← Mad Money w/ Jim Cramer
Mad Money w/ Jim Cramer
Mad Money w/ Jim Cramer 1/30/26
00:44:16
Listen to Jim Cramer’s personal guide through the confusing jungle of Wall Street investing, navigating through opportunities and pitfalls with one goal in mind - to help you make money. Mad Money Disclaimer
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This segment is brought to you by Gelt. If you're a business owner wondering whether your CPA is just filing forms instead of helping you use taxes strategically, GHELT was built for you. Their expert CPAs and innovative AI tools help optimize entity structure, deductions and retirement contributions with proactive year round tax planning. SiriusXM listeners receive 10% off their first year of service when they sign up. Visit joingelt.com to schedule a discovery call. That's joing join gelt.com this episode is brought to you by Schwab Market Update, an original podcast from Charles Schwab. Join host Keith Landsford for this information packed daily market Preview delivered in 10 minutes or less, including projected stock updates, monetary policy decisions and key results and statistics that may impact your trading. Download the latest episode and subscribe@schwab.com MarketUpdatePodcast or find Schwab Market Update wherever you get your podcasts Foreign.
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Hey, I'm Kramer. Welcome to Mad Money. Welcome to Cramerica. Other people make friends. I'm just trying to make a little bit of money here. My job is not just entertain, but to educate you. So call me at 1-800-743-CBC or tweet me at Jim Cramer. Sick of earnings yet? Sorry, got another big week ahead. Roughly 20% of the S&P 500. Living hell if you follow a lot of companies like I do. Fortunately, we're coming in cold. We got a nice pullback today. Dow dip 179 points. SB declining 0.43%. Nasdaq shedding.94%. Russia a little oversold. Now that could allow us to get a good bounce if we get any good earnings numbers, given that the market fought back hard for the lows today, which is a very bullish develop. But before we get too far into the game plan, let's talk about the biggest deal of the week, and that's the nomination of Kevin Walsh as the next chief of the Fed. Wash is a banker, he's a financier. He's a real smart guy. He's rigorous, he understands, he's disciplined. At the same time, he's dealing with a president who acts like he wants to be Wash his boss. He, even as the Fed chief, once selected, supposed to be independent of the executive branch. Tricky situation here, especially after what we've seen happen to our current Fed chief, Jay Powell. Trump hated the power, who by the way he appointed was so independent, refused to cut interest rates on demand. So he was endlessly ridiculed. I do Think Wash notes the penalty he might have to pay for going against Trump. Instant and incessant hectoring on true social belittling. Hmm. That's something probably new to Wash will be spared rancor as long as Wash does the president's bidding. But he's got to be careful. The president does act as if the Fed is just another agency and the chair merely another cabinet member. I know there's no quid pro quo here, but there could be some caustic fireworks bad for stocks if things really go awry. Bad for you and me, of course. I don't think the market went down today because of this Fed pick. It was a market that was led by the collapse in silver, selling down a staggering 31% and a dive in gold, which was down only about 11% and a Harry and a bunch of weaker tech stocks while the defensive stocks soared. Convoluted session frankly, Bears and bulls put on gloves and went at it and the Bears won seemingly out of and we more than anything else. Maybe next week, which includes an employment number will be a little more conclusive when we come in on Monday, we'll be facing the earnings of the Walt Disney Corporation. We used to own this stock for the Travel Trust and left it because it just couldn't seem to get any traction. There was always some division that held it back. I don't know which it is this time. You never do. Now the Journal this very evening said that we might find out this week who will be CEO Bob Iger successor could be a vote. The right choice could certainly break that logjam that's kept in such a tight range after the close a company that once had an electric stock. Palantir Technologies, the software consulting company run by Alex Cart Karp is going to report now look, I am expecting a terrific quarter here. I am not concerned about the action. I think the stock is going to reignite. Harp's a fighter. He can come back from this. Anyway, it's up really big if yes, if you look two years now, Tuesday's filled with high profile companies like PepsiCo, Merck and Pfizer. In the morning I worry about PepsiCo because of its stack division Frito Lay it's struggling a casualty of the GOP Dash 1 weight loss drugs. At the same time, CEO Raymond Laguardo could be ready to take some serious actions to lessen the company's independence. On snacks now the stock did close almost 5 points higher today than that's a huge move for the stock. Maybe something's going on or that whole group just went nuts today after a great quarter from Colgate. Merck has a lot to talk about, namely some real wins from its bountiful acquisition spree. I like the stock a little too heavy on Key Trudeau right now, but I think he can spread out the wealth. On the other hand, I worry about Pfizer because while its stock has a terrific yield, I haven't seen anything of late that would make me. Make me feel there's a new blockbuster here that could move the needle. Although I was thinking about when I saw Verizon do that today, which was also a bond that turned into a stock that he maybe got into Pfizer. After the close, we had earnings from Advanced Micro Devices amd. I fear that it could be a terrific number and the stock will still go down, which has suddenly become the new pattern for semis. Chipotle ports, too. Now, this one's so low it might actually bounce even if the quarter isn't spectacular, which is probably. Probably not. But it doesn't matter. It's too low with Amgen. I don't know if you Remember at the J.P. morgan Health Care conference, I heard a lot of good things. The biotech really impressed me with a very strong pipeline. That, plus good earnings and maybe some good news about this weight loss drug could send this Dow stock higher. We've also got an important analyst meeting on Tuesday. I'm talking about with Western Digital. Oh, boy. This is critical because we just got their earnings this week. They were great and yet the stock still went down. We have to find out what that's about. Western Digital stock has been one of the best performers of this era. But the storage device coming truly is part of the problem now, not the solution when it comes to its customers. SanDisk Western Digital. Seagate didn't see the strength of its clients coming, especially the data center demand. Plus none plan to expand their factories enough to alleviate the tightness anytime soon. That's done real damage to their customer base. Companies like Apple, which barely finished up today in the wake of a tremendous quarter because people worried about this chip shortage. Whose fault is that? Nobody's really. No one saw this coming. Except, yes, indeed, Jensen Wong, the godfather of AI and CEO of Nvidia. He saw it. Why didn't anyone listen to him? We were shouting from the rooftops Wednesday morning. Eli Lilly reports its earnings haven't been the propellant here. What drives the stock are new reports from GOP Dash 1 clinical trials. But Lilly could announce some new data and that could get the stock Rolling at the close, we hear from the best stock in the business, at least by my count, the one that we bought back, the Travel Trust, because I just did diet. Such sellers remorse here. Alphabet. Yeah, this is a company that many wrote off as the least. The Magnificent Seven because they figured that wouldn't Google wreck Gemini. Instead it turned out to be Steve McQueen, by the way, the coolest of them all. And he gets to live. Whether it be Gemini, the best of the chat bots, or YouTube, the most popular video site in the world, or Waymo. Yes, self driving cars or Google itself, it doesn't matter. Outfits the best. And when it reports, I think you could romp. Oh, and I have a wild card for you. The President's on the warpath against all sorts of companies in the health and the health care chain. You know, I mean we saw them this week when on Humana, on UnitedHealth, on CVS. Well, when you get doctors and drug execs and health insurers offline to ask who makes the most and does the least, they always say it's the drug middlemen, the distributors between the drug companies. The consumer. When I ask, is a, is it McKesson? They don't say a thing, but they wink. I'll tell you this, when this company reports, its stock usually flies. I bet your history repeats itself. Thursday evening we have some real controversial stocks. It all starts with Amazon, which has become a bit of a battleground, frankly. This one used to roar in earnings. Now if Amazon goes up, it gets faded to sellers appear everywhere. If it goes down, you know what? At the opening, it just keeps going lower, lost in the shuffle. The greatness of the company itself. We own it. For the Travel Trust, I'm a believer. I know it hasn't been a good returner. Let's see what happens. And then there's a firm which I think will put up a fantastic quarter. And once again, the Bears will be put on the run by CEO Max Levchin. I think this buy now, pay later kingpin should be bought. Yes, bought ahead of the quarter. And then there's Reddit, which seems to move in 20 point increments every time anybody says anything. I bet it's up this time. Finally, on Friday, we get an employment report that may be weaker than many people think, with wage inflation on the tamer side. That would be terrific for bonds as rates go lower and stocks can take off. Crazy. I don't think so. As a matter of fact, I think it's a distinct possibility. The bottom line, if we get tame wage inflation. Maybe the president can stop harassing Jay Powell for his last few months on the job. Wouldn't that be nice? Because at that point, the Fed will have every justification to keep cutting rates. But if the employment report comes in too hot, this faithful public servant may have to go down swinging. Jim in Florida. Jim. Jim and Chill, a big thank you to you and your staff for all.
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Of the years of help.
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Oh, thank you. Staff is dynamite. Let's go to work. I'm calling about a pharmaceutical stock I bought about 10 years ago and it's up quite a bit and I was thinking about selling my position in IT and getting into Abbey, which has a better yield ticker symbol. Asian AstraZeneca. I like AstraZeneca very much. In that case, the franchise turned out to be a lot stronger than I thought. I think you should hold that. Abby reports this week I expect a very good quarter. I like the dividend, But I think AstraZeneca has got a better portfolio at this very moment. Now, if next week's employment report comes in too hot, our outgoing Fed chief might have to go downswing. It might. Tonight was a big week for earnings, almost 20% of the S&P 500 reporting. And I'm revealing the five of the best stories that you might have missed. And then you got to take with the good bad, right? I'm discussing the five of the worst earners to hang Breaker Eats. Yes, the symbol is the parent company of Chili's and it's erased its post earnings gains. But should investors take a bite of this pullback, I'll give you a hint. I think the CEOs got it going and I want you to stay with Kramer.
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Don't miss a second of Mad Money. Follow Imkramer on X. Have a question? Tweet Kramer madmentions. Send Jim an email to madmoneycnbc.com or give us a call at 1-800-743-CNBC. Miss something? Head to madmoney.cnbc.com this episode is brought to you by Schwab Market Update, an original podcast from Charles Schwab. Join host Keith Lansford for this information packed daily market Preview delivered in 10 minutes or less, including projected stock updates, monetary policy decisions, and key results and statistics that may impact your trading. Download the latest episode and subscribe@schwab.com Market Update podcast or find Schwab Market Update wherever you get your podcasts. A KFC Tale in the pursuit of.
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Flavor the Colonel despised the word empty. Empty plates, empty tables, empty stomach. That's why he made the KFC five dollar bowls like the famous bowl Creamy.
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Mashed potatoes, crispy chicken, corn gravy and cheese.
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Because the only empty the Colonel liked was when you reached the bottom of that bowl. The Colonel lived so we could chicken five KFC bowls for just $5 each.
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Prices and participation may vary. Taxes, tips and fees extra what do.
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The steam engine, electricity and AI have in common? These technologies not only change how we work, but they can transform entire economies. I'm Stephanie Wong, host of where the Internet Lives, a podcast from Google and Latitude Studios about the unseen world of data centers. Explore how data centers are unlocking growth in every sector of the economy. From agriculture to medicine to manufacturing, data centers are powering a new era of AI innovation. Listen to where the Internet lives wherever you get your podcasts.
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In the busiest weeks of the year, with almost 20% of the S&P 500 reporting earnings, it's impossible to keep track of everything. Look, I try to highlight the most important ones, but there's only so much time in the show and so much time to study. That's why tonight I want to cover 10 key earnings stories that did not get enough attention on our air or in whatever serves as being papers of records these days. So five good, five bad. Let's start with the good and then I'll get the bad. Maybe even some ugly To Lee Van Cleef. What a hero. Back on Wednesday night, Southwest Air symbol Love reported a stunning quarter said it stuck up nearly 19% yesterday, even after a weekend where bad weather caused countless flights to be canceled. Southwest has actually been doing very well under the leadership of CEO Bob Jordan, who took up over four years ago, especially since the very smart activists and versus vestors at Elliott Management took a big stake in the airline back in 2024. Jordan wisely agreed to cooperate. He saw the light. Now. Last year, Southwest took a big risk with some new policies. They made the airline a lot less customer friendly, at least for those of us who remember the old way. It's a lot more like the rest of the industry. No more free bags, assigned seats, tiered boarding groups, fees for additional legroom. And guess what? It's working. When Southwest reported two days ago, the headline numbers were just okay, but they gave a very bullish full year forecast. Management says their earnings per share can more than quadruple this year, and that's why the stock took off. Next We've seen big runs in all sorts of semiconductor stocks this week, especially the memory and data storage plays. But those they get a lot of attention. I'm going to talk about another one that was a little less explosive but I thought really was one of the most important developments in the industry and that's Texas Instruments which issued tremendous guidance on Tuesday night saw its stock rally 10% the next day. The stock usually used to do those moves and in the 80s, but haven't done in a long time. Texas gains are notable because this analog chip maker has lagged the broader semiconductor group in recent years. It has a little data exposure, about 9% of sales, but it's much more leverage the real world economy. Most of the businesses come from industrial and automotive end markets. Now the actual quarter was a minor disappointment, but the stock roared because Texas Instruments gave much better than expected guidance for the current quarter. While Texas Instruments typically sees the sequential earnings decline from the first fourth quarter, the first quarter that's very usual for semi doctor makers of the old school. Due to seasonal trends for its top end markets, this time they're predicting a sequential increase in the fourth quarter. Why? Magic explained the Texas industrial end markets are showing signs of recovery with orders improving throughout the fourth quarter and its smaller data center business. I got to tell you, I think it's really worth watching because it is going to grow and grow. It's up 64% year over year in 2025. That's what drove the breakout. The company was actually effusive for the first time since like 1985. Next, how about this rally in Cisco and that's the spy y kind, the food distributor, not the networking giant. Cisco shot up almost 11% on Tuesday in response to the company's earnings report that morning. So modest top and bottom line beat. But even a small beat was impressive here because Wall street has been pretty down on the restaurant industry which Cisco's core customer base plus management explained that quote, January is out of the gate strong, end quote and they now expect their their earnings for fiscal 2026 that's a 12 month period ending in June will come in at the high end of their previous forecast. Very interesting to have a January strong that's typically not the pattern of the industry. CEO Kevin Hurricane said Cisco was quote now solidly in positive volume growth territory and he expects quote continued positive momentum for the second half of the year, end quote meaning the first six months of calendar 2026. I tell you, this was a name that had fallen off my radar Drew because of the worries about the consumer and the status of the restaurant industry. But Cisco's cheap trading 18 times this year's earnings estimates with a decent 2.6% yield and the business clearly doing better than people thought. Fourth, at train technologies which rallied 8% yesterday in response to a really strong quarter, the big heating, vanilla, ventilation, air conditioning companies like Trane and Carrier have generally done well. Carrier just okay lately for the past couple of years because you need their climate control equipment to keep data centers from overheating, among other things. However, Train stocks sold off in the second half of last year, mostly thanks to a slowdown in the residential side of their business. Basically housing wars. You know that housing market sweet. Train was even forced to cut its full year forecast for 2025 when it reported in late October. But on Wednesday night, Train delivered a top and bottom line beat for the fourth quarter quarter as well as excellent booking numbers for the commercial side of the business. On top of that, they issued a bullish forecast for 2026, implying the left 12 to 14% year over year earnings growth. Nothing fancy, just a good solid beat with an encouraging full year forecast underpinned by strength in their data center business. That was enough to break the stock out of its multi month downturn. Finally, we got encouraging signs about the freight market this week. You know we've been worried about a freight recession here this time. C.H. robinson Worldwide, the logistics company, popped more than 5% yesterday in response to a very solid quarter. I've been looking for confirmation that a freight market recovery, not a recession, might be in the cars. As the transports have rallied nicely in recent months. That confirmation has proved elusive. Earlier this month JB Hunt, the big trucking company, reported a good quarter mostly driven by cost cuts, management sounding far from confident about freight demand. How about C.H. robinson again? I was hoping for some constructive commentary on the freight business, but instead we got more of what we heard from JB Hunt. This company delivered nicer earnings, but its sales declined 6.5% year over year with weak pricing and volume for ocean services as well as weak pricing for truckload services. Now some bullish analysts tried to seize on a couple of positive aspects of the report, like higher volume in the company's truckload business. I think that's a stretch really. It seems like C.H. robinson is benefiting from market share gains and self help initiatives to put up good numbers in spite of a still very weak freight business. The performance of the stock has been really great over the last year. Of course in some ways that makes these numbers all the more impressive. C.H. robinson has rallied 130% from its post Liberation day lows and Madrid's doing a terrific job playing the cards they've been dealt. I was just hoping they get a better hand this quarter. And that didn't happen. But this one's still a terrific stock. Here's the bottom line. Tonight. We're covering the most important earnings stories that haven't been getting attention. We all know that he talks about the dis, drives all you want or whatever video. What we need to talk about are these. And I just gave you five winners. And if you stick around after the break, I've got five overlooked losers that we have to study. Bit of money's back after the break.
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Coming up, earnings. Season is in full swing, but it hasn't been all good news on Wall Street. Kramer's checking out five under the radar under performers next. This is Rich Gannon from Sirius XM NFL Radio reminding you that Sirius XM is the place to hear every NFL playoff game from the wild card round all the way through the Super Bowl. Plus, you get to decide how you want to listen to the game. We'll have the hometown announcers for each game and the national broadcasters on your radio and on the SiriusXM app. And if it's football talk that you want, just search for NFL Radio on the app or tune to Sirius XM channel 88 in your car. Introducing Fidelity Trader plus with customizable tools and charts you can access across all your devices, try our most powerful trading platform yet@fidelity.com TraderPlus investing involves risk, including risk of loss. Fidelity Brokerage Services, LLC member NYSE SIPC.
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The end of a very busy week for corporate earnings. I want to catch up on some of the biggest stories that we really didn't have much to cover for the break. I talked about five real good ones. Now I'm going to give you five bummers. First, sadly, because I really like these guys. There's this trade desk. The advertising technology company has gone from a market darling just a few years ago to a chronic underperformer as these guys have struggled to adopt the new AI era. The trade desk was added the S&P 500 last year, and then it ended last year as the worst performer in the index, down 68%. Wall Street's worried about these online advertising middlemen. They might not have much of a future in worlds Meta platforms can use AI to handle all their targeted advertising needs. You don't really need to know the what the Trade Desk does. And if you were hoping for a turnaround from the trade desk in 2026, you were sorely disappointed. The stock already down another 20% for the year, including a 17% beat down this week. This isn't even an earnings story. The Trade Desk reports in full results in February. It's something much worse. On Monday, the company announced it had have fired its CFO after only five months on the job. At the same time, management reaffirmed their guidance for the fourth quarter. In a vacuum, that would be just fine. But Wall street hates it when a CFO leaves out of nowhere. And this guy getting fired after only five months really does not inspire a lot of confidence. Makes you worry that something might be very wrong here. Yikes. Eventually, trade this might become too cheap to ignore. The moment the stock selling for roughly 15 times this year's earnings estimate, down from 62 times earnings at the beginning of last year. But nobody wants to stick their neck out and make that bet right now. Out of left field CFO departure equals sell next United Rentals plunged nearly 13%. The company reported weak results Wednesday night. That could be a sign for the economy. I get it. This big equipment rental company has reported an outright miss with mildly softer than expected sales and much softer than expected earnings. Full year forecast for revenue, EBITDA and cash flow also came in light. What's the problem here? Okay, in the construction market there is some building happening, but a lot of it's coming from large companies doing mega projects, which is bad for United Reynolds because the big boys can drive a much harder bargain than, say, some of the smaller homebuilders. Overall, I don't think United Reynolds is a lost cause. Stocks now cheap trading this at less than 17 times this year's earnings estimate. Management also announced a $5 billion buyback that's equivalent to more than 10% of its market cap. But as one analyst put it in this week, the stock quote may remain in purgatory, end quote, for a bit until investors have confidence in a broader construction market recovery or see some signs the United Rentals margins are moving in the right direction. In truck rental, we now like Equipment share, which recently came public. That's a faster grow with an asset lighter model. We did a profile of them early in the week. I really, really like it. Next Las Vegas Sands caught my eye with a nearly 14% decline yesterday. This casino company has fallen a bit off my radar ever since it made a major pivot roughly five years ago, selling off its remaining Vegas assets and becoming more of a pure player in Asia. With five casinos, five in Macao, one in Singapore, the stock's been up and down since the trading, mainly on the strength of the Chinese consumer. Way too hard to game this Wednesday night, Las Vegas fans reported a top and bottom line beat. But the stock got clobbered anyway because of disappointing margins in Macao thanks to higher promotional costs and for some expensive preseason NBA games. Management tried to spin these events as positive and plenty of analysts defended the company, calling the post quarter pullback a buying opportunity. But I'm not sure I like anything gambling these days. I know you ask me a lot about draftkings. Boy, that's struggling. They're all struggling. Plus you never know Wynn's doing better than expected. Plus, you never know when the Chinese Communist Party will do a new another crackdown on conspicuous consumption. Fourth, we got really confusing results from Automatic Data ADP, America's top payroll processor. On Wednesday, the stock went down 1.5%. When you zoom out, this was just the latest lag leg lower for ADP, which is now up more than 25% from its highs this year. This is a really good company. What's weird about this one is the fact that the quarter really didn't seem all that bad. I went through it. I didn't see much I didn't like. ADP gave us solid top and bottom line B. They also raised the low end of their full year sales and earnings estimates forecast for fiscal 2026. On paper, it was clean beat race. What gives? To me, it looked like Wall street simply convinced that the payroll processors are doomed thanks to the rise of Yes, I know you're probably tired of hearing it. I When ADP management shooting was asked about this on the call, CFO Peter Hadley said they're quote, not really seeing anything discernible there, end quote. Even as they're watching it closely. Even that bothered people. Geez. Obviously the broader job market is slow, but ADP numbers are fine for the time being. I can't tell whether the market's getting this one wrong. I know the analysts were a little bit tough on these guys for now. All I know is that ADP paychecks and their fellow travelers have become the house of there's all right, this is what's a little funny. But I don't mean to laugh if you own the stock, if you work there. But Roper Technologies, it's a fascinating story. For over a century this was a fabulous industrial company. I always liked it so much. Dates back to the late 1800s with various different focuses over the years. Maker of home appliances, pumps, other industrial products, always being the best at what they do. But starting around 15 years ago, Roper began acquiring series of software companies, gradually moving away from its metal bending roots in this new software centric era. For Roper, the company's operated like a private equity firm, snapping up software businesses it likes most, mostly allowing them to operate independently. Many of them I think very expensive acquisitions. And in fairness, the strategy worked great for its first 15 years. Problem is enterprise software is going out of style on Wall street fashion show investors are paying much, much lower prices to earnings multiples for these stocks nowadays, as we know from the investment punishment meted out to ServiceNow, Adobe and Salesforce.com among other enterprise software companies. Which brings me to Tuesday morning when Rover reported a mixed quarter, a revenue miss paired with a small earnings beat and the stock ultimately got hit. Why? Because Roper's full year forecast missed expectations on every line and their earnings guidance for the current quarter also came up short. Now Roper looks like a bad house in a bad neighborhood and I'm not sure what could get investors interested in this stock again, at least until the company starts delivering some better prints. I think this one doesn't bounce back until the enterprise software cohort finally gets out of the and I don't see that happen anytime soon. Bottom line, I can't get to every report from this insanely busy week, but at least you're up to speed on 10 more important stories from the week. Five were good, five were bad. All were important, all worth keeping an eye on. Ann in Indiana. Ann. Hey Jim, I'm a club member. Thanks for taking my call. Of course. Thank you for joining us again. Yeah, bugging you again about AutoZone after I read the article about supplier financing in the Journal and wondering how much is too much and what metric or metrics I should be looking at for that. That has been, you know, bugaboo. Look, I think this is incredibly well run company. It generates a gigantic amount of cash. I think that this is, I'm going to say it again. I think this whole downturn in AutoZone is going to prove out to be a terrific buying opportunity. I am not backing away. Aco I like very much and thank you again for being a member of the club. After this heavy week of earnings, sometimes it pays to pay attention to stocks that aren't the hyperscalers. There are plenty of interesting stories this market but you got to know where to look. Then much more money including my Susan one that I think is about to take off again after some less kind of dormant It's Brinker could a focus on value can be this company's competitive advantage. How about their kind of bacon 8 or thing that I like and then I'm checking in with the CEO there for two by the way. For too many people, the future for Apple is grim and I'm telling you those people are wrong. An oily calls rapid Fire. Tonight's edition of Life to Stay with Crazy. A couple of days ago got this really impressive quarter from Brick International. That's parent company of Chili's and Maggiano's. This was a 25 cent earnings beat off a $2.62 basis higher than expected revenue, which is what I really like to see from a restaurant. Chili saw its same store sales grow at 8.6%. That's a, that's incredible. Wall Street's only looking for 6.1 this time. They're up against some very tough comparisons. Even better, Brinker raised its full year forecast for both sales and earnings. However, the stock which is more than tripled since start of 2024 has kind of stalled out over the past 12 months is down almost 14% now. It shot up $4 yesterday, but then it gave it back. Vast bulk of these gains today. That doesn't make sense to me. I think it's a buying opportunity. Let's check in with Kevin hockey, the President CEO of Bricker National. Point out Mr. Hockman. Welcome back to Money.
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Hey, it's great to have have you on have me on the show. Jim, it's great to see you.
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Good to see you, Kev. I got to tell you, I mean as someone who's traded stocks for 42 years, I know I'm never, I usually don't do this for the guests, but you have the single greatest chart I've ever seen. It's almost as if everybody who thought that the turnaround was over has sold and new people are coming in and they're not deterred because they see the numbers and cannot believe how much better you're doing than everybody else.
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Yeah, we had another blowout quarter, Jim. You know, we had a plus nine. Same store sales on Chili's. That's a two year comp of over 40%. This was a quarter that people thought we couldn't comp the comp. We couldn't roll over that plus 31. And the way we were able to do it, I couldn't be more proud of. We had some minor menu renovations to continue to upgrade the food. We had more simplification from an operational standpoint to continue to improve those guest metrics. And then we even started our reimage program this quarter. So, you know, we had a phenomenal quarter. We're doing the fundamentals brilliantly. And this runs just going to keep going.
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Well, I look at a lot of metrics and one of the things I did when I was running my restaurants was to say, okay, I want to know how many people are unhappy. I want to know whether we have the same, whether people are more unhappy now. And nobody could ever do it. You know why? Because they said you can't figure it out. You figured it out at scale and it's really positive.
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Yeah, you know, the recipe is pretty simple. You start with having great team members and making sure that they're taken well, taken care of, that they're making their jobs easier and more rewarding and more fun. And if they're having a good time, they're obviously going to take care of the guests. And then we're seeing that happen. So the guest scores continue to improve. Now we track guests with a problem on a daily basis. When I started this turnaround over three years ago, that was about 5%. It's now to an all time low since we've ever tracked it at a little less than 2%. So it was 2.1% for this quarter. So it's been just an incredible run. Take care of your people, take care, and they'll take care of the guests. And then you see the sales come through.
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All right, now I got to ask you something. This chicken sandwich, you say nationwide substantial advertising campaign. Do you need to do anything other than TikTok, really?
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Well, of course we do. You know, one of the things that we've had incredible success with is advertising our three for me value. So it's 1099. You know, right now we have on air almost a half pound burger, fries, unlimited chips and salsa. And that's all made fresh daily and in a bottomless drink. And it's an unbeatable price. You know, people are still frustrated with fast food prices that compare that price point to what they can get with a combo Meal only. You get more food, you get great service. And obviously, we've had this consistency of our experience that's so high that people are excited about it. And we're going to continue to advertise that value. We're going to continue to bring news to it with our chicken sandwich lineup, and we're going to continue to win with the American consumer.
- [32:30]
B
One of the things that you do right, most restaurants got wrong. I don't know how. Look, sometimes it may be better luck be good, or maybe you just made a beeline on this. But the only liquor that's doing well in this entire country is Tequila. Every other one is down year over year. Tequila's up. Agave spirits are great. Is it. Is it really doing good? You're. How good are your Morgan selling?
- [32:53]
C
Well, first of all, the good news is you're talking to the largest tequila purveyor for a restaurant in the world. So we sell a whole lot of tequila, and because of that, we always have great buying power, but we also do great innovation. So, you know, we'll always have. We call the barbell strategy. You always can get a $6 market of the month at Chili's. You can go all the way up to things like Don Julio Casa Amigos and pay some more for that.
- [33:15]
B
But.
- [33:15]
C
But the reality is it's an unbeatable value. So, like, I'll show you for January, you'll appreciate this one. We call this one the $6 resolution breaker, and it's made with. It's made with Cuervo Blanco pineapple and mango, and our house made sour. It's obviously a very large margarita, too. It's that kind of value that the guest comes in for. And they know they don't need to have an app. They don't need to come for happy hour. They can come any time of the day. And they know they're going to get a $6 margarita at Chili's, and it's always going to be super delicious.
- [33:43]
B
I think also, I mean, I really believe you're about to burst out, you know that I think that people, new people are going to come in and buy. The stock is going to look at you versus the others. And one thing they should be looking out is the Chili's per person checkout costs versus the other casual dining competitors and the entire casual dining industry. What's the difference between you and those?
- [34:03]
C
Yeah, it's pretty awesome. So in addition to the promotional value I just talked about, you know, on an everyday basis, we call it PPA or per person average check. We're about $3 less than our direct competitors in casual dining. We're about $4 less than all of casual dining. But here's what I would tell you, Jim. I think we're now considered not just the best value in casual dining. We're considered among the top, if not the top, value in all of restaurants. So when people are paying, they know it's what you pay versus what you get. You not just get more abundance and delicious food, but you get it with that service and that hospitality in a fun atmosphere. When you add all that up, that is superior value in the restaurant industry.
- [34:39]
B
When you do your conference call, how do you set it up? And one of the things you do that's really brilliant. I'm average a million conference calls, so it's really hard for me to stay interested. But you do this right at the top. You talked about the bacon upgrade, the thicker bacon. Now, how do you isolate that? Because to me, that is something that you like. My wife's a baconator eater. I mean, more than anyone, probably, per capita. And, you know, we'll go and she'll notice this. People notice that stuff.
- [35:04]
C
Yeah. You know, one of the things that we're trying to do here is continue to bring more and more value to the equation. So that doesn't just look like promotional value or, you know, overall everyday value. It's also bringing more quality to the products that we sell. So, for example, we recently upgraded our bacon to 50% more bacon. And then in our bacon cheeseburger, we put four strips instead of two. When you add that up, that's triple the bacon than the old burger. And then we wake up, and that business is 43% bigger than before. We made the bacon upgrade. Ribs is another one we recently upgraded. Two quarters ago, we added 50% more bones of ribs to both the half rack and a full rack. We also got domestic ribs, which are fattier and meatier. They have fattier pigs than the European pigs. And the result is we take the price up a little bit. We don't take it up 50% or not even close to that. And the guest is telling us this is a superior value. And that business has also grown a ton. So the key to us is just continuing to bring the American consumer value. If we do that, we can do that. We can continue to make a ton of money, continue to grow margins, and continue to deliver the returns that our shareholders expect.
- [36:06]
B
Our viewers are going to say, okay, that's great, but how much did you raise the price big for this stuff. But the answer is, how do you not. How do you not have to be? I had a piece of Dover soldier say for $112. Are you kidding me? Are you kidding me?
- [36:20]
C
Well, there's a couple of things that we got to do.
- [36:22]
B
What?
- [36:23]
C
We got to keep our costs tight. So, you know, we talk about this simplification and we eliminated a quarter of the menu. That's a lot of cost savings. That's a lot less things to inventory, order less food, waste a lot less labor to prep things. You know, those things. It's very hard to quantify, but when you add those all up, it's a whole lot easier to run the restaurants and it's a whole lot cheaper to run the restaurants. The second thing I would tell you is we have all walks of life coming in through our doors. So we have a low income guest, we have high income guests. They have different needs and different ones. So even when you think about that three for me in the 10 tonight, 1099 meal, you know, that only shows up in about 9% of checks. It's only about 5% of our sales. So, you know, the vast majority of the menu is selling it at prices that, you know, obviously we can make that mix work and deliver the margins for our shareholders.
- [37:07]
B
Well, it is incredible. I do believe that people think that it can't continue. I think it's done resting and about to take off. I think Kevin Hoffman, presidency of Brinker International, who is an operator who understands what needs to be done to make it so everybody can get a break in price. You are the inflation fighter in our restaurant industry. Yeah.
- [37:29]
C
Thank you, Jim. And I'll leave the team with this. This is sustainable. You know, we're on 19 quarters of growth. We're about to hit our 20th, hopefully this quarter. And we're just going to keep it going and people are still going to doubt whether it's sustainable and we're just going to keep delivering the money.
- [37:42]
B
I know you are mad. Money is back after the break.
- [37:46]
A
Coming up, Kramer takes your calls. And the sky's the limit. It's a fast fire lightning round.
- [37:53]
B
Next. It is time. It's time for the lightroom crew member. Bye bye. Playing this town. And then the lightning round is over. Are you ready? Ski dad Tongue. Lightroom Crane, Red runner. Let's start with dawn in New York. Dawn, hey, Jim Cramer. How are you? Thank you for taking my call. Thank you for calling Dawn. Definitely. My question is about hinge health.
- [38:27]
D
Hng.
- [38:29]
B
I thought I don't even if you remember when they came on. I thought they were terrific. And they are part of the solution, not the problem. I think that that is going to be one of the better stocks we've seen in the health care sector. Let's go to Fred in Arizona. Fred.
- [38:43]
C
Hi, Jim. I'm talking. I'm 78 years old and retired, so my spectates largely behind me. So I look for stocks with a good balance sheet, excellent dividends and great earnings. And the stock I want got hammered today. I'm thinking of adding it to my portfolio on Monday. It sells at 5 times earnings. It pays a 9% dividend covered 200% by earnings. And it's diversified tremendously over the last year through acquisitions. The stock is rhythm ritm.
- [39:19]
B
Too risky, too risky. We don't really know what that asset manager owns. I don't want you to buy that stock. We can't find out what it's got inside it. And that is historically been a dangerous thing to own when you don't know what they have. So I just say that they probably may have good stuff but I just, I rule those companies out. Let's go to Joe and Hawaii Joe.
- [39:40]
C
Happy aloha Friday and a big huya, Jim.
- [39:43]
B
I like that.
- [39:44]
C
Long first time caller, but longtime listener.
- [39:47]
B
Just a little Hawaii and Air Force twist for you. The States you twist your standard greeting. Thank you for all that you and your team do to support the independence of the Main street retail investor. Absolutely awesome.
- [40:01]
C
I remember a piece you did advocating flow serve.
- [40:04]
B
I remember a piece you did advocating flow serve. Yes, absolutely. And it's been a huge winner. And remember flow server looks like what Roper used to be. I love pipes. I love valves. I like by the way, I mean the one that I've been recommending now that for the club. And I think it's really good that a great quarter is Dover. That's a very similar situation. Now it's down six straight points. I'd rather see you in Dover, Dov. Let's go to Gary in Texas. Gary, how you doing? Professor Kramer. How you doing, buddy?
- [40:32]
C
Started reading your book.
- [40:34]
B
Enjoy. Thank you. Excellent.
- [40:37]
C
My stock is Energy Fuel.
- [40:38]
B
You, you, you, you. No, no, we want to stay away from that. If we want to nuclear power, we have to buy gev. That's the one you want. Okay. They're nuclear ahead of everybody else. I wish you by Westinghouse individually, that's owned by by. That's owned by Brookfield. That's a good company too. But I've got to tell you, Energy Fuels. I have to Say no to it just isn't the way you play it, so to speak. Let's go to Jeffrey, Massachusetts. Jeffrey.
- [41:03]
C
Happy Friday, Jim. What's up?
- [41:05]
B
You tell me.
- [41:08]
C
Not much, just on my way home from work.
- [41:10]
B
Good for you. All right.
- [41:12]
C
I'm still working.
- [41:13]
B
How you like that? Very funny.
- [41:15]
C
But after a massive earnings flashing and a current yield of 6.75% is Zale resort to buy, sell or hold?
- [41:22]
B
You know, I think it's a very well run company. Boy, the stock is down so low. I'm going to say buy it. I really am. I'm going to say Rob Katz does a good job. Let's buy that stock right here. And that, ladies and gentlemen, push it up the lightning round.
- [41:36]
A
The lightning round is sponsored by Charles Schwab. Coming up, has Wall street gone too sour on Apple? Kramer is making the case for why the worrywarts are being too negative about the stock.
- [41:50]
B
Next.
- [41:53]
C
Jim Cramer, the die hard of the doll.
- [41:55]
B
Hey Jimmy, love the show. My five year old grandson loves to watch your show.
- [42:00]
C
I have to thank you for making us money when instead to be made. Our world is a better place with you in it.
- [42:23]
B
People are way too eager to give up on Apple. They look at last night's earnings and they say so what? That's the past. The future's grim. The part shortage is so bad for them that I have to pay a fortune to get components. It will crush their gross margins. And when the memory chip butcher bill comes due, you'll regret you ever own this one. And that's how the stock sold off hard earlier today. In response to that terrific quarter last night, you. I beg to differ. And late in the day the market came around to my position with the stock only finishing up A$20 after spending most of the session in the red. I think Apple's quarter was fantastic and its future remains bright. This company is not going to be brought down by the price of disk drives, floppy or otherwise. It's much stronger than its critics think. This tale of Apple's a strange story. Apple put up sharply better than expected results with tremendous numbers in America and for the first time in ages, Greater China. Who would have thunk it? I was kind of blown away by the shocking 22% iPhone revenue growth rate. Something nobody expect. Nobody. Not many saw that surge in China either. I'm fortunate to be able to have a background conversation with Tim Cook, the excellent new CFO Kevin Perak to go go over the numbers ahead right before. It's just stuff we do for background so that we're ready to go on air with. And you know what? The miasma of negativity has surrounded the stock was crazy. I saw so many bright spots that couldn't wait to talk about it. Tim was more effusive than normal, offering superlatives that I found truly comforting at a time when tech can be totally treacherous. And if you're an Apple shareholder like my Channel Trust Cook really made you feel like the future is so much brighter than the past. Unfortunately, there was another company reported last night, SanDisk, the best performing stock of the year so far. And by the way, of the last 12 months too. SanDisk is the chief supplier of storage chips used in PCs and cell phones. I know it would be an incredible report because there's just not enough storage to go around and the prices are through the roof. Anything connected to memory or storage is practically printing money this year. Now we got this kind of oddity, something called the Wall street community, in this case the community that covers Apple, the analyst group. They almost always have one foot out the door of the stock. They tend to focus on the negatives. This time it's that the parts have become too expensive and will really hurt Apple's gross margins later in this year, probably as early as the second quarter. As Tim said on the commercial quote, it's a direct result of the 23% growth and that far outstripping what we had internally estimated and having a limited flexibility, the supply chain for some period of time, end quote. Apple took the whole supply chain by surprise. I am an Apple aficionado from way back proudly, and I know how little hype there is from this company. They just don't do it. I don't believe that Cook and his team would be so brilliant about their discussion of Apple's current position with me. If they knew the component prices were going sky high and they'd have shortfalls galore, which is how the stock was trading earlier today. What would allow Apple to overcome these shortages? First, we don't know how much supply they have stockpiled. We know the Nvidia got ahead of this. Jensen Huang did predict that he did have the memory needed for his needs and still does. So it can happen. Second, Apple is agile and it should have been able to. It should be able to navigate the environment for better, far better than the competition. I mean, the other guys really don't know how to even handle this kind of worldwide network. Third, I know these drive companies. I once owned 5% of Western Digital, another company allocating components. They're in A business with incredible highs and dreadful lows. Periods where orders abound in periods where water runs dry. Apple knows this. The storage makers know this too. They understand that Apple can be the best client there is, ordering. Let's say they can order through thick and thin. So they can't afford to shaft Apple for long. It's too powerful. This is the time for them to give Apple a break. That way Tim Cook will remember them when the business turns down. And that's why I think Apple will pay. And they're not going to pay anywhere near the list price that we heard all day today. More important, it's not like Apple's competitors are sitting on massive components either. All of them have to raise price. Only Apple, though, gets that tremendous, enormous subsidy from phone companies eager to get you to switch carriers. I bet most customers don't even notice a price change because the phone companies might eat it. Yes, that could happen. That happened with the tariffs. Of course, I could be wrong that maybe Apple just gets hammered like everybody else, the casualty of the gigantic mob data centers that are trying to clom on to all these drives. Or maybe Tim, a supply chain master, has it under control the streets betting on the former to happen. They sent Apple stock way down most of the day. But I'll take the other side of the trade, the one that won in today's seesaw session. I'd like to say this always the more market somewhere and I promise you, betting just for you right here on Mad Money. I'm Jim Cramer. See you Monday.
- [47:23]
D
All opinions expressed by Jim Cramer on this podcast are solely Kramer's opinions and do not reflect the opinions of CNBC or its parent company or affiliates and may have been free previously disseminated by Kramer on television, radio, Internet or another medium. You should not treat any opinion expressed by Kramer as a specific inducement to make a particular investment or follow a particular strategy, but only as an expression of his opinion. Cramer'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 Building a portfolio.
- [47:57]
A
With Fidelity Basket Portfolios is kind of like making a sandwich. It's as simple as picking your stocks and ETFs, sort of like your meats and other topics, and managing it as one big juicy investment. Now that's pretty good. Learn more@fidelity.com baskets Investing involves risks, including risk of loss. Fidelity Brokerage Services, LLC Member nyse, SIPC.