then Microsoft. Okay, Mr. Soft. Do we know it's business to business software with the consumer side of it too. So I'm going to say this is semi, this is software, this is drug, this is oil and this is retail. And I'm going to bless all of them. Now would I keep so green? I do happen to see federal really coming back and I like to see Don Wood in that portfolio instead of SL Green. Now everybody understands what we're doing here. This is right out of my program of how to make money in any market, which you must understand in order to be able to profit from individual stocks. Thanks for playing. Mad money's back, everybody.
Mad Money Announcer
Coming up, Kramer takes your calls. And the sky's the limit. It's a fast fire lightning round.
John Gibson
Next.
Jim Cramer
It is time for the light round from Bravo Army, Sam Stockton by social media. Look, soccer resume. And then the lightning round is over. Are you ready, Ski? Dad, turn on lightning round. Let's go to Daniel in New York. Daniel? Yes.
Caller
Hi, Jim. I just want to know what are Your thoughts on 1Oak?
Jim Cramer
1Oak is a buy right here. And not just because I think Walter Holtz is terrific. Let's go to Jalen in Texas. Jalen.
Caller
Hey, Jim. It's such a pleasure to speak to you.
Jim Cramer
My question is on lucid stock. I'll give you my answer now. We're going to Alex in New Jersey. Alex.
Caller
Hey, Jim. Alex from New Jersey. Happy holidays.
Jim Cramer
All right, right back at you. What's going on?
Caller
Hey, I wanted to give you something different. I know you get asked about a lot of the same stuff. Give me what you think about ticker S8ATs.
Jim Cramer
Oh, man, they've got a lot of money. They've sold a lot of patents, I think. I mean, they've sold a lot of product. It's all about their. Their. It's all about their. I'm gonna put this. Their bandwidth, their broadband. And they've got it and they sold it. And I think the play is over. Boy, they had a lot of it. More than. More than I realized. Let's go to Tammy in Nevada. Tammy. Hey, Jim. Hey. We're proud members of your investing club. And I just bought your book for my husband. Them for Christmas. Thank you very much. That's a good, very good. Easy gift to get. You can still get it on Amazon. How can I help exactly?
Caller
Hey, with that recent sour news on.
Jim Cramer
StubHub stock, how do you think they can address their tickets? They're losing too much money. We're going to stay away from them. We don't want to own the ones that are losing money. We got so many that are making money, they're going down. We need the losers. And that ladies of the conclusion of the Lightning Round.
Mad Money Announcer
The Light round is sponsored by Charles Schwab. Coming up, great leaders abound in the business world, but Kramer's found two who aren't getting the credit they deserve. He's breaking down. Why you can trust the CEOs of FedEx and Nike.
Corporate Spokesperson
Next.
Jim Cramer
At the racetrack. You learn to bet the horse, not the jockey. No jockey can turn a lousy horse into winner. You don't go from being destined for dead last to win, place or show no matter what the jockey does. That's not always the case in business. While a solid company can be led by a mediocre leader and still prosper, sometimes you can get a situation where the CEO can turn things around, triumph, even transform an underperforming business into a superstar. Right Now I see two of these CEOs orchestrating turnarounds happening right now under our noses in the leadership of Raj Subramanian at FedEx and Elliot Hill at Nike. But only one of which is being recognized. FedEx which was built by the late Fred Smith is a remarkable company. It's become ubiquitous with one of the greatest competitive modes I've ever seen. Only United Parcel can rival him. And I think FedEx is a better company. I'm very proud to be able to call Fred a friend and I cannot believe he is no longer with us. He was a leader like no other. That makes his shoes very big to fill. But Fred told me that I'd be dazzled by a successor. Raj. Well of course Trevor's right about that. Just like he was right about so many other things. Thank you Fred. This latest quarter showed a FedEx this better leader than I ever thought possible. With incredible numbers, albeit unheralded move to the business to business space. Pivoting some from its previous business and consumer orientation. Business to business is sticky. It is where the money is. FedEx pretty much owns the pharma delivery business now the biggest segment of delivery in the country. They've also developed a the data center business that could eventually be used. It's really happened in their way. Best of all, this happened at a time when you might have expected FedEx to report a series of misnomers thanks to the tariffs. Think about China had been big, now it's diminished. Tariffs have roiled almost all cross border trade. We have a slowdown in the US need the Fed's help. All these things would have probably derailed the old FedEx. Not so Raj's yet the stock barely reacted to last night's quarter. It's had a big run. My advice stay long. Comes down by more. How about Elliot Hill at Nike? This situation is much more complicated. Elliott and her broken Nike. A company literally seemed to have lost every bit of its former mojo. I use that comical word because it isn't comical in the world of sport. It's damning if you don't have it, Nike lost it. Under Elliott's predecessor, the company became a dull, non inventive, mediocre sneaker play with its product being pushed through the digital channel, even though most people like to try on a pair of expensive shoes. Elliott had to dismantle North America, which had been divided into men's, women's and children's shoes. Returning the business to sports verticals like running, basketball, international football. He had to clean up hundreds of millions of dollars in old, not that attractive inventory. He had to patch up destroyed relations with retailers and he pulled it off in a little more than a year's time. Was incredible. The Nike US business had some killer numbers in the quarter announced last night, the turns at hand. So why the stock get annihilated then down more than 10% because the previous team didn't just screw up the US it put China on a course of destruction that's come home to roost right on Elliot's head. The China portion. The conference call. I'd be chugging Pepto Bismol. Nike lost China quicker than you could say John Patton Davies or Jon Stewart service. And yes, it was that bad. Go read the conference call. When you do you hear this line quote we always believe that grow our growth will come through sport, but the reality is we become a lifestyle brand competing on price in China and lifestyle brand Nike video price. That's for mortals. Nike's immortal numbers were horrendous, a worse record than the Vegas Raiders or even the Titans. Remember the Titans? This is awful. It's simply too hard to turn things around in one or two quarters. Even though Nike's US business has already found its footing, Elliott is now setting his sights on China. Either believe he can win or if you don't, you have to sell. I don't know when the stock will make a comeback, but I bet it happens in the next year. And when it does, the $58 stock was headed to 80. However, if you're not a believer in Elliott, then just sit this percent out because I've got a feeling you won't have the patience to wait for the term. Alex said, as always, bull markets on my promise to find it just for you or your man Money. I'm Jim Cramer. See you Monday.
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Date: December 20, 2025
Host: Jim Cramer
Episode Theme:
Jim Cramer leads listeners through the latest twists and turns in the stock market, focusing on the renewed enthusiasm for AI and data center stocks, the resilience of financial and consumer sectors, insights into Paychex’s role as an economic indicator, and provides a round of portfolio diversification analysis. The episode features the signature Lightning Round and closes by spotlighting exceptional (but underappreciated) CEOs at FedEx and Nike.
Timestamps: [01:54] – [05:34]
“These companies keep spending fortunes to keep up with each other and Wall Street can't take it anymore.” — Cramer [03:30]
“Goldman Sachs may be growing faster than almost all the stocks in tech, let alone the Magnificent seven. And by the way, at a lot less risk, which is what really matters.” — Cramer [04:25]
“I find those groups nauseating because so many of you were losing money.” [05:09]
Timestamps: [05:35] – [10:40]
“This week we heard … OpenAI could be raising as much as $100 billion at a valuation more than $500 billion, maybe $657. Only $830 billion. Then … 750 billion just a couple of days ago, and then … 800. Then it was $830 billion yesterday.” — Cramer [07:44]
“If [OpenAI] can’t raise enough money, then we just reverse everything we saw today and we go back down. That’s the way it works.” — Cramer [09:25]
Timestamps: [10:40] – [16:07], [31:55] – [43:39]
“You should buy because Michael Dell will be in there buying with you and he is a very smart fellow and he's not going to let those component costs bother the bottom line too much. And stock is still up for the year.”
“People feel that Amazon can't be beaten, and I think that's wrong. Chewy's got a lot of ancillary businesses that will really help them. I'm with you. I'm a buyer of Chewy.”
“It's out of favor and it's a great company and it will come back. I salute you for the patience that is needed. That one could be a good one.”
“I loved this company when it was the only game in town, but the fact that there are others makes me very, very circumspect about it.”
Timestamps: [16:07] – [24:22]
“You had 18% revenue growth, earnings per share up 11%, generated a huge amount of free cash flow... an extraordinarily good quarter.” — Cramer [16:54]
Timestamps: [25:49] – [31:54]
“If you want to speculate on cancer treatments, I think this could be a great way to go. Overall, I see lots to like here.” — Cramer [30:56]
Timestamps: [34:58] – [41:46]
Timestamps: [44:07] – [48:00]
On AI speculation:
“The year of magical investing has ended. ... Almost every one of the speculative stocks ... they've all gone out of style, thank heavens.” — Jim Cramer [04:54]
On Oracle/OpenAI Craziness:
“At first I thought it was pie in the sky — trillion dollars, 200 billion. But you know what? Maybe it is a possibility. People are still very excited about this group.” — Jim Cramer [08:50]
On Biotech Speculation:
“If Cara makes a big breakthrough, you're going to see huge gains. If it doesn't ... it will be eviscerated. ... It's very much your typical speculative biotech story, but it's one of the stronger ones I've seen in a very long time.” — Jim Cramer [30:16, 31:54]
On Portfolio Balance:
“In a year of practical investing, upcoming ... we have diversified tech, we got semiconductor, we have aerospace, we have consumer product, and we have banking. ... That's perfect.” — Jim Cramer [35:25]
This episode serves as a microcosm of Cramer’s approach: deciphering headline risk, cutting through hype/fear, and showing listeners how to think both defensively and opportunistically. Market narratives are picked apart with a mix of skepticism and optimism, making it valuable primer for anyone navigating today’s stock market.