Caller (9:17)

Booyah. Jim. Costco has fallen about 80. Costco has fallen about 80 points in the last month. But it beat earnings, raised membership fees and implemented technology to increase memberships. Why is the stock going down and where do you see it going in the near future?

Jim Cramer (9:33)

I'm really glad you asked me about this because I'm very close to it. Here's what I'll have to say. One is when the stock is down this much from its high, you just simply buy it too. Is is that this sells at 50 times earnings. People a little worried about that, not. And three, all those things. The good news is you got the membership increase, the special dividend. They're all behind. So people saying, what is there to move it ahead? I'll tell you what, there's the move ahead. The single best retailer in the world. And that's why I want you to buy it as we own it for the Travel Trust. And believe me, even though our basis is so much lower, I am tempted to buy more. Hey, how about we go to Monica in New Jersey? Monica.

Elliot Kaelin (10:09)

Hey, Jim.

Caller (10:10)

Booyah. From Paramus, New Jersey.

Jim Cramer (10:12)

Oh, holy cow. You said stone's throw from our old place. I got to tell you. How's it, how's it going over there in Paramus?

Caller (10:19)

A lot of traffic.

Jim Cramer (10:21)

Darn it. Traffic is a bummer. I know. I always say that. What else?

Caller (10:26)

So I've been buying so far incrementally since September 22nd based on your recommendation that you liked it, especially at the price of time. My average return about 130% now. And considering the recent downgrade, sell outright.

Jim Cramer (10:43)

Or whole, when I hear somebody up that much, here's what I say. I don't really care about the stock. I say I want you to sell half and play the rest of that. Play with the house's money. Why not do that? Imagine I bump into your Paramus, maybe shopping at that mall. That mall looks like a million bucks. It should be worth like a billion bucks, but it looks like a million bucks. But here's what I would do. I bump in here. You know what you say to me? You say, hey Jim, thank you, I live for that. Let's do it. Next week will still be impactful despite the lack of earnings reports. And get ready to do some buying if this market gets hit in response that Friday job report. Watch what happened today. See it's not that bad out there on Mailbox right? I'm revealing the top 25 questions I have for 2025, starting with look at how the election and more could affect the macro environment. You need to know the questions before you can figure out the answers that I'm going sector by sector give you the stories that stand out to me in each of these categories. And later, from robo taxis to software, I'm running through the top themes that could shape the action in the most important sector of this market, tech. I suggest you stay with Kramer.

Elliot Kaelin (11:45)

Don't miss a second of Mad Money.

Caller (11:47)

Follow imkramer on X.

Jim Cramer (11:49)

Have a question?

Elliot Kaelin (11:50)

Tweet Kramer Madmentions Send Jim an email to madmoneycnbc.com or give us a call at 1-800-743-CNBC. Missed something? Head to madmoney.cnbc.com hey, this is Jeff.

Caller (12:10)

Lewis from Radio Andy Live and Uncensored.

Elliot Kaelin (12:12)

Catch me talking with my friends about my latest obsessions, relationship issues and bodily ailments. With that kind of drama that seems.

Caller (12:18)

To follow me, you never know what's going to happen.

Elliot Kaelin (12:21)

You can listen to Jeff Lewis live at home or anywhere you are. Download the SiriusXM app for over 425 channels of AD, free music, sports, entertainment and more. Subscribe now and get 3 months free offer details. Apply have you ever had to put your plans on hold due to symptoms of generalized myasthenia gravis or gmg? Like taking that weekend trip, talking with friends or enjoying a meal? Learn about a treatment option that may help. Visit treatgmg.com to learn more. That's treatgmg.com this cold and flu season. Instacart is here to help deliver all of your sick day essentials. Whether you're in prevention mode and need vitamins, hand sanitizer and that lemon tea your Nana swears by, or you're in healing mode and need medicine, soup and a lot more tissues, simply download the Instacart app to get sick day supplies that reinvigorate or relieve. Delivered in as fast as 30 minutes. Plus enjoy. Zero dollar delivery fees on your first three orders. Excludes restaurant orders. Service fees and terms apply at the.

Jim Cramer (13:48)

Start of every new year. I always try to figure out which stocks can work best over the next 12 months, but this year's different precisely because there's just so much we don't know about what's coming. While that's always true to some extent, this year the stakes feel higher given that the s and P500 put up two consecutive years of 20% plus gains for the first time since the late 90s. So rather than making a bunch of predictions about what might happen in 2025, I got an idea. I want to walk you through my thought process and share 25 of the most pressing corporate questions in this market. 25 for 2025 because these are the things we need to figure out in order to make good decisions here. We'll start with the big picture questions. Then we'll get in some specific sector areas. That'll be after the break with the 10 biggest questions about tech coming after the following break. First big question, does the yield on the 10 year treasury sink to 4% or rise to 5% first or does it just sit here in the middle? This is the most important, important question in the entire market. As I've told you repeatedly, we've been in this weird situation ever since the Fed started cutting short rates in September. From the moment we got the first cut, long rates, which are set by the bond market, started soaring. Highly unusual. The yield on the 10 year has climbed from just under 3.6% the day before the first rate cut to roughly 4.6% now. And we know the 10 year yield peaked at 5% in October of 2023. So as it headed that direction or will reverse and go lower. As far as stocks are concerned, I think they'll do well if the yield on the ten year peaks out and goes lower. Even the basically sits here between 4.5, 4.6. The market should do fine. However, if long rates keep climbing with the 10 year reaching 5%, well, it could be truly miserable for the stock market, at least short term because ultimately we'll be able to deal with higher long rates as we did in the 1990s, which was a great time to own stocks, even as the 10 year treasury yielded a stunning 6.6%. Hey, sometimes when you're older you can actually remember the stuff. Second big picture question, Will the labor market remain tight? Even though the economy softened in recent months, it's still very strong in absolute terms, largely because unemployment remains ridiculously low. This resilient labor market is the reason we could have a soft landing after the Fed's ruthless series of rate hikes in 2022 and 2023. While the unemployment rate has been drifting higher for the past two years now from 3.4% in January 2023 to 4.2%, the latest reading. I tell you, that's an insanely low read by historical standards. Typically, anything below 5% is considered full employment. So can the labor market stay strong this year? Right now, I'm betting it can. Remember, the labor market was great during the first three years of the original Trump administration. We had 3.5% unemployment right before COVID hit and everything fell apart. Plus, if Trump pushes through mass deportations, more on that one later, it could cause a major labor shortage. If anything, we probably should be worrying about whether the labor market will get too tight, causing severe wage inflation. Still, this is something I'll be watching closely, starting with the December 24th non farm payrolls report that actually comes out a week from today. We want continued strength the job market, but at the same time we don't want it to get too strong because that could trigger another wave of inflation and force the Fed to stop cutting rates entirely. We need Goldilocks big time. Third question, and this is kind of a catch all what's going to happen in Washington with the second Trump administration taking over in two and a half weeks? We still don't really know what the plan is. We don't know what the what's the priorities here or what they'll be able to push through Congress, even though the markets had nearly two months to process the election results. Really, this Washington question could be 25 questions on its own. Is President Elect Trump serious about large widespread tariffs, or is the tough talk just a negotiating tactic? How serious is Trump about mass deportations, which if enacted, would likely have an impact on the previous question about the labor market. How much benefit will companies see from deregulation and how soon? What can we expect in terms of corporate taxes in extension, the 2017 Tax Cuts and Jobs act, which seems like a given at this point, but will Trump go even further? And considering that last question, here's a doozy. Will the bond market continue to tolerate big budget deficits from the US Government? Some would argue the bond market's already taken a tougher line on the national debt. Given that big increase in treasury yields over the past few months, they may be right. But for the purpose of this tidy 25 questions for 2025 exercise, let's leave it as a simple what's going to happen in Washington? Just like that. Difficult to answer because as we learned last time, I mean, Donald Trump is not a predictable president. Great for cable news ratings, but sometimes frustrating when you're in the business of making predictions. Hmm. Maybe a higher cash position than normal could beckon. Fourth question, and this one's key to the stock market. Will we get the robust corporate earnings growth that Wall Street's been betting on? When you look at the consensus estimates for the s and P500 and the aggregate the and now the analysts are looking for 12.2% earnings growth this year, followed by 11.9% growth in 2026. That's pretty far away now. I'd be pretty darn good. And it's a major reason why people are willing to pay nearly 22 times this year's numbers for the S&P 500. Now that's a big premium versus its average forward multiple of 17.7 times earnings over the past decade. Buyers are comfortable paying up because they believe in across the board corporate earnings growth of about 12%. You can buy two times that percent and still feel comfortable. So 24%. But is it achievable? I certainly hope so via some combination. The strong consumer, continued strength in capital spending deregulation, and international markets like China finally bouncing back from the pandemic. Later, 24 times earnings sounds if those things happen, we could be in shape here. Really good shape. Perhaps starting in 2020, additional tax cuts could provide another easy tailwind for corporate growth. But there are also things that could trip us on that path to 12% earnings growth that so much keys on, like tariffs, higher interest rates, or worse, an erosion of consumer spending. We'll get some clarity on what to expect from corporate earnings growth in 2025 over the next several weeks as companies report their fourth quarter results and issue their initial full year sales and earnings forecast. Any meaningful disappointment in the full year guidance will likely cause the aggregate earnings estimates to come in, which would be real bad news for the averages. You'll be paying much too high a price. Turning smaller bottom line. Those are my four big macro questions and those are huge, right? But this year has so much uncertainty that we're just getting started. I've got 21 more 21 unsoluted questions that go over every sector of the market. I say stay tuned to everything and that money is back.

Caller (20:12)

Coming up, Kramer's posed some big questions about what 2025 holds for the market.

Elliot Kaelin (20:17)

After the break, he's getting curious about.

Caller (20:20)

What a new year might mean for each sector. Next.

Elliot Kaelin (20:28)

I'm Elliot Kaelin and I cannot wait to tell you all about the new podcast I'm hosting for SmartLess Media. It's called Smart Presents Clueless, a bite sized twice weekly game show with a different main game and cliffhanger puzzle every single episode. And all this season, the contestant will always be Sean Hayes. That's the clueless promise. Since you never know what the game will be, you won't want to miss a single episode. Listen and follow wherever you get your podcasts. Have you ever had to put your plans on hold due to symptoms of generalized myasthenia gravis or gmg, like taking that weekend trip, talking with friends or enjoying a meal? Learn about a treatment option that may help. Visit treatgmg.com to learn more. That's treatgmg.com.

Jim Cramer (21:32)

Like I told you before the break, rather than making big predictions about 2025, I'm posting 25 questions that we need to answer to get some clarity on the future. Earlier I walked you through four big picture questions that loom over this market and now I've got some sector specific ones going rapid fire through the 11 official sectors according to the Global Industry Classification standard. That's what people use. We'll go down a descending order of performance from last year, starting with communication services, which is an amalgamation of sleepy telecom and cable companies, some tech giants like Alphabet and Metta, and media and entertainment companies. Here we need to ask if the advertising market will hold up. That's who pays the bills. We almost take it for granted at this point that ad spending will keep shifting towards digital channels like search at YouTube, ads for Alphabet, Instagram, ads for Meta. The only thing that could truly throw them off their game would be an overall downturn in ad spending. I don't expect that unless the economy takes a meaningful turn for the worse, but it's something we got to stay current on. We got to watch it. Sixth question will there be any tangible benefit for the financials from deregulation this year? A lot of people buzzing about that. Financials roared right after the election as Wall Street's betting Trump will give us a more laissez faire set of regulators. Still, those are all theoretical benefits. Now this show we watch to see how quickly these perceived benefits from deregulation materialize. I am already seeing some spoils caps trying to merge that might not have otherwise done. So I think big ones are weeks, not months away. Thank you FTC for. Well, whatever. You know my view on the ftc. I don't need to go over new FLTC head though. Seventh question for the consumer discretionary space. Is the consumer starting to get tapped out? This one's a bit of a cop out because we've been asking for two to three years now, Right? And the answer has proven to be a resounding no each time. So it's worth asking again now that consumers are demanding value these days. We'll get some of the first clues here over the next week and a half when dozens of consumer discretionary companies present at the ICR conference in Orlando. But we also tend to do you know, we tend to get a lot of pre announcements down there and maybe some great color on how the holiday season went. I once went to that fantastic conference. I enjoyed myself. Got a lot of behind the scenes news. Question number eight Technology. Can the investment boom continue? I'll keep this brief because we're doing a whole section on tech questions after the break, but this has become a huge theme and it's something we need to keep an eye on. Although we got encouraging news today when Brad Smith, president of Microsoft, said in a blog post that Mr. Swarthi will be investing a cool 80,800,000,000,000 to build AI data centers this year. I say Nvidia question Can the utilities actually meet our nation's increased need for power? I'm not sure about this one. Now the utes were up 19.5% last year thanks to ridiculous demand for electricity. All these data centers that are being built, I think they deserve to work, but they can't keep running unless they're able to generate more transmission capability. Is that a safe assumption? I'm not so sure. I'm concerned that consumers will have their electric bills jacked up so that the utilities can meet demand center needs. I think that those nuclear power stocks are getting a little too overheated. Question 10 which of the leading industrial themes will prove to be the most durable? The sector's toughest to talk about in the aggregate because it's made up of subgroups that are highly dependent on their end markets. Whether we're talking about agriculture equipment, aerospace, defense contractors, H Vac, you know, heating, ventilation, air conditioning, all sorts of industrial services providers. If I had to make a bet, I'd put my money on groups like aerospace, which seems unassailable. A year's worth of demand there, plus H Vac companies, electrical equipment specialists, and really anyone selling into the data center. But I'm less bullish on other industrial areas like ag, not too too good defense, a little too expensive, and any group whose end consumers end customers require significant financing given that long rates remain high. Question 11 this one's for the consumer staples. Can the packaged food goods beat the rise of the gop? Dash one these revolutionary weight Loss. Drugs make people want to eat less and they put real pressure on the food stocks. Even though not one of the packaged food offers will even admit they have a problem, I bet it stays a problem. This study just published by Cornell Biz School discussing a decline in household spending on processed food makes me feel like the packaged food guys, well, they don't have the horses. Question 12 Will the oil and gas industry production discipline remain as we turn to a drill, maybe drill era? Now we know the incoming Trump administration will be a lot more fossil fuel friendly. In the Biden administration it's hard to be worse than the fossil fuels and Biden was. But as I've always several times, my biggest concern is that Trump's people will be too friendly to domestic energy production. Too friendly. See, if the energy industry is is encouraged to produce as much as it can, that would crush oil and gas prices. We saw that happen the last Trump administration. Now, for the last few years, the oil and gas producers have benefited tremendously from the fact that they've been remarkably restrained with their production growth, managing for cash flows and profitability rather than production growth at all costs. That discipline has been fantastic for earnings, but it's historically unusual. Can they hold back on production with a friendly White House that wants them to drill like crazy? Maybe a good edge, buy some of the pipeline stocks. They win either way. Question 13 for real estate. Will we see more retail bankruptcies in store closings putting pressure on the retail oriented real estate investment trust? A lot of Sears come on these shows and they tell us we should be more worried. Now we did see some of this in 2024. Big box retailers, big lots. Did you really ever go there? They declared bankruptcy September. Many of the stores are closing. Just the end of last week the Container store filed for banks. You never understood why that went public. And Party C, one of those slop shops. All of that's pretty manageable. But will we see more of these retail players in 2025 will extend the companies we actually like? Why do major retailers start running into trouble to the point where they have to close hundreds or thousands of stores? I hope not. But I'm watching the struggles of the pharmacy chains and the dollar stores closely. Put enough of these together and it's a real problem for the real estate investment trust landlords. Question 14 how will RFK Jr actually impact health care? The whole health care cohort just got obliterated after the election, especially after Trump picked Bobby Kennedy Jr. For health and Human Services secretary, a big time critic of the pharmaceutical industry. Trump said he let Kennedy go wild on health. So how wild will RFK Jr go? Frankly, I'm less worried about this than other people on Wall street, especially after briefly speaking with him on the floor of the New York Stock Exchange a couple of weeks ago. I hope he focuses on making food healthier rather than stopping vaccines. So RFK's appointment will continue to weigh in the health care sector until we get some clarity on his agenda. Those stocks have not been too hot, I got to tell you. Finally, question 15, can lower priced commodities see some price increases? The worst performing sector, 2024, the only one to finish negative territory was the materials cohort. All sorts of commodities, from metals like copper and steel to certain agricultural commodities like soybeans and wheat are particularly low levels. And if we're hoping for a construction boom spurred by lower interest rates, well, that got taken off the table when the bond market refused to play ball. So to see the material group do better, we need lower rates and we also need to see some of these commodity prices start to go meaningfully higher. Oh, and China's got to come back in a powerful way. I think all these could happen except China. And that's why commodity markets look pretty darn ugly right now. Bottom line, these are 11 of the key questions that will define this year. Stick around and I'll give you my 10 pressing questions for the all important tech sector, which has been the real power behind two years of 20% increases to the averages. Patrick in Minnesota. Patrick.

Caller (29:00)

Hey, Happy New Year.

Jim Cramer (29:01)

Jim. Happy New Year to you. Patrick, what's going on?

Caller (29:05)

Do you think any risk the Department of Government Efficiency poses to the F35 fighter program is now baked into the price of Lockheed Martin or do you see that falling further under the incoming administration?

Jim Cramer (29:17)

I don't want to own the stock because even up at 79, I rather own Palantir because they're figuring out how to fix this defense procurement problem. And the problem is that these companies make too much money and the taxpayer doesn't get the bang for the buck. So even though Lockheed Martin's come down nicely, it looks like it's going to find a level here to buy. It only yields 2.7% and it does have powerful enemies within the administration. Richard in California. Richard.

Caller (29:45)

Hello Mr. Kramer. Thank you for taking my call. Happy New Year.

Jim Cramer (29:48)

Of course, same to you. What's going on?

Caller (29:51)

Thank you. I am a sports fan and long before Ohio State blew out Oregon and the Rose Bowl, Nike has been fumbling the ball. They got a new CEO and I've been. I mean, I've seen multiple CNBC episodes and, you know, highlighting Nike as a buy or at least a hold. But since I purchased Nike in Last May of 2024, it has been a disappointment. So should I continue to be really patient, which I can do, and hold on to it? Should I buy more or should I just dump it?

Jim Cramer (30:25)

Okay, now remember, we're dealing with an animal here that had changed management. The stock is going down from what the previous CEO did. My belief in Eliot Hill is unassailable. I would not have you sell it. I want to see if the stock breaks down one more time. But Eliot Hill, he is a guy that makes me want to. And thank you for your confidence. The answers to these questions will go a long way in determining how each sector performs in 2025. So buckle up as we find out together. Much more me at Moneyhead, including my breakdown of what could shake up stocks in the tech sector this year. Plus, it's a tale of two chips in the market. I'll explain and dig into new data that should shed some light on the GOP Dash 1 impact on food players. And of course, all your calls. Rapid Fire. Tonight's News of the Lightning round. So stay with Kramer. Tonight we're taking through our top 25 questions for 2025. And now I want to round things out with 10 questions for the tech sector, specifically because tech has been leading this bull market for years. So let's take a one by one, starting with question 16. How will the AI infrastructure trade evolve going forward? So far we've seen big gains in all sorts of hardware that goes into the data center, especially Nvidia, of course, but also Broadcom, Marvell Technology, Arista Networks. Will that change this year? Will there be any real challengers to Nvidia GPU dominance? Will Dell and HP pull away from Super Micro in the server space? Lots of ways this can change even if the underlying theme maintains its momentum. You know, I'm thinking that is the king. Right, the king. But I'm also mindful that there are four kings in every deck. Question 17. Which companies will merge as the initial AI software winners? The ones that can actually make some money from it. At this point, we've got a small subset of the enterprise software cohort that's introducing AI functionality into their product suites. Now, the one that's most obvious is Salesforce, which has now rolled out its Agent Force AI platform for sales and customer relations management. ServiceNow has done the same with many back office functions. Palantir could probably make a case for itself here, even as its valuations gotten pretty stretched in the last few weeks, retail buyers just taking it up. Adobe might be included, though I'm not sure if they're a winner from AI. That last quarter wasn't so great, but I don't want to be too disputed here. You know what though? My Money's on Matthew McConaughey and Woody Harrelson, which is another reason why we own the stock salesforce.com for the Chapel Trust question 18 is the APC story dead on arrival or is it just delayed? In retrospect, the IPC theme proved to be one of the biggest disappointments of 2024. Never really materialized any meaningful way, did it? But if you look at what some of the PC makers were saying late last year, they still expect it to happen just later than expected. So are they right or will the APC just disappoint us again? Well, they have to make it more prominent, more useful. Right now, it is indeed dead on arrival. Question 19 can the cyclical portions of the semiconductor sector start growing at this point? Well, let me say we've got a tale of two semiconductor industries, the part that's on fire and everything else that's languishing. So can the more cyclical portion of the industry put in a real bottom this year and start growing again? It feels like some of these cyclical chips makers, they've been trying to bottom for the last few quarters now, but they keep disappointing. Like Micron, which I like so much, but you can't pull the trigger. Cell phones have got to get better before this one can get off The Schneider. Question 21 Profitable growth tech names still stay high or will they be finally losing their mojo? Now, I talked a little bit about this last night. The quantum computing bubble. Look, I believe in quantum computing, just not the stocks that are being taken up. Other than Google. There are other components of this trade as well. Like some small tech companies seem to be rallying solely because they have AI in their names. Again. Can you believe that stuff's back? Some fintech ad tech stocks, Some drone related companies, Smaller cryptocurrency miners. I look, I don't like this kind of behavior. I really don't. Okay? I mean, I think that it's going to really lend itself to some.

Elliot Kaelin (34:24)

I.

Jim Cramer (34:25)

Feel much better about the entire market. People just stopped betting so heavily on speculative companies with little revenue and huge losses. We saw too much of this in 2021, before specular stocks flew too close to the sun and we had a huge correction in 2022. So I am asking now if the unprofitable growth tech group can stay high. And I'm hoping that the answer is no. But I get that at the beginning of the year we always see this kind of stuff. I just hope it ends soon. Question 21. Can the legacy tech giants continue to run? We saw some big moves here late last year. Cisco finished up 17%. The year, IBM getting 34%. You know what, you could also put Dell and Oracle into this category, although I think they deserve more credit for their exposure. All these goodies. Even HP Enterprise, you know, it's got a lot of game, actually. I think it's doing really well. You know what? I'm also kicking the the tires on Kindle, although it's run an awful lot. My bad for not featuring it earlier. Instead of kicking the tires, I should just be kicking myself. But we need to figure out if these companies can keep winning. If interest rates continue moving higher this year, I think the legacy tech cohort could become a nice safe haven within the sector. That said, the legacy players need to keep generating growth because it's not enough just to have cheap stocks. Question 22. Will cybersecurity remain unassailable? Now we know cybersecurity offerings have become essential staples of the enterprise tech world. You need robust cybersecurity tools or you're pretty much guaranteed to be hacked, which can lead to devastating consequences. Thanks to that, well, we've had some huge gains in Palo Alto Networks and CrowdStrike for the charitable trust. Like I said, this group is unassailable. Even when CrowdStrike had a horrible incident last summer, a glitch, not a hack, causing widespread tech outages and millions of damages for the customers. Its stock only went lower for about three weeks. For coming right back. Yeah, the buy right then. Although you know what? You can still pull the trigger now. That's how much I like it. I bet. You know what? Cybersecurity is going to be big again in 2025, just while we're out. Last week we learned that at Verizon and other telco companies have been hacked by a Chinese cyber espionage group called Salt Tycoon. And even the Treasury Department sanctions office has been hit by Chinese hackers. That was really bad, by the way. So, yes, I bet cybersecurity stocks keep winning. Question 23. Hey, who's going to win the Robotaxi race? Alpha subsidiary Google remains the leader in the space for now with Waymo, but Tesla's made some huge progress on Autonomous driving just not talked about enough. We already knew that Tesla had a data advantage of self driving cars and it's called Nvidia, but it's simply not on the road yet testing its autonomous vehicles while Waymo's been doing that for a while. However, Elon Musk is in such good terms with President Elect Trump that you have to believe that his company will have the advantage. As long as he stays tight with Trump, I bet Tesla's the winner. Look, the interstate federal, the federal interstate highway system, it's going to be the real battleground here. Doesn't must have an edge on the federal interstate system and that's going to be where we see a lot of self driving cars. Question 24 how will Trump's trade policies impact tech? Remember, President Trump implemented widespread tariffs on Chinese imports during his first term and then President Biden went ahead and kept most of those in place in its entirety for four years. The Biden administration even went with a couple of steps further blocking the sale of advanced semiconductors, semiconductor capital equipment products to Chinese customers. And we did share that on the show. So will Trump continue that approach? Major implications of the semiconductor space. I get input from both sides on this. We're not sure. Finally, question 25 how will Trump help the crypto currency ecosystem? Obviously President Elect Trump has seen that he much a much more friendly environment for a crypto than Biden. There's a reason that Bitcoin's up over 40% in less than two months since the election. But how will Trump actually help crypto? There's been lots of talk about a strategic bitcoin reserve, some of the Strategic Petroleum Reserve, except you can't use it in a crisis and it's not liquid and it's not in a salt cavern somewhere. But that would likely require an act of Congress. Would it pass? I feel confident saying that the Trump administration's FTC won't pursue crypto as vigorously as the Gary Gensler led sec. You know, Gensler really was after these guys. But what are the implications of that? It couldn't lead to a rise in scams. Wouldn't that actually hurt crypto if people lose confidence in its validity? I say stick with bitcoin, by the way. Don't go for the others. Conversely, we know that many industry leaders have said that they're craving clear rules of the road from the federal government about crypto, something the Biden administration has been reluctant to do, preferring to regulate via enforcement. That was not an unusual way. Biden did that constantly. So maybe the Crypto ecosystem gets these clear rules and flourishes. In the end, we don't really know how Trump will help crypto and we're looking forward to some clarity on that front. But I would not bet against bitcoin. Bottom line. There you go. Those are more. That's my 25 question for 2025. Now we move forward looking for answers, but hopefully you'll come away from tonight's show with a better idea of what you should be watching out for this year so you can make more informed decisions as the answers come rolling on down the road. Mad money is back after the break. It is this time. Chef and the light brown Christmas wrap for our course. It's saving the inner stock and Taylor. Bye bye bye sells us all. Jeff, go to another coast stock. Watch that time. My staff producer is going to buy. You play this out and then the lightning round is over. Are you ready? Ski diving Done for the light round. Christmas over with Andy in New York. Andy.

Caller (39:42)

Hey, Jim, how are you?

Jim Cramer (39:43)

I am good, Andy, how are you?

Caller (39:46)

Great.

Jim Cramer (39:46)

Happy New Year. Healthy new Year, really. All the best, first off. Thank you.

Caller (39:50)

So great. So I'm calling you about Sound Town. I kind of jumped into it a couple times about six months ago. Had a nice spike. I jumped in and jumped out. And about a week or two ago I was following it. So it started moving. Didn't jump in fast enough, but jumped in about 13, took a good position.

Jim Cramer (40:10)

13. Well said, 20. Now you got to ring the register on some of that. Here's the problem with Soundhound. It's just a chronic money loser. And because of that, it actually, I think if I were them, I'd say sell about 50 million shares right here down in the hole and make it so you never worry about cash position because they do have some interesting technology. But at this point, it is a short squeeze and a short squeeze only until they do that stock and make it so their balance sheet is better because they keep losing money. There's a whole plan right there and then pay me a dime for it. But it's right. Linda in Florida. Linda.

Caller (40:41)

Jim, I am so excited to be talking to you tonight.

Jim Cramer (40:44)

Well, here we go. Here we go. My wife's not. I just checked and she's like, not at all. Just call me after the show. Yeah, I got a picture.

Caller (40:52)

So much.

Jim Cramer (40:52)

Anyway, go ahead.

Caller (40:54)

My question concerns Half Me Unlimited, which is stock symbol akfn.

Jim Cramer (41:00)

Oh, it's look, we got that huge dividend. It looks so juicy. Those are stocks that you must avoid. You got to trust Me in this, you'll get a dividend or two. But those stocks are saying the dividend saying, look out below. Now we want to go to Mark in Illinois. Mark.

Caller (41:18)

Hey, booyah, Jim. Happy New Year to you. Same calling to ask about Home Depot.

Jim Cramer (41:25)

I bought it back, yo. I like Home Depot. You know, Jeff and I, Jeff Marks and I, we were going back and forth and back and forth. I wanted to pull the trigger and buy more. He reminds me, look, we already bought some at this area. But let me tell you something. Kind of heading shoulders pattern, people think it's going to break down. I want to buy, buy, buy. Right into that alleged head and shoulders problem. Now let's go to Johnny. Oh, in Missouri. Johnny.

Caller (41:48)

Booyah, Jim. Happy New Year to you.

Jim Cramer (41:51)

Same to you.

Caller (41:53)

I've got two tickers for you to look at. The first is Riot platforms, the stock.

Jim Cramer (41:57)

I've traded over the last year. Okay, well, riot platforms, I have to go to my chief scientist Ben Stodo on that. He points out that it's a bitcoin miner. And can you get a better business than mining Bitcoin? Ah, yes. Okay, what else? Go ahead. That was it.

Caller (42:17)

Hello?

Jim Cramer (42:18)

Yeah, hey, let's take someone else. Why don't we go to Drew in Minnesota? Drew?

Caller (42:23)

Hello, Jim.

Jim Cramer (42:25)

Drew. Is that Drew?

Caller (42:26)

Iron ore country here.

Jim Cramer (42:27)

You know the Vikings. Oregon, for real? Can I just get that out there? And I'm going to do that. What is it? The Diddy? What do I have to do there? Okay, anyway, I am with Jefferson. I'm with Jefferson. They got Jefferson, they got Madison. They all they need is Washington. Right? I mean they got the whole, they got the whole founding fathers thing. God, was Lincoln. They got the whole Founding Fathers. Go ahead. What's happening?

Caller (42:46)

Well, I'm a member, a new member of your club and I'm a retired USW steel worker.

Jim Cramer (42:52)

Oh my God.

Caller (42:53)

Really?

Jim Cramer (42:54)

Yeah.

Caller (42:55)

And with all that's happening in the U.S. with the U.S. steel company now, especially in light of today's news, Cliffs, Cleveland Cliffs did who I used to work for. Their, their bid for US Steel might still happen. So I'm just wondering.

Jim Cramer (43:12)

I know I was, I was into the company trying to get them come on tonight's show. Now here's the problem. Honestly, the steel stocks are the worst stocks in the market. And I think that you could buy this stock and if you're willing to take a point or two down, then I think it's okay. But you have to accept the fact that that's exactly what could occur and that ladies and Gentlemen, conclusion of the Lightning Round.

Caller (43:35)

The Lightning Round is sponsored by Charles Schw.

Jim Cramer (43:47)

Today we saw colossal buying in chip stocks as traders flocked to last year's darlings that stalled out last week. Nvidia led the group as usual. But we saw some terrific action. Some of the beaten down semis like AMD arm Qualcomm. I think this move could last as these companies have great earnings momentum going into 2025. But there are some chips that frankly can't seem to get off the ground. The potential potato chips which fare particularly badly at a little notice. New study out of Cornell's business school that shows the GOP Dash one weight loss drugs are having a real impact, a meaningful one that commands attention. There's a definitive drop in processed food sales in this country and it is being linked to these GOP Dash 1 drugs. First, the background. In the middle of last year, a wave of fear came over the food group. These GOP Dash ones from Lilly and Novo orders were viewed as grim reapers slashing earnings wherever they went. We figured food sales would come down, then earnings for supermarkets could get hurt. And at one point at the height of fear and analysts tried to assess the impact on aerospace and airlines if more people got thin. It all got pretty darn fanciful and especially events. Eventually rationale returned along with buyers for pretty much everything. Now the Astoria is over. But maybe there was real cause for concern. This Cornell study that I like so much took a look at use patterns and concluded that I'm going to quote your households with at least one GOP dash one user reduce groceries pending by approximately 6% within six months of adoption, end quote. The study goes on to say, quote, given an average monthly grocery expenditure of $630, this translates to an annual reduction of$4.16 per adopter, end quote. Hey, that is big money for most Americans. The GOP one drugs also reduced food consumed away from home with breakfast spending declining by nearly 4%, dinner down 6%. Fast food particularly hard hit. I think you might see something about this when grocery chain Albertsons reports this Wednesday. At the very least, the supermarkets management should have to address this report's findings. But it's the packaged food companies themselves that have the most to fear. As the report comments quote, companies that rely heavily on caloric, dense, processed or indulgent foods are likely to face declining demand and need to reassess their product portfolio to remain competitive, end quote. In fact, the Cornell report directly posits that sales weakness from Kraft, Heinz and Camels might be attributed to the GOP Dash 1s. According to the report, the food companies can protect themselves by changing package sizes, offering smaller portions, producing foods that are healthier, more convenient. I think it makes sense. But in the end, these companies are all about processed foods. Come on. It's awfully hard for them to change their stripes now. Lots of investors have turned on the makers of the GOP Dash 1s. Last night I got a call from someone who complained about how miserably Eli Lilly's stock is done in large part because he bought it in the 900s. I totally get that. I know the stock's plummet to the 7 hundreds has sickened a great many shareholders. But I think that these drugs have multiple benefits and their staying power, questioned by many negativists, may be stronger than the critics think. The pattern seems ingrained already, and the pain the processed foods were supposed to experience might finally be arriving. To me, it's simple. You should buy one kind of chip that's changing the world, the semiconductors, and avoid another kind of chip, Frito Layers. It's ironic. We used to regard the foods as safety stocks of the semiconductors, High Flyers with huge downside. Now there seems to be nothing safe about the foods but the semis. Lots more staying power than anyone ever thought. I'd like to say, as always, more market. Sell my problems just for you right here on Man Money. I'm Jim Cramer. I'll see you. See you Monday.

Elliot Kaelin (47:18)

All opinions expressed by Jim Cramer on this podcast are solely Kramer's opinions and do not reflect the opinions of CNBC, NBCUniversal or their parent company or affiliates, and may have been previously disseminated by Kramer on television, radio, Internet or another medium. You should not treat any opinion expressed by Jim Cramer as a specific inducement to make a particular investment or follow a particular strategy, but only as an expression of his opinion. Kramer's opinions are based upon information he considers reliable, but neither CNBC nor its affiliates and or subsidiaries warrant its completeness or accuracy and it should not be relied upon as such. To view the full Mad Money disclaimer, please visit cnbc.com madmoneydisclaimer I'm Elliot Kaelin and I cannot wait to tell you all about the new podcast I'm hosting for Smartless Media. It's called Smartless Presents Clueless, a bite sized twice weekly game show with a different main game and cliffhanger puzzle every single episode. And all this season, the contestant will always be Sean Hayes. That's the Clueless promise, since you never know what the game will be. You won't want to miss a single episode. Listen and follow wherever you get your podcasts.