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Jim Cramer
Hey, I'm Kramer. Welcome to Mad Money. Welcome to Kramer America. Other people make friends. I'm just trying to make a little bit of money here. My job is not just to entertain, but to put it in context. So call me 1-800-743- CNBC. Tweet me at Jim Cramer. Don't be fooled. Not everything is bad. Stop making moves because of false tells, things that mean nothing or things that look negative but are actually positive. When you do a little digging and some thinking, if you let yourself get shaken at, you're liable to miss terrific moves. Like today, where The Dow jumped 515 points as we gain plank 4.54 and Nasdaq climbed 0.56. Worst, you're passing up chances to buy great stocks at lower prices. If you just want to forget about the averages, think about individual stocks. Why don't we start with last night? Last night? You know what? It was a textbook case of the Sunday scaries. I keep seeing this happen. You know, I watch the S&P 500 futures like a hawk. Not just because I write my Sunday Think piece for CNBC Investing Club members, but because they're so often wrong. And I want to warn people that there could be some perfect buying opportunities obscured by These futures. We had a strange timeline on Sunday night. The futures opened about flat but then they collapsed. Why? The only thing I could find was a nosedive in oil and natural gas as well as gold, silver and crypto. Every article, every snippet of news last night told us that these, that our stocks, our stocks would go down because they tracked the weakness in those commodities was presented as an ironclad tie up. Problem is it's completely bogus linkage. It's just plain wrong. Why don't we put things through some common sense. We'll kind of use like a, I don't know, like a filter. Okay. Oil been going up because of tensions with Iran. These tensions diminished as there've been some communication between us and the Iranian government this weekend. A meeting is now set between White House envoy Steve Wycoff and his counterpart from Iran. It seems like there could be some sort of dialogue that can take war off the table. It's Good news for 340 million Americans. And that oil fell 4%. Good news, not bad news. Natural gas falling more than 25% its biggest one day decline over 30 years. A function of more orderly distribution of gas in this country. After all this build up pipe, America still has a very flawed distribution storage system. Struggles any time we get hit with a nationwide cold snap. But now we've got Interact together at least this weekend. This decline is fantastic for every home that's heated by nat gas. When oil and gas went up, we thought they'd hurt the economy of putting pressure on the consumer. Higher energy prices were considered bad. So when they both reverse, how the heck is that bad too? Of course it's not, it's positive. But the journalists and the traders they quote either don't understand that or they wanted the market lower. Both are irresponsible. How about gold and silver? Okay. These have been the subject of intense speculation, mostly by Chinese investors. By the way, these speculators were apparently undercapitalized using too much leverage. Lots of individuals. I'm not that focused on gold as the rising price only hurts. New jewelry. The existing jewelry actually goes up in value. And there's a lot more that positive. Silver is not as precious, but as more industrial uses, solar panels, electric vehicles, batteries, the rally in silver jacks up the price for all sorts of electronics and electronic vehicles. Expensive soldier Silver is a clear negative for the economy. On the other hand, a rapid decline is terrific for the economy. So why would you sell stocks on a rapid decline? How about crypto of all kinds. And there are many different varieties. If you go to coindesk as I do, when you see crypto up, that means there's less money going into its competitors, the stock market. Again, thinly capitalized players have sent it down. The only real fallout might be severe strain in a company called Strategy, which has bought a lot of bitcoin with borrowed money. Strategy reports this week. I don't know how exposed it is, but again I rather have the money come into the stock market. Robin and Coinbase, which do a lot of crypto business, have seen their stocks get hurt. But those are actually levered to volume, not the price direction. So it's actually good for them. Unless there are so many clients on margin to get wiped out. To recap, the reversals we got this weekend were in every single case positive, not negative. The S and P futures should have been higher, not lower. They were just clearly wrong. It's okay, people make mistakes, but I question the the verbiage around it. This morning we had disarray because of those same futures. They pulled down everything. If you knew that these negatives were actually positive, you would have been able to buy a host of stocks. When the cheap like the semis, the retailers, the banks, the datacenter plays the transports retail big. Now let's consider what was reported incorrectly this morning. Oracle is trying to raise 45 to $50 billion to continue its aggressive datacenter build out. Last night the company announced the terms halfway bonds. Have we equity or equity equivalents. I immediately heard lots of chatter that such a finance would be impossible to do. But I did some homework. I knew the syndicate desk was putting the deal together. I found out that the deal was already wildly oversubscribed. Oracle can raise the money in a heartbeat. So what happens? Well, after opening down stocks like Sandisk, Micron, Western Digital, Seagate, all which make memory chips or disk drives for the data center, they took off. If you knew that things were good, not bad, you might have bought the stocks and sold them. But the information was not spread out effectively. And the journalists who follow the stuff were negative about the Oracle deal. So it was very hard for people to make money and very easy people to be lose. To lose money and be shaken out. What else? Okay. Last Friday we got a set of numbers from a company called Colgate. You're probably familiar, they were much better than expected. Delayed reaction. We saw some positive action in stocks of other companies that might rally or have better numbers too that are in the same industry. And by the way, that include the drug court, not the foods. This was a highly unexpected move. Unless you read the Colgate call. You had to read it though. The group had an insanely strong move right from the get go. Now not all the foods are bad. PepsiCo reports tomorrow it's gone from 144 to 155 in seven sessions. I don't know if that's still a buy. We'll see tomorrow. But I just want to point out that Colgate ignited a rally. But if you didn't know that Colgate was good, you would have known about the rally. Then at 10am we got this ISM Manufacturing PMI report and the results were the strongest since 2022. This is really about economic activity. It was fantastic for the industrial stocks. Again, the data center builders, like. I'll give you two examples. FedEx, okay, up 10. Caterpillar 657 to 690. They represent groups, transports, industrials that rally like mad. When the PMI strong, you get a strong number like that. Institutions always reach for retailers too. So Wal Mart and Target, both of which have new CEOs just started. Both soar 4%. Costco rallies 3%. Oh, and then we hear about that Oracle deal, the one we're raising money for data centers. And the money's not a problem. I drove lots of money again into the memory and storage stock. So let me give you an example. You could have bought SanDisk at $586 this very morning. Okay? You know it went out at $665. You could have. Western Digital 243 closes at 270. You just had to know the term allocation, meaning that you can't get all you want. These companies are trying to allocate product to their customers because there's just not enough to go around. That's a good hand. Now, Nvidia got clobbered today because of what I think are ill advised stories about problems between it and Open AI. I have Nvidia's Jensen Huang on the show tomorrow. You know, we don't try to clear this stuff up. It really does need clearing up. And not just because I want the stock higher. That doesn't mean anything to me at all. I don't care. Now, I'm not a Pollyanna about this stuff. I'm not a cheerleader. If Nvidia is bad, I've got to say it's bad. Okay, I will. I don't think it is, but I will. I'm simply saying that if you take the critics in the future seriously, then you lost a lot of money. You and this happens so predictably and so often. I feel like I need to protect you. You know, when you see the futures way down or when you read that silver is going down, it's bad and silver going up, it's bad. That's nonsense. And there's so much nonsense. The bottom line, if you believe the concept barrage of negativity, you'll miss some incredible buying opportunities in great stocks that rarely come in. Don't say it didn't have a chance. If you're a prisoner of pessimism, you must break free if you're trying to make real money in this stock market. Let's go to Robert, New York. Robert.
Caller
Jim, I just want to wish you a birthday that's coming up for you next week on in February. Happy birthday to you, baby.
Jim Cramer
Thank you very much, Robert. You're the first one. You're the earliest. Thank you very much.
Caller
Well, we know Lisa's got to get your cake, but last year she did, you know, that thing in the show.
Jim Cramer
She'll be good. Thank you. She's always good. Thanks.
Caller
All right, so, Jim, this next company is up 98% this past year. Now, this company really stood out last year, Jim, amongst its competition competitors because they have really progressed on fixing operational issues from store standards to supply chain execution and labor efficiency. Now, if everybody watching your show tonight goes back to the videotape last year when you recommended this stock is $78. We can all back this up, baby. Well, the stock is now $143. You've made me. Todd Vossels is the CEO that they put back in and he's a sharp guy like you.
Jim Cramer
See, I know you're talking about Dollar General. Okay, I went to Dollar General that weekend. The reason I recommend the stock, I had a fabulous experience at my dollar general in 611. It was much better than before. I went aisle by aisle by. I know they were thinking, what are you case in the joint? What's he case in the joint? Because if I want to do a good job for you, I take the mat. I take the stuff that Wall street does. I take a look at the conference calls and then I go into my own aisles and see what's going on. And Dollar General was terrific. And you know what? It remains terrific. Okay, listen to me. If you believe in the constant barrage of negativity, you are money. You have to have some optimism, some constructive thought. Oh, man. Tonight, look, we've had to take a look at what companies did well and what companies did poorly in January. You got to do them both. I'm analyzing both the worst and the best and seeing what they're telling us about the state of investing right now. And as we look ahead to the rest of the year, can this rally continue to broaden out in non expected way? I'm going off the charts to find out, so I want you to stay with Kramer.
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Jim Cramer
Restriction Supply Hey Fidelity, how can I remember to invest every month? With the Fidelity app you can choose a schedule and set up recurring investments.
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Jim Cramer
Oh, that sounds easier than I thought. You got this? Yeah, I do. Now where did I put my keys? You will find them where you left them.
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Jim Cramer
The first month of 2026 is officially in the books. So before we move on to another very busy week of earnings, I want to go over the state of the market. Last month we saw this big change in leadership with a small cap focused Russell 2000 rallying astounding 5.3% real economy oriented Dow Jones Industrial Average up 1.7% transiting both the S&P 500 and the tech heavy NASDAQ with latter up just 1.2%. When you look at individual sectors, energy materials and consumer staples led the way. Very different from last year with our old leaders like tech, the financials lagging way behind. To really get a feel for this market though. I want to go over the 10 best and then worst performers. The SB for January. I really like doing this stuff. It really kind of concentrates the mind. Why don't we start with the winners where four of the top ten performers were Memory and Data Storage Plays this memory storage sector is the hottest bull market around and it comes on top of some amazing runs in 2025. SanDisk came in first place, up 143% in January, on top of being last year's best performer. Western Digital, the company that spun off SanDisk about a year ago, was in fifth place, up 45%. Micron is run by Sanjay Mehrotra, one of the founders of SanDisk. Strong bloodlines there. The Secretariat of Memory. Wow. A big Seagate was in third, up 48%. Micron was in fourth, up 45%. Now all of these memory and data storage plays more than tripled last year thanks to surging demand from the data center, which is driven by artificial intelligence. Sanders is flying because it reported blowout quarter Last Thursday they earned $6.20 per share. Wall street was only looking for $3.62. If you Gemini upside surprises should send you to Sanders. They're talking about earning 12 to $14 per share for the first full 2026 fiscal year when the analysts were really looking for $5.11. That is a staggering upside surprise. That's why the stock keeps going hard. No one knows exactly where it should be other than a lot higher than where it is. That's how you actually think on the trading desk. Initially, Sanders rallied more than 25% response the great quarter by the end of the session on Friday it was up just under 7%, although a plan saw off today, so maybe there's more here. Western Digital also reported Thursday night delivering a solid beat with excellent guidance and the stock actually finished down more than 10% on Friday. Stock erased some of those losses today as the data storage plays came roaring back. But you have to keep in mind sooner or later someone's going to add more production capacity that the American companies than the Korean competitors. And once more capacity comes online, it might be hard to maintain these sky high prices, but I don't see any supply within this realm. Speaking of capacity, I want to jump to the sixth best performer in the SB in January because it's Lam Research lrcs. Now this is a semiconductor capital equipment maker. This is who you call when you want to boost your chip production. Lam reported great results on Thursday night, yet it suffered the same fate as Western Digital brief gains after the open on Friday, leading to a nearly 6% decline. I'm a big believer in the semiconductor capital equipment makers. They do make me skeptical about the continued outperformance of the storage place because as this new machinery comes online again, it will mitigate those chip shortages. But that's not going to happen anytime soon. I'm thinking Maybe a late 27, early 2028 thing put a quarter of the position on. If you want to buy land research and then leg in, I think it's really worth doing Next let's go Back to the second best performer in the SB for January and that's Moderna. That was up nearly 50%. This was at a wild ride after practically pretty money during the pandemic. Thanks to its COVID vaccine, Moderna plunged 95% from its peak in 2021 to its lowest last November. Really gaffed a lot of people. But over the past couple of months the stocks found new life, nearly doubling from its lows. Now the move started after a very positive Investor Day event in November where Moderna said it would return to revenue growth in 2026 for the first time since 2021. Big deal. I also think that Wall street has seen what Health and Human Services Secretary RFK Jr wants to do the vaccine industry and maybe it's just not as frightening as people thought and Moderna might finally deliver those personalized cancer vaccines that they told me about a very long time ago. That said, Moderna remains deeply unprofitable. It's likely to remain that way for years to come, even though the stocks on the men there are many pharma and biotech names that I like better. I've been looking at Regeneron over the weekend that's really made a nice comeback. That's good interview we have with them out in California. Next to the seven best performer last month was Lockheed Martin, up 31%. Defense play what a difference a year makes. 12 months ago Lockheed was in free fall with Wall street terrified that the Trump administration would slash defense spending. A year later, Elon Musk Doge has been disbanded and the President's calling for a 50% increase the defense budget. Which is why Lockheed is on fire. Last Thursday the company backed its gains with a backup scheme with an excellent quarter. I really liked their conference call. It featured a top and bottom line beat and more importantly a terrific full year forecast. I wouldn't be surprised if it's got more upside already. Jim Takelit is an awesome CEO. Yeah, I really love the quarter you know, spent some time on it. Just went page by page. Really good. At number eight, we have bungay. That's up nearly. That's bung. That's how you pronounce it, though. Up nearly 28% this month. It's an important agricultural middleman. I don't see a specific catalyst for the bungee move aside from some positive analyst commentary based on improving outlook for the broader industry. Now, if you believe in an ag recovery in the cars for 2026, maybe. Bunge still looks pretty cheap here, trading just 13 times this year's earnings estimates. But the company puts on Wednesday, so you maybe you want to see what they have to say. This one I'm not as close to as I used to be. At number nine on the list is January's Top Performers S.O.B. yeah, that's the Old Schlumberger. It gained 26% last month. Now, the oil service tightened. Good proxy for the broader energy sector. Typically, I've been skeptical on all things oil because Trump's drill baby drill policy generally bad news strategy prices. That's what we saw in 2016. It was the right call this year. But in 2026, we've already seen partial regime change in Venezuela and the threat of military action Iran. So oil prices have firmed up. Meanwhile, natural gas prices soared in response to the cold snap across most of the country, but they gave up a lot today. I'm honestly not sure how much to trust this energy rally today. Oil prices fell after some calming Iran talk over the weekend. And nat gas prices are quickly falling as well. But I will say this, if any energy stock has staying power, it could be slb. Joe Baby Joel may be bad for the oil producers, but it's great for the oil service industry. Right, because that means you're going to find more properties to drill. And I've got SOB could be in Venezuela big for all we know. Very positive outlook when they're imported recently. Finally rounding out the top 10 from January is Intel, which finished last month up nearly 26% despite selling off in the wake of its fourth quarter report on January 22nd. Overall, Intel's more than double from where it was trading when the US government invested almost 9 billion for a 10% stake in the company last August. Frankly, I didn't think Intel's latest quarter was all that negative. They issued weak guidance for the first quarter simply because there's supply constraint. There's no problem with demand at all. But given how much the stock had run up into the quarter, I can understand why it got hammered on anything less than perfection. I'm a big believer in the new CEO Lip Bhutan though. Not that new anymore though. And I think Intel's got more upside. Even as many wrote it off after that last quarter, it's caught its way back to nearly where it was trading for reported. I think that the negativity was way overdone here. So here's the bottom line. When you look at the 10 best performers of January, there's a lot going on but most of the strength is semiconductor related with a smattery of beaten down stocks from other industries that are making some much deserved comebacks. I want you to stick around for the break. I'll go over SB's 10 worst performers to generate. There's also a lot to learn. They're very illuminating. Matt Money is back after the break.
Podcast Announcer
Coming up, January was freezing across most of the country and parts of Wall street were no different. Kramer's running through the coldest stocks from last month.
Jim Cramer
Next.
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Jim Cramer
The good news?
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Homes.com Narrator
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Jim Cramer
Found on Angie.com to bury my pet hamster Nibbles in our yard for me? Because I was so moved by how carefully he buried my electrical wires, I.
Podcast Announcer
Knew I could trust him to bury.
Jim Cramer
My sweet, sweet Nibbles after his untimely end. Huh? Nibbles gone too soon. May he scurry in peace. Hey, sorry about your pet, but I just wire stuff.
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Jim Cramer
For the break I went over January's 10 best performing stocks, S&P 500, mostly memory storage place, capital equipment maker intel and then some individual representatives of a few other disparate groups. Defense, Ag, Energy. But what were the worst performers in the S&P 500 in the first month of the year okay, Most of these are enterprise software companies where investors are worried about displacement. These were used to be the hottest stocks in the world. Now the worst performer app loved was down nearly 30%. The former market darling got its start helping mobile game developers expand their reach sell advertisements. Though lately it's expanded into other areas like e commerce advertising. Still, the core business is about ads for mobile games. This stock had a real bad month, but it got hideous last Friday when it plunged 70% after Google announced a new AI platform called Project Genie. This thing lets you build immersive digital worlds with simple plain language prompts. You can literally use it to make your own video games. Say nothing of making ads for already existing mobile games. Anything can I do? The gaming cowork got obliterated. Now, I think the solve was pretty exaggerated, but at the end of the day, Wall Street's terrified that I will eat app love and alive. So people simply aren't willing to pay as much for the company's earnings. A month ago, the stock was trading at more than 42 times forward earnings. Now it's trading at 32 times forward earnings and the pay may not, actually may not be over. I never want to compete against Google and this stuff. They are monstrous competitors. I don't want to own the stock. Looking at last month's biggest losers, number 2, number 4, number 7, number 9 and number 10. They are all software companies, all the same business model. They're all weighed down by the same thing as AppLovin. AI worries that are shrinking price earnings multiples. The second worst performing, the S&P 500 last month was Intuit, the maker of TurboTax and QuickBooks as well as a couple of other personal finance platforms and marketing tools for small businesses. This year was down nearly 25% in January. It's a very good company. ServiceNow is the fourth worst performer with an almost 24% pullback. Salesforce was the seventh worst down almost 20%. GoDaddy, which offers tools to register and construct websites, many people use them, was ninth worst, down roughly 19%. Tyler Tech, which makes software for public sector customers, surrounded out the bottom 10 stocks, down nearly 90%. Now I think ServiceNow really stands out as a poster child for what's happening to the group. We just had chairman and CEO Bill McDermott on the show last Wednesday night after ServiceNow reported very good quarter that was a beat on every key line. Mostly better than expected guidance for the current quarter and the full year. Now honestly, I did think that the numbers would allow the stock to rebound. I Thought it would at least get some lift. But I was wrong. Instead it plunged 10% off the numbers. Nearly 10%. It was kind of amazing, frankly. Why did it happen? Because the numbers don't matter when Wall street doesn't believe your industry as much of a future. All these beaten down software companies are profitable. All of them have gotten cheaper on the way down. Doesn't seem to matter. In two weeks, forward price earnings multiple has gone from just over 30 times forward earnings at the end of 2024 to just under 20 times earnings now. Service now has gone from 64 times earnings and 28 to 28 times earnings in the same time. Salesforce, get this 30 times down to 16 times. Go daddy. 30 times down to 14 times. Tyler 54 down to 29. That's textbook example of multiple compression. It's extraordinary. Now if you don't understand anything I just said about pes and multiple expression, I spent so much time talking about it here because it is the most important thing about your stocks. Knowing the multiple knowing while compressor expands how to make money any market. This is what you need to know if you're going to own stocks of high price earnings. Multiple companies. At this point you could argue that there's some overshooting on the downside. If you believe in this industry, I'd recommend going with Servicenow or Salesforce. We own the ladder for the Travel Trust. We've owned it for years and years. But honestly you could have made the same argument a month ago and you would have taken huge losses in January. So I don't blame anyone who wants to avoid the entire enterprise software coworker. It is an incredibly bad market. Incredible. I mean you compare that say like to the transports. Fresh eye. Fresh eye, Fresh eye. These are fresh low, fresh slow, fresh low. The third worst performing the SP last month was Humana, the managed care company. A lot of exposure. Medicare Advantage. These are health care plans for senior citizens that are subsidized by the federal government. Last Monday night the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services announced that they pretty much keep payments to private insurers. Next year almost flat small. She was looking for 5%. Now get this. This was from Amad Oz. He's in this business. I mean he understands his business and he was the regulator. And he's had it, okay? He's had it. Now it's caused an instant sell off for any company with Medicare Advantage exposure. Humanity got hit the hardest. Now many companies offering these plans have been struggling to price them appropriately, suffering big losses because the benefits were too generous. I have human a Medicare medical advantage and I got to tell you it is terrific. But the question was, was it too terrific? And if the federal subsidies start lagging behind the rate of inflation, that's only going to get worse. I don't mind you. It used to be the Democrats who went after health insurance, but now it's the Republicans cracking down. I think it's brutal. I think it really is Spells like I don't say the end of anything because these are smart companies but you can't touch them. Next the fifth worst performer last month was Constellation Energy is the independent power producer with a ton of nuclear exposure. Stock was more than 20%. Last month Trump administration announced a plan to make energy more affordable in the mid Atlantic region by calling for $15 billion of investments in new power plants as well as caps on how much existing plants can charge for electricity. Not great. Now I do think Constellation is worth buying into weakness because new power plants take take ages to build and price gouging has never been a part of their strategy. At 24 times forward earnings, you know what? I like this 16 worst performer was the trade desk at online Advertising Play oh man, we used to love this stock so its stock had obliterated last week after the company announced that they fired their new CFO after just five months on the job. Not good. The trade desk is already struggling to find its place in a world where AI is ascended. Throw in the CFO uncertainty and I think it's just not worth the risk. Finally, the eighth worst performer last month was Las Vegas Sands. That's the casino company. It's now exclusively a play on Macao. In SINGAPORE, Stocks sank 90% last month in large part because they did report a disappointing quarter last Wednesday with weak margins in Macao thanks to elevated promotional spending. Looks like wealthy Chinese consumers are still hesitant to spend heavily, perhaps because the real estate market's doing so badly There you you have to try to there's nothing particular that makes me understand why that things were really that bad there. As I said on Friday, I'm skeptical the gambling industry right now. Even if I were willing to take a chance on a bounce, I'd rather do it with a company that gets most of its business from the United States. I do like Win, for instance. What can we learn from last month's biggest losers? The bottom line is there are a lot of names where we're seeing shrinking price journeys multiples, and that's thanks to artificial intelligence worries, especially in software as well as a couple of Firms that have been hurt by the government. You man a Constellation Energy and then some are just doing badly like the trade desk, Las Vegas Sands. It's a Motley Crue badness. Only I can put it. Let's go to Dave in Florida. Dave.
Caller
Hey there, Mr. Kramer. Boy, how you doing?
Jim Cramer
I am doing well, Dave. How are you doing?
Caller
Not too bad. My call today is about Marvell Technologies. You know, about three months ago was about $100 a share and it dropped and it's been hanging at seventy and eighty dollars. What kind of company is Maravella? Are they a good company to invest?
Jim Cramer
They are. They are excellent company, but they are a derivative company. They make stuff that actually competes the main part of the business. That is a little like in video, frankly. And they're also part of Nvidia. They make special chips. They make some of the best special chips in the world, as does Broadcom, by the way. All these are on the. Are on the negative side. The long side are things like Western Digital, Sandisk. Because these are not in shortage, shortage. Okay. They just have enough chips. They're not like that. So what people are doing is buying the shortage stocks and selling the ones in Video, Broadcom and Marvell that don't have a shortage. It's a really stupid way to invest, but that's what the market's doing right now. I'm sorry. I wish I could reverse it myself, but I can't. Was Matt Murphy is a fabulous CEO at Marvell. Let's go to Rich in Florida, please. Rich.
Caller
Hey, Jim. Big fan, investing club member.
Jim Cramer
Thank you.
Caller
First time, long time. You've made me a better investor because of you. Want to ask you. I've held this stock since 2018. I'm up 725%. I take my principle out like you've taught me. Playing with the house is money and I think it can continue to grow, but it's taken a beating lately. Tell me, what are your thoughts with Axon?
Jim Cramer
You know, I saw the body camera story in Minnesota. First thing I said was like does Axon on that, that, that contract? And I don't know the answer. I'm going to certainly find out about it. I know that the stock was up because of it and then reversed. I want you to trim it again. All right. I want you to trim it again because it should have been up today and it wasn't. The fact that it erased that gain very quickly tells me it's still too heavy a stock. Take some more off and then you really can let the rest run. You called me on it and I just think I should tell you that I don't want to say, hey, don't worry about it. I can't do that. It's not acting well. Now some of the worst performers this year have seen their price earnings multiple shrink thanks to worries about artificial intelligence. Some of them are just doing badly now. Much more made Monday, including I'm going off to the charts with historical look at the relationship between Bitcoin and the stock market and how it can impact your investing strategy. Then it's finally time to write the obituary of one of the biggest stories of the past few years. With a heavy heart, I'll tell you what we're saying goodbye to and why the time is right, of course. Oil calls rapid fire in tonight's edition of the Lightning Round. Hope you like that rundown of the good and the bad. Stay with Kramer. Now that we've made it through the first month of the year, a good chunk of fourth quarter earnings season, what's the prognosis for this market? Start answering that question. Tonight we're going off the charts with the help of Jessica Inskin, one of our favorites. The first woman on the active trader, Jessica Fidelity, who's now director of investor research and@stockbrokers.com as well as co host and founder of the Market Maker podcast. Even if you don't appreciate puns, last year she did a great job of warning us what to watch out for. What she's thinking now 2026. Let's start with the weekly chart of the S&P 500. As far as Inscription is concerned, the S and P remains in a secular bull market. Okay, that's real important. Means it's not going to stop anytime soon. Even after a strong performance last year, she thinks this chart is more momentum. This picture shows a textbook bullish trading cycle. Remember, Inscript does something unique. She likes to look at the 13 week, 26 week and 40 week moving averages because those represent the action over 1, 2 and 3 quarters respectively. Given that the quarter is the most fundamental unit of time in the business world, those are what you want to watch in terms of the SB 500. The 13 week, 26 week and 40 week moving averages are all sloping upward. Do we ever like that? Providing I sports of support underneath the index. That's what makes for a bullish cycle. Now when the SB made a high of 6920 back on October 29, that level became a powerful ceiling of resistance keeping down keep that put the lid on the market okay, but we've now broken out above that level and the old ceiling resistance has now become yet another firm floor of support. See, that's resistance and then support right there. The most basic definition of an uptrend is a series of higher highs. 6920 marked the prior trend high from before the full sell off. So for Inskip, the fact that we're now holding above that level is very encouraging. But if we can't hold above that level, she would expect to pull back to the 13 week moving average which is currently 6845. Okay, right around here. Inskip says that kind of action is healthy. She'd be willing to be a buyer on weakness. In fact, she wouldn't really start worrying about any sell off in the SB until it breaks down below the October 10th low of 6550. There it is. Down more than 4 points from where we are right now. That would represent a lower low. And once you start making lower lows, the whole uptrend gets called in the question. But we're a long way from that floor at 6550. I like the fact that we're well above it. I'm not really that focused on this. Even when the market opened this morning and everyone was panicking. Basically, as long as the S and P holds out above the October 29 high of 6920, which is dozens of points below current levels. And this keeps feeling very sanguine about the market. We have more than 400 points of downside cushion before things get ugly. 6550 is the real line in the sand and we're nowhere close to this line in the sand. Next, how about the weekly chart of the S&P 500 equal weight. OK, now what is equal weight? That means we kind of get rid of the Mag 7, so to speak. It's, it gives you a better sense of the non mega cap stocks in the index. The Regular S&P 500 weighs all all stocks by market capitalization. In the equal weight version, every stock counts the same. So you know, you could say something like, I don't know, Mattel is the size of Microsoft. That kind of thing tells you a lot more about the Morgan's breath. And right now when you look at the SB equal weight, it's clear that the market's been chugging Listerine. Why? Because the breath is so good. Push my button for rimshot and skip points out that the equal weight index has broken out above key resistance levels. Even if it pulled back a little bit from its highs a week and a half ago. Right now, the 13 week, you remember these, the 26 week, the 40 week are sloping upward again. That's what we want. Okay? You always want to look for that in a chart. And that's underneath the action as bullish trading cycle. This is a much better chart than the other. More important, the equal weight made a high of 7,896 back on December 12th. That was a key ceiling of resistance. But we broke right through that silly last month and it's now become a new floor of support again. As long as the S and P equal weight holds above that level and is currently well above that level, she likes the action. The fact that the SB equal weight is levitating tells you that this bull market's broadened out very nicely, which is why that floor at 7896 needs to be held. The S and P equal weight does give up the ghost and the market becomes hostage to the mega caps. And that's not the best place to be given that their performance has been a definitive mixed bag. Stay tuned for more on that later. Finally, let's talk about bitcoin. Had a terrific run today, but it's still down huge since we last checked it in with Inscape two months ago. Back then she warned us that bitcoin is the Achilles heel of the speculative side of the stock market. Because people who own the most high risk stocks also tend to own bitcoin. It's like they're, they're holy grail. When crypto is doing badly, the entire speculative complex loses its footing. And crypto's been doing real bad in the new year. Take a look at the weekly chart of bitcoin. As this could see it, this is a bearish trading cycle. The 13 week, the 26 week and the 40 week, they're all trending lower. Remember how I had the other ones going like this. Look at this. These are all like this, okay, bad. And they're all above the price of bitcoin, which means each one represents a ceiling of resistance. We've already seen a breakdown below a key November 2024, weekly low of 80,283. But fortunately, Bitcoin has been able to hold hold above its crucial floor of support, down at 73,802. That was a well established support zone formed from March through November of 2024. It's been propping up this cryptocurrency for nearly two years. As long as bitcoin holds above that key level, Inskip believes we won't see another total meltdown in the super speculative stocks. But if we break down below 73,000 inner two boys, I look at that all weekend to see if we can get close to that, then all bets are off. And the risk of a sharp, disorderly sell off in the most speculative stocks goes through the roof. Remember when we spoke with Inscript two months ago, she warned that Bitcoin breaking down below 80,023 would crush the whole speculative cohort. That's exactly how. If the next four just under 74,000 also breaks down, then she thinks the quantum computing plays the nuclear stocks, the ancillary data plays the flying car names, all the highest risk stocks that were blocked by retail traders for most of this year. They're going to get a violent beat down. You know my view? The year of magical investing is over. I wouldn't touch those stocks. Luckily, Bitcoin's nearly 5,000 bucks above the key level now, but it was within a thousand points of it earlier this morning before people started propping it up. And given that this is crypto, it only takes a few bad days to rack up that kind of loss. Definitely something to keep an eye on. Although we know there are plenty of people trying to keep this from falling. It's almost like you know what it is. It's like, it's like Atlas with the world. You know, I mean, they just get. They got to prop it up. It's everything to them. It's just a disaster if it falls below that level. Anyway, here's the bottom line. The charts has been covered by Jessica. Just The S&P 500 remains in Bull mode. And this bull market has broadened out. A healthy sign for the market. Unfortunately, I don't think we see a resurrection of the year of magical investing in 2026 though, because the Bitcoin chart is not encouraging. If you have a lot of speculative exposure, this is the time that you want to take action. Maybe tomorrow when Palantir leads the market. Market, you get a chance to sell some of the stuff. I need you to cut your exposure to these things. Please just do it. Have I been right on these things? Come on, Minus. Back to.
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Coming up. Kramer takes your calls and the sky's the limit. It's a fast fire lightning round next.
Jim Cramer
It is time. It's time for the white raptors of reference talk. Standard by myself, presented by Stamp. And then the lightning round is over. Are you ready, ski daddy? Time for the lightning round. Let's start With Stephen in California. Steven.
Caller
Hey, good afternoon, Jim.
Jim Cramer
First time caller as well as a club member since August. Excellent. Excellent. Thank you.
Caller
Thank you for sharing your wisdom and helping your viewers grow their knowledge.
Jim Cramer
Thank you, buddy. Really appreciate that. Thank you. The stock I'm going to ask you about today is the one and only.
Caller
Speculative stock in my portfolio. I was hoping to get your thoughts on leu.
Jim Cramer
Look, this is a good company. Centrus is good. I like Constellation, too. I'm going to say, you know what? It's okay. This stock's been under pressure for no particular reason. Let's go to Kathy in California. Kathy. Hey, Jim. You're the outer absolute goat. I have a problem. Sure. I have a problem, though. I have a stock in my IRA account that's lost 96%. Since I can't take the loss, should I convert Teladoc to my Roth IRA in hopes it comes back in 10 years, or would that be chasing money after. Just get rid of it. I don't see any reason to own it. It's not. There's a lot of companies that are in that business. I'm sorry. I wish it were good, but, you know, wishing don't cut it. Thank you. Let's go to Sonny in Massachusetts. Sonny. Hey, Jim.
Caller
I'm a club member and for my.
Jim Cramer
Birthday, I have two wishes.
Caller
One to have a signed book and two for Ben Soto and Regina to.
Jim Cramer
Host the Lightning Round. Oh, Mommy. Talk about inside baseball. Sonny, tell me your thoughts on yours. Which one? On Spear. I think Spirit's great. We did, you know, Ben and I did it. We did a piece on Spirit. We felt really, really good about it. I'm glad we were right. And that was in part because we were just kind of blown away by Spirit. It's really pretty amazing. But thank you. And I'll pass on the words to those nice people because I don't know if. Do they watch the show at all? They don't have a. They don't catch it. They don't get a chance. They're like. They're like everybody else in my life. They don't have a chance to watch it. Let's go to Michelle in Ohio. Michelle.
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Hi, Jim.
Jim Cramer
Michelle. Michelle from Beechwood, Ohio. I work at shows in the morning and evening religiously. Oh, thank you. You cover all the notes and you're great.
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You cover all the noteworthy retail stocks.
Jim Cramer
However, you never mentioned Dillard's, which in.
Advertiser/Promoter
My opinion is one of the best.
Jim Cramer
You're right. I don't. I don't know Dillard's. Well enough. I've been, you know, look, I've been to Dillard's many times. I just don't think that much of it. And I think so much of so many other retailers that I've been sticking with my knitting and going with the ones that I know best. And that, ladies and gentlemen, nice comments. Is the conclusion of the Lightning Round.
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The Lightning Round is sponsored by Charles Schwab. Coming up, they were the darlings of the past decade. But could the dominance of the Magnificent Seven be coming to an end? Kramer's revealing his startling conclusion next sa.
Jim Cramer
A lot of people don't know this, but I used to write obituaries for a living. It's a sad job, as you can imagine. You want to be sure you get it right. And if you can, you need a picture. Always the picture. Well, here's the picture. It's of the Magnificent Seven and I'm pronouncing it dead tonight. Why? Because the grouping no longer makes sense. Let's talk about a bunch of large cap stocks that don't have much to do with each other and are going very different directions. Directions offer some really lousy performance over the last year. And that's what I did today. Look at them year over year. Magnificent Seven was never about seven large cap stocks. It was always about companies with fantastic stock performance. Companies that made you a ton of money if you invested them. That was the point. These stocks don't do that anymore. In the aggregate, they kind of do nothing. There's nothing magnificent about them. There's nothing special. My trust owns a bunch of these. I'm very conscious of this six of the seven and we respect them. We know that they can take off. Some are just resting, I think in videos, taking a breather, which is usually what you see before it makes a gigantic move. The darn stock now trades at just 24 times earnings. I call it a coiled spring. Still up over 55% from the past year. Well in excess the s and P500. I think you need to buy some here. Maybe tomorrow. I don't know if you don't already. Still magnificent. To me it does. The stock acts terribly, I know that. But the only other stock in the Mag 7 that's beating the market over the last 12 months and is fantastic is Alphabet. It's up over 68%. That makes sense. When output reports on Wednesday, I think you can blow away the numbers. They've become synonymous with two words. Beat and then raise. Something good seems to happen every single minute at Alphabet. Just this evening Self driving car Division Waymo raised 16 billion from Alphabet itself and other companies at $126 billion valuation. That's a million amazing. Not that long ago was considered to be an anchor to Leeward still losing money but it's the best in the industry in this country. How about the others? Can you really underperform the S and P for a full year as these stocks have and still call yourself magnificent? Even Robert Vaughn and James Coburn have it all over the east and they didn't make it into the end of the movie. You know what? I could argue that Eli Wallace having a better year and he, he was Calvaro, remember? He was the bad guy and not so good. Apple could be making a move here. The pessimists are starting to tremble as the company gave terrific guidance when it was reported last week. Some of the other the stock got slagged by a bunch of bears who controlled the narrative. Looks like that's changing. Tesla now it's not a car company, although it's not the XI merger that we're getting with Space X whatever. But it's a cyber cabin robot company. Now it has chance to blast off but it hasn't. You know what's more magnificent? Tesla. How about General Motors? My travel trust owns Amazon, Mehta and Microsoft. I'm feeling like I did during my obituary writer days. With these Amazon reports this week. I'm optimistic that maybe you could do a good number. I'm also wary that the market's already reached a verdict in this one. Amazon's being beaten by Wal Mart on web services when it comes to regular prime and web services being beaten by everybody, including Google. I don't know. It doesn't get respect it deserves, but other stocks do. And those are the ones I guess my trust should own. I don't know. Been thinking about it all the time. Metal is a terrific quarter, really. But all I hear about is how it's just an advertising company with a pair of Ray Bans. They never do anything to defend or promote their stock. I mean like nothing. They don't even seem to care. Well, what can I say that's true. And then there's Microsoft. Here's the least magnificent the seven. When I go over that convoluted conference call that they just did, I can't tell whether they understood their stock would get obliterated. Maybe they thought it was going to go up. Did they know that they lost the air race? Were they aware that they weren't making the playoffs? Did anyone comprehend what they were even saying, including them. What the heck's with open air? They partners? Are they friends? Are they frenemies? Are they enemies? Oh, and copilot, did they really, really think that 15 million paid users was a lot of users? You know what? I actually felt sorry for Microsoft. Not too sorry, though, because anyone who's forced to be a Microsoft user is so tired of Windows jamming unwanted updates down your throat, it's very hard to feel much sympathy. Oh, and if they think those drone picks and the queries that they have on the homepage are clever, give me a break. Magnificent. Go summarize this, Jack. So I'm right in the obituary. Oh, and reports of the death of the seven. They aren't premature. They are late. They are finished. And if you use the term, you are warned, the seven is now dead to me. I like to say there's always a bull market somewhere, and I promise to find it just for you, right here on Mad Money. I'm Jim Cramer. See you tomorrow.
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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 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 hey, this is.
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Will Arnett, host of Smartless. Smartless is a podcast with myself and Sean Hayes and Jason Bateman, where each week one of us reveals a mystery guest, the other two, we dive deep with guests that you love, like Bill Hader, Selena Gomez, Jennifer Aniston, David Beckham, Kristen Stewart, and tons more. So join us for a genuinely improvised and authentic conversation filled with laughter and newfound knowledge to feed the smartless mind. Listen to Smartless now on the SiriusXM app. Download it today.
Jim Cramer delivers his energetic, irreverent, and insight-packed take on the current state of the stock market after the first month of 2026. He dissects recent volatility, challenges negative narratives, analyzes sector shifts, reviews the best and worst performers of January, consults technicians for “off the charts” insights, and pronounces the “Magnificent Seven” tech stocks dead as a relevant investment group. The popular “Lightning Round” provides rapid-fire commentary on individual stocks, and Cramer fields live calls with actionable advice.
This episode focuses on helping investors sift through “nonsense negativity” and market noise to identify real opportunities amid volatility. Cramer urges listeners to resist knee-jerk pessimism, understand the drivers behind market moves, and recognize evolving leadership in the stock market—particularly the red-hot semiconductor and data storage sectors, and the fading dominance of the previous "Magnificent Seven".
Timestamp: 01:40–09:49
“If you believe the constant barrage of negativity, you’ll miss some incredible buying opportunities in great stocks that rarely come in.”
—Jim Cramer [09:41]
Timestamp: 09:49–11:56, 29:52–39:38, 39:55–42:37
“If I want to do a good job for you, I take the stuff that Wall Street does… then I go into my own aisles and see what’s going on.”
—Jim Cramer [10:46]
“Matt Murphy is a fabulous CEO at Marvell.” —Jim Cramer [30:11]
“Get rid of it. Wishing don’t cut it.” [41:16]
Timestamp: 13:55–21:26, 22:53–29:52
Major Rotation in Leadership:
Top 10 S&P Performers (January):
Notable Quotes:
“The memory storage sector is the hottest bull market around.” —Jim Cramer [15:45]
Bottom 10 S&P Performers (January):
Key Insight:
“Knowing the multiple, knowing why it compresses or expands—how to make money in any market. This is what you need to know if you’re going to own stocks of high price-earnings multiple companies.” —Jim Cramer [24:00]
Timestamp: 33:15–39:38
Timestamp: 43:18–47:40
“In the aggregate, they kind of do nothing. There’s nothing magnificent about them. There’s nothing special.” —Jim Cramer [43:51]
Cramer blends his trademark bombast with data-driven caution, encouraging investors to keep their heads amid shifting narratives and market leadership. He celebrates analytical optimism, warns against doom-mongering, and admits prior errors where appropriate. The episode ends with a call to action for smart, sector-rotating investing in a market that is no longer dominated by the past’s megacap icons.
Main Investing Lesson:
Don’t become “a prisoner of pessimism” or a relic of the last bull market. Adapt, dig deeper than the headlines, and look for the “bull market somewhere,” which, as always, Cramer promises to find—just for you.