Mad Money w/ Jim Cramer 2/23/26

Summary

Mad Money w/ Jim Cramer – Episode Summary
Aired: February 24, 2026
Host: Jim Cramer (CNBC)

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Episode Overview

This episode of "Mad Money" centers on Wall Street’s mounting fear that artificial intelligence (AI) could soon devastate white collar jobs and disrupt traditional industries. Jim Cramer unpacks the market’s sharply negative reaction to a widely circulated, dystopian research report forecasting an "AI apocalypse" by 2028. He explores how these concerns impact valuations, which sectors are being hit hardest, and where fear has possibly outpaced reality, ultimately providing actionable guidance for investors wary of the current turbulent market. The episode also features a deep dive into private credit firm Blue Owl and an interview with the CEO of BWX Technologies regarding nuclear energy's investment potential.

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Key Topics & Discussion Points

1. Market Meltdown over AI Apocalypse Fears

(Main Segment: 01:41 – 11:04)

• The Trigger:
  A pessimistic paper titled "2028 Global Intelligence Crisis" spread panic, predicting AI-driven white collar unemployment and the collapse of consumer spending.

• Immediate Market Reaction:

  • Dow dropped 822 points; S&P down 1.04%; Nasdaq down 1.13%
  • Tech/software stocks (Salesforce, Workday, Adobe, ServiceNow) and cybersecurity stocks (CrowdStrike, Palo Alto Networks) hit hardest.

• Thesis of the Dystopian Report:

  • AI will automate most white collar jobs.
  • Enterprise software, housing, banking, and retail will be gutted.
  • Private equity could collapse due to exposure to tech and credit crunch.
  • Most middle-class jobs will disappear.

• Cramer’s Rebuttal:

  • Skeptical of “science fiction” being treated as fact.
  • Historical context: Past tech revolutions (computers in the 1990s) created more jobs than destroyed.
  • Points to falling birth rates and labor shortages; AI may be necessary, not a threat.
  • Questions if tech stocks should still trade at high multiples given uncertainty.
  • "It's way too easy for a piece of science fiction to crush the market as if it's science fact." (Jim Cramer, 10:55)

2. How AI Press Releases Drive Market Volatility

(Segment: 12:58 – 21:20)

• AI Announcements and Rolling Sell-Offs:

  • Every new AI feature announcement leads to sell-offs in adjacent sectors—often regardless of business fundamentals.
  • Industries affected: Legal (Westlaw, LexisNexis), financial data (FactSet, Fair Isaac), stock exchanges, video gaming, insurance, wealth management, trucking, and even office REITs.

• Cramer’s Analysis:

  • Warns not to overreact to "press release" disruption without true market impact.
  • Some stocks (e.g., Cadence Design, Datadog) have shown resilience because their business models are harder for AI to disrupt.
  • Multiples have compressed across the board, pricing in worst-case scenarios.
  • “You shouldn’t sell the trucking stocks because some karaoke machine maker says it has the technology to revolutionize the freight market.” (Jim Cramer, 16:36)

• Bottom Line:
  Many sell-offs are more about fear and valuation adjustments (“multiple compression”) than real, fundamental decline—potential opportunities may emerge where fear has outstripped risk.

3. Blue Owl: The Canary in Private Credit

(Segment: 23:27 – 32:16)

• Background:
  Blue Owl Capital is a major private credit player, making loans to private equity-owned technology companies and data centers.

• Problems Emerge:

  • Redemption limits hit in their private business development companies (BDCs).
  • Efforts to merge vehicles and provide liquidity have resulted in forced “haircuts” (20% losses) for investors who want out.
  • Accusations of cherry-picking assets for quick sales, leaving remaining investors exposed to lower-quality holdings (denied by management).

• Market Reaction:

  • Blue Owl stock plummeted 60% from its high; similar pain for other private equity giants (Apollo, Blackstone, KKR).
  • "Blue Owl is the canary in the coal mine. But for the moment, the canary’s still breathing, even if it’s not exactly healthy." (Jim Cramer, 31:41)

• Investor Takeaway:
  Cramer is cautious on private credit, especially where transparency is poor and redemptions are gated—he recommends avoiding fraught situations.

4. Interview: Rex Jefferson, CEO of BWX Technologies

(Interview: 33:16 – 39:33)

• Company Position:
  BWXT is at the intersection of national security, energy security, and AI-driven demand, supplying nuclear reactors for military and commercial uses.

• Growth Drivers:

  • 95% YoY revenue growth in commercial nuclear power, driven by engineering services, fuel refurbishment, and new builds.
  • Involved in both refurbishment and new installation for nuclear plants and government contracts for enriched uranium.

• Industry Context:
  New large-scale nuclear plants are a long-term (5–6 year) process, but plenty of revenue comes from ongoing projects and micro-reactors.

• Quote:
  "Even though we have that sort of old school industrial history, I think it’s pretty interesting that in the ten year history we have as a public company, we’ve tripled literally the top line of the business and we’ve also tripled the bottom line..." (Rex Jefferson, 34:58)

• Cramer’s View:
  Sees BWXT as an attractive long-term play due to its unique position and stable government contracts.

5. Viewer Q&A

(Throughout, e.g., Lightning Round: 39:35 – 43:50)

A selection of notable calls:

• G.E. Vernova: Still likes the energy infrastructure play, especially given likely growth in power demand. (Jim Cramer, 09:10)
• Huntington Ingalls: "It is the best thing we have when it comes to the Navy." (Jim Cramer, 41:19)
• Supermicro: "Supermicro is my no-fly zone. I’m sorry." (Jim Cramer, 41:55)
• Chevron: Recommends holding for dividend and further upside. (Jim Cramer, 43:27)
• Other names: Robinhood (concerns about crypto exposure), SoFi (possible reconsideration after a sharp drop), Vertiv (positive on data center demand), Rambus (prefers Texas Instruments or Analog Devices).

6. Drawing the Line on AI-Fueled Panic

(Wrap-up: 44:20 – End)

• Reflection on Market Mentality:
  Cramer recounts a personal anecdote about AI-induced investor panic, arguing that while Anthropic's AI products can legitimately disrupt, not every press release spells doom.

  • “Every software company is so easily taken down they can’t be owned anymore. I’m not playing that game.” (Jim Cramer, 44:50)

• On Cybersecurity:

  • Cites George Kurtz (CrowdStrike CEO) response to AI threat:
    "Claude won’t even try to do what CrowdStrike does… The real problem is that Claude’s very existence does attack enterprise software [multiples].” (Jim Cramer quoting George Kurtz, 45:37)
  • AI may increase the need for cybersecurity, not eliminate it.

• Key Takeaway:
  There is a distinction between headlines and durable business models. Don’t let rumor-mongering or speculative takes destroy conviction in companies with proven mission-critical offerings, even if stock prices are pressured.

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Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

• "This screen reminds me of a piece of research during the initial GOP – where an analyst was recommending buying airline stocks because people would all weigh less and save the airlines a lot of money on fuel." (Jim Cramer, 03:34)
• “We have to be more cautious about all stocks because the market was just too easy to take down today.” (Jim Cramer, 10:18)
• "I don't want to be part of the takedown. I want to draw a line in the sand.” (Jim Cramer, 46:26)

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Key Segment Timestamps

| Topic | Timestamp | |-----------------------------------------|-----------| | Opening Market Commentary & AI Fears | 01:41–11:04| | AI Sell-Offs & Industry Impact | 12:58–21:20| | Blue Owl Crisis & Private Credit | 23:27–32:16| | BWX Technologies CEO Interview | 33:16–39:33| | Lightning Round / Q&A | 39:35–43:50| | AI Panic & Cybersecurity Commentary | 44:20–48:28|

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Conclusion & Actionable Advice

• Exercise Caution:
  Macro fears and rapid multiple compression can crush quality stocks on little more than rumor or speculative commentaries.
• Don’t Overreact:
  Not every AI press release or new tool represents an existential threat. Apply critical thinking—often the market’s fear offers opportunity.
• Focus on Quality:
  Companies with irreplaceable roles—like real cybersecurity, military tech, and nuclear energy—are harder to truly disrupt.
• Monitor Private Credit:
  Transparency issues and liquidity fears are emerging; stay clear of troubled or opaque vehicles.

For more, follow Jim Cramer on social or catch "Mad Money" daily.

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Transcript

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Hey, I'm Kramer. Welcome to Mad Money. Welcome to Kramerica. As a group and friends, I'm just trying to save you some money. My job is not just entertainment, but to put things into context to do some education. So call me 1-800-743- CBD. Tweet me Jim Cramer. Today we got a glimpse of an ugly future where we run out of white collar jobs because artificial intelligence destroys employment as we know it. That's the principal reason why The Dow plunged 822 points, S&P dropped 1 or 4%. The Nasdaq tumbled 1.13%. The consumer staples were because they're textbook recession stocks that are winners in the jobless world. You buy them whether you want to buy the product, whether you like them or not. Frankly, I don't believe that I will wipe out the white collar workforce. Let me give it to you straight though, because I don't think the narrative you're going to hear about today is going away. I think it will hurt the price earnings multiples, what we pay for a host of stocks, causing them to drop without seeming, well, let's say anything being wrong. See yesterday an alpha called Citrini Research And Al op Shah, two sources I never heard of until today, frankly put out a stunning, well written, incredibly pessimistic paper called the 202028 Global Intelligence Crisis. The piece starts with a provocative question. What if our AI bullishness continues to be right? And what if that's actually bearish? Very interesting. I got it just drew me right in. What follows was a dystopian tale set in 2028 of incredibly high unemployment and incredibly low consumer spending because the robots will replace us. Apparently humans are nothing but friction. As AI gets better and better, more and more white collar jobs will disappear. Basically, they're predicting that most of the middle class will cease to exist. Today's stock market decline it reflected the thesis embodied in this work of science fiction. The worst hit were software stocks, which According to the 2028 global intelligence crisis will be all but destroyed by AI that can write code better than they can. This paper argues that software companies will eventually be forced to lay off tons of workers and the companies instead will invest their savings in AI tools that can be used to maintain their output with dramatically lower costs. And according to these guys, software is only the opening act. The housing complex, banking, retail will all be laid to waste by this white collar crunch. As the good jobs disappear. The private equity firms that bought most of the companies that have been taken private in technology, well they're going to go under, perhaps causing a credit crunch. Unemployment skyrockets, the world as we know it collapses. It does everything but quote Billy's famous line from near the end of Predator, we're all going to die. And the stock market today took it seriously. Today we saw one of the more, one more pummeling of the enterprise software stocks that we used to know and love. Salesforce, work day, Adobe and their act like along with ServiceNow. For some reason the paper really zooms in on ServiceNow and it is not optimistic. It talks about how all these companies will no longer be able to charge what they used to because too many of their clients will be able to develop software in house using AI instead of selling for, let's say four year contracts with 5% price increases. Now they're going to balk, maybe ask for two years at no price increase to be sure that they are ready to move to anthropic if it cloyed has a competitive cheaper product. Oddly, the paper didn't spend time outlining the destruction of cybersecurity stocks. The market took care of that itself as Crowdstrike and Palo Alto Networks fell for a second day. Truly Hideous declines caused by a press release from Anthropic. They said they're moving into cybersecurity and that was why. That was enough to just to crush the whole group. I'm going to have more on that later, but for now I need to say that this vision of global intelligence crisis that destroys the economy, I don't know, I think it's a reach. This screen reminds me of a piece of research during the initial GOP Dash 1 craze where an analyst was recommending buying the airline stocks because people would all weigh less and save the airlines a lot of money on fuel. Listen, I've been a big believer in, you know that. Which is why I believe in the pioneers of. I believe in Jensen, the CEO of Video. They report this week. He talks about how traditional software won't be destroyed, it just gets smarter. The new technology will create new jobs that we haven't even thought of yet. It's the fourth industrial revolution, Brevin saying. And like the previous ones, it'll create a lot more jobs than it destroys. I remember when computers erased a lot of white collar jobs in the 90s. But the computer ended up being a great spur for the economy. These two individuals in the paper, well, the company in the paper, they think that that's not going to happen. They just think jobs are going to be destroyed, nothing else. But you know what? Not that long ago, everybody was wringing their hands about falling birth rates in this country. But also worldwide, the fertility rate has fallen to a historic rate of 1.6. In the country, you need an average of 2.1 children per woman just to maintain a steady population. Heck, remember the labor shortage as we came out of the pandemic with a huge decline in immigration. We may need all the help we can get from AI automation. We're running out of workers. I thought that was the thesis. Besides, I think the 2028 timeline for this is way, way too quick. Artificial intelligence can't wreck the entire software industry in the next few years. But there's one real problem here. The whole thesis calls into question what price to earnings multiples we should pay for tech and for other stocks. Ultimately, the rest of the service economy, which is two thirds of the total economy, may be under attack. Yep, as I explained how to make money in any market, the multiple is the secret sauce. It shows what will pay for future earnings. The problem that most stocks in the service economy and the tech economy trade at relatively high multiples and people simply aren't willing to pay as much for them. With these AI apocalypse fears floating around, the multiples are too high. We see it in Salesforce reports this week this company forming the king of the enterprise software stocks which has kept pace with AI by creating its own agents. That's good. And has lost 33% of its value since the beginning of the year. That's bad. It sells for less than 15 times this year's earnings estimates. That's good. A ridiculously low mount for growth stock. But when Salesforce reports on Wednesday, we will see numbers that reflect the damage in its core software. As a service business where clients pay per user, I'm worried about that. With AI making each user more efficient, the thinking is there could be a real problem here even if it hasn't shown up yet. How do we. Oh, we need to ask how much of the labor expenses were in stock based compensation which makes a stock look cheaper than it is. None of the private equity companies like Blue Al, which you'll hear about more later. We all, like many of its ilk, has been restricting withdrawals from some of its funds. They'll give you some money right now, but you can't pull the entirety of your investment out. Who knows what multiple should be put on them. I'm not a buyer of anything they have to offer. What multiple do you put on banks knowing that if the Saturnine document comes true their earnings are going to go down big, especially the credit related companies. Today the money is piled into the staples in the health care companies. Can that go on forever? I think we need to be more cautious about all stocks because the market was just too easy to take down today. There are too many worries about the power of anthropic and open air. There are too many worries about the weakness and blue out. Too many worries about a fictitious version of 2028. But I got to tell you, I'm a warrior. Here's the bottom line. There's just too many things that can go wrong if we buy the wrong stocks. Don't I know it. We own some of the wrong stocks from our travel trust. We've made some sales. But I can't help but grow more pessimistic as you'll hear on the at the Friday meeting that we have when I see how easily a piece of science fiction can crush the market as if it's science fact. It's a way more difficult market than many of you think. Let's be more cautious. We have to be after what we saw today. Let's go to Leo in Texas, please. Leo. Hey Jim. Hey. What's up the last few weeks. Welcome back. Thank you. Thank you. I at least got on the morning show a little bit but yeah, thank you. So my question concerns G. Vernova. I currently hold a position in that stock and I'm wondering what your take is on whether this stock has room to run still. Well, G. Vernova is presuming with that price earnings multiple that will continue to build power plants, that will build nuclear power plants that will need more energy. It's probably the single most stock that's most positioned for us any more energy in the country. So I've got to say I still like it. Big position for the Travel Trust in this market. It seems like there's just too many things that go wrong now and we're paying too high a price earnings multiple for many stocks tonight. Every time an AI company releases a new feature, it seems it takes the whole cohort in the market down with it. I'm surveying the pain in a host of sectors and sharing how I think this solved. Check out man. In recent months we've heard a bunch of concerns about private credit. I'm sharing with you what's going on and what the potential ramifications could be for you and B2BX technology is prepared to bell. I'm getting a read on where our country stands in the pursuit for nuclear power with the CEO, so stay with Kramer.

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Before the show got preempted by the Olympics for two weeks, we were already witnessing a nasty sell off in any industry that might well just maybe get disrupted by artificial intelligence. And and it's not just technology anymore. Like I said at the top of the show, it's only gotten nastier. As people ruminate about the future, they're scared, they're worried. First it was the enterprise software place, which had been weighed down for ages because the chat bot platforms are already very good at writing code. Even though that hasn't hurt sales or earnings for these companies so far, Wall street simply doesn't have much faith that they can keep putting up good numbers. We do not know what to pay for the earnings of a company being attacked by an AI giant anymore, but but you might surmise that it's certainly a lower multiple than it has been Then Anthropic rolled out a major upgrade to Claude Code and this group got hit with another leg down by the end of January, the pain started spreading. The House of Pain as the Anthropic rolled out a bunch of new tools for all sorts of professional services like legal work, finance, jobs and marketing, among other applications. Suddenly, the AI displacement cell spread beyond enterprise software. Thomson Reuters, R El X, the companies behind Westlaw, LexisNexis, the two big legal databases, saw their stocks just get hammered, the former down 39% for the year and the latter down 25%. Same thing happened the providers of financial data like Factset or Fair Isaac, that's the keeper of FICO or the big credit reporting agencies Fax it, which we use here on Mad Money, is now down 34% for the year. The pain then spread to S and P Global, which in addition to managing a host of indices, also provides financial data and has a big debt rating business. Moody's got it too. Even some of the exchanges sold off on the NASDAQ and Intercontinental Exchange, the parent company. Nicely, I can understand the other pullbacks. These are industries that are being targeted directly by Anthropic. But it's insane that the exchange is rolling over. Do people think that Anthropic can create all new benchmarks? It seems doubtful. Of course, it's not just Anthropic. Earlier this month, OpenAI released major upgrades for its own coding tool. And Google's done the same thing with Gemini. In fact, when Google rolled out Project Genie, which effectively lets people use AI to make their own video games, the entire gaming industry got obliterated. And everything from Roadblocks to unity software to AppLovit and even take two interactive. Oh come on. The last independent video game publisher in America. What a buy that is. Now, some of those stocks have stabilized in recent weeks. Roblox rallied after reported solid quarter with a strong full year forecast, although since then it's given up the bulk of those gains. On the other hand, some of the more ancillary gaming plays have gotten hit even harder. App Lovin, which mainly does advertising for mobile games, and that stock is now down 44% for the year. And Unity Software, which makes software tools for game developers, seems to sink lower every day, is now down almost 61% year to date. Now, funny thing happened while we were off air for the Olympics, the enterprise software cohort caught a break. But we've got smaller rolling sell offs in other industries that suddenly have been deemed potential refugees. And I got to tell you, I think it's gotten a little ridiculous. Two weeks ago, for instance, an online insurance marketplace called Insertify released a new application that uses chat CBT to compare insurance rates. Immediately, insurance broker stocks tanked. The next day, a company called Altruist came out of NowHere with an AI powered tax planning offering to help financial advisors create personalized strategies for their clients. Immediately, anything connected to wealth management got hammered. Charles Schwab, Raymond James LP Financial Even the mighty Morgan Stanley sold off a bit, despite the fact that it's firing on all cylinders. The stock of Intuit, which owns TurboTax, has been eviscerated over the past six months. A week and a half ago, a tiny company too small, metronaire that used to make karaoke machines before pivoting to freight management announced an AI platform it had made allowed customers to to handle much more volume without additional staff. That sent the trucking stocks into a tailspin, even though this doesn't even seem bad for the truckers. And the group had already been red hot until this. Fortunately, they shrugged it off and bounced right back. But it's lunacy that they sold off in the first place. And look, other groups have been hit on vague AI related fears. Even without a specific catalyst, the office reits like bxp, Vernado, SL Green, they've been moving lower of late. Chiefly the theory that businesses will need less office space in a world dominated by A I cbre, a real estate service play was torn to pieces even though it reported tremendous quarter. So where do I come out on this? Look, I think you need to take the competitive threat from AI very seriously. And when we're talking about traditional enterprise software stocks. But some of these groups, and let's say they're more threatened than others. Cadence Design Systems, which makes Design software, and Datadog, a data monitoring and analytics platform, have both been able to rally after really good quarters. That tells me there is a floor for some of these, the ones that are more insulated from AI disruption. But this late last week, Claude came after the cybersecurity companies and the whole group got killed. They got killed again today, just miserable. I don't believe there's a genuine competitive threat here, but there's a clear and present danger to their price to earnings multiples. That's right. As I say in how to make money in any market, this is what we have to care about now. Right now, crowdstrike is very expensive even as I think the business unassailable. Like I said at the top, it's all about the multiple. But more on that at the end of the show. Today, Anthropic rolled out a product that sounds like it might be a serious competitor sounds to IBM, even though we have no surety of that at all. And IBM stock fell 13% or $33. That was the worst of the climb for the companies since 2000. Now we'll get earnings from some of the largest corporate enterprise software companies this week. Snowflake, Salesforce, and I'm going to be watching them like a hawk to see how they react. At some point I think they become too cheap to ignore. I don't know if we're there, but mainly I feel like we need to start exercising some critical thinking here. Of course, the big platforms keep talking about how they'll be able to disrupt all sorts of industries. They're trying to raise money. But not all of these announcements represent real competitive threats. You shouldn't sell the trucking stocks because some karaoke machine maker says it has the technology to revolutionize the freight market. I understand the threat, but it has to be credible, not just a press release. In the end, you need to think about what I can really do to these industries. The stock exchanges. I don't think they have much to fear. I doubt the financial advisors will lose much sleep over AI either. And prop, it's not trying to wipe out these industries. It's trying to sell them software. Plus, don't forget so far nobody's taken a real earnings hit from a competition. Instead, Wall street just become less willing to pay a high multiple for these earnings. And when a sell is driven by multiple compression, eventually the stocks in question will become too cheap. Maybe Salesforce will be too cheap after we see the earnings this week. I don't know. Take Charles Schwab. This is mainly an online brokerage firm, yet it's sold off of the financial advisors now trades at less than 16 times earnings, the cheapest has been in years. I think it's a steal because the threat here is a borderline non existent threat. But if we're talking about an enterprise software stock with a relatively high P, it's a different story. But we saw also a company like Blue Al, a financial company with a lot of software exposure, have to gate to funds that apparently had heavy redemptions. That's never a good sign. I am worried about why they had to do that. Why are so many people trying to abandon ship if everything is as good as Blue out tells us? Here's the bottom line for the past few weeks. Every time some AI platform announces a new productivity tool for a particular industry that the stocks in that industry immediately get smacked down. But some of these sell offs are a lot less legitimate than others and they may be creating buying opportunities. Which is why I want to circle back to cybersecurity at the end of the show. Bit Money's back after the break.

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Sometimes AT&T business Wireless Connecting changes Everything. We don't talk about this very often, but for the better part of a decade there's been this gigantic boom in the private credit space. These are like private equity firms, except instead of buying companies outright, they make loans directly to these companies rather than, say, investing in their bonds. But now we're starting to see some cracks in the private credit ecosystem. The poster child for what's wrong with this group is a company called Blue Al Capital. These guys are one of the leading players in the private credit market. They specialize in making loans to companies that are owned by private equity firms, especially in the technology space. They've also started to finance a ton of data centers. Now, Blue Al came public in 2021 through a SPAC merger and the stock posted some big gains in 2023 and 2024. Then it peaked a little over a year ago as Wall street figured these guys would clean up under the second Trump administration. The stock managed to hang in there for much of 2025, but beneath the surface, some problems started bubbling up. See, Blue Al controls a bunch of smaller business development companies called bdc. These operate like miniature private equity or private credit firms, but tend to be more accessible. Some of them are publicly traded, some are privately traded through various networks of registered investment advisors. BDCs are like real estate investment trusts and that they're pass through entities. They don't pay any corporate income tax because they have to distribute at least 90% of their income directly to their shareholders. As a result, they tend to have pretty high dividends and that's made it very attractive for individuals. Blue Al controls a bunch of these mostly Private. But a couple are public like Blue Al Technology Finance and Blue Al Capital Corporation, which both yield almost 13% respectively. Hmm. I bring this up because starting last year, one of Blue Al's oldest BDC is a private one called Blue Al Capital Corp. 2 ran in trouble. These things typically have gating rules about how much of the fund can be withdrawn in any given quarter. For Blue L Capital too, it's a 5% limit on redemptions and they hit that limit in both the second and third quarter. Now that is worrisome. Then in November, Blue Al came up with a solution for the redemption problem. They plan to merge blue L capital 2 with one of their publicly traded BDCs, blue out capital Corp. So investors who want it out could simply sell their shares in the open market. But, and this is a big but enough for the Sir Mix a lot seal of approval, they also are going to ban redemptions from Blue L Capital 2 until the merger closed. Worse, the publicly traded BTC Blue L Capital Corp. Was already trading at a roughly 20% discount to its net asset value. What the company says the investments are worth. So shareholders who are trapped in Blue Out Capital to they'll have to take a 20% haircut if they want their money back as soon as possible. Oh man, that went over like a lead balloon. And Blue I'll scrap the whole plan a couple of weeks later, saying that they'd circle back with a new plan. Last week we finally saw that new plan and once again it raised some eyebrows. Blue announced that it sold $1.4 billion worth of assets from three different BDCs at 99.7% of par value, meaning nearly full price. At the same time though, they changed the way they're handling redemptions. Blue capital to the BTC, where many investors want out is returning 30% of its capital to all investors, even the ones who want to stick with it and suspending all other redemptions that generate a lot of negative headlines for about Blue out holding redemptions, even though it's more complicated than that. But the really worrisome thing here is that Blue out got nearly full price for the assets it sold, even though many of these assets were came from publicly traded BDCs that are selling for huge discounts to the net asset value. There are some accusations of cherry picking, dumping their highest quality holdings to raise cash and leaving shareholders stuck with the worst stuff. Management denies this. Okay. Unequivocally denies it. Wall Street's not buying it though. Possible Blue has been cagey about who bought the $1.4 billion with assets. Bloomberg reported it was three pension funds and one insurance company, Couvair. That just so happens to be Blue Al subsidiary Rich. Now on Friday morning, Blue Al's co president Craig Packer came on Squawk of the Street. You know what? I thought he did an admirable job explaining the point of view. Shareholders clearly disagreed. Blue Al, the parent company stock dropped nearly 7% on Friday and another 3.4% today. The stocks say something's wrong here. Stocks now down more than 60% from its all time high 13 months ago. And their two publicly traded BDCs of blue out Corp. Blue Out Capital and Blue Up Technology finance are down 28 and 48% from the 52 week highs. Both trading at massive discounts to their net stated net asset value. Wall street simply doesn't believe their holdings are worth what Blue Al says they're worth. It's, it's just a kind of a mismatch here. Now I'm not trying to pick on Blue alone. I went through all this because we keep hearing that it might be the canary in the private equity and private credit coal mine. I don't like that hackneyed phrase, but I see why people are concerned. If you look at the largest publicly traded private equity firms, many of which are also heavy hitters in private credit, their stocks have been obliterated. Really good companies. Apollo Group, Areas Management, Blackstone, you know I like that. Carlyle, I like them. KKR, TPG, they're down anywhere from 28 to 40, 41% from their highs. Again, this whole industry has a lot of exposure to the tech sector, especially the bleagard enterprise software space because of AI. But it's just that Blue Alice, the most extreme, according to Barclays, something like 20% of the loans held by BDCs were made by software companies. Too high. At the same time, it's hard to get a clear valuation for those loans because they're hidden within a panoply of business development companies. But judging by how the publicly traded BDCs are holding up, investors seem very skeptical. Skeptical. Now I don't think it's the end of the world for private credit. If you listen to the biggest alarmists in the group, they act like these software investments are all doomed. I know it's bad. I don't know how bad. However, I need you to understand what's happening in the private credit space. Because the bottom line is that things, things just seem to be getting worse here, not better. And if any of these BDC started blowing up. There's going to be a lot of negative pin action and that will not be good. Blue Al's a case study because it seems like the most vulnerable. It really is the canary in the coal mine. But for the moment, the canary still breathing, even if it's not exactly healthy, the situation seems fraught. And mad money viewers know I am a seller, not a buyer of fraught situations. Don in Florida. Don. Hey, Jim, thanks for taking my call. I've been a long time watcher and I have an interest in SoFi. I think that I like the company. I bought some, but it just keeps going down. What should I. Well, I'll tell you at 26, I don't know, In January I said I thought that the stock could keep going down. It was too high. I now look at it and I think, wait a second. Given its growth rate at $18, I didn't like it in the high 20s. $18, let's do it down 30%. I say let's look at it again. I thank you for your allegiance and we will know more about Sofi. Let's go to Donald, New Jersey. Donald. Hey, Dr. Kramer. How are you, sir? I am good. How are you? I'm doing fine. I'm all right. Neighbor Jersey. My stock is Robin Hood. Jim. Okay, here's my problem with Robinhood. It sells at 30 times earnings but it has way too much business that I think is crypto. And until they get so that the balance is less crypto and more say equities and bonds, I think it's going to be too volatile and it's going to trade like Bitcoin. All right, guys. Blue Owl is the canary in the coal miner private credit. And the canary is still breathing. But it's something we must monitor and it will worries me now much more man money including my post earnings exclusive. But something doesn't worry me. BWX Technologies nuclear power is a buzzing term on Wall Street. But could this company, which is one of the most storied in the industry, be the best way to play the theme? I've got the CEO and anthropics. Claude is haunting cybersecurity and enterprise software stocks. Are the concerns warranted or is it the price during these multiple that matters? I'll give you my take in the avoidance this pain in tech. And hey, by the way, we got rapid fire, of course, tonight's edition of the Lighting Round. So stay with Kramer. This has been a very good market for the defense contractors and the nuclear energy players. So what about a Company that's in both of these businesses. I'm talking about BW X Technologies, which makes nuclear reactors for submarines and aircraft carriers. Here's a stock that has more than tripled over the past three years, up 100% over the last 12 months, 15% since the beginning of 2026. The Pentagon's budget never stops growing and at the same time, their commercial nuclear business has been cleaning up after the close. Today, BW reported a terrific quarter, a top and bottom line beat with 95% sales growth from their commercial vision. We got to look into that even better. Management issued a very bullish full year for Forecast. Can this stock keep climbing? Let's check in with Rex Jefferson. He's the President and CEO of BW Technology. Mr. Jefferson, welcome to Man Money.

[D]

Thank you, Jim. Thanks for having me.

[B]

We're thrilled to have you, sir. You know, we just explained your terrific business and nuclear propulsion submarines, but it is your first time once I want to give you a chance to be able to talk about how you're positioned not just with defense, but also with commercial.

[D]

Sure. Thank you.

[B]

Yes.

[D]

You know, BW XT sits at the interesting intersection of national security, energy security, and, and certainly AI in the future. And we're sort of sitting at the center of that, of that Venn diagram. And we're extremely well competitively positioned in both of those markets. So we're, we've got a government operations business. It's about 70% of what we do, national nuclear security. And then about 30% of it is our commercial business, which is for commercial power reactors and the like. And we've got strong growth characteristics in both businesses and certainly good, really good competitive positioning.

[B]

Now, the commercial business, you saw 95% year over year revenue growth. What's happening that you can have that extraordinary growth?

[D]

Well, lots of different things are happening in commercial power. Certainly refurbishment projects are happening. We, we had some acquired growth in there. We bought a beautiful business called Connectrix. And so we're seeing growth in engineering services and growth in fuel refurbishment projects and then new builds. We're starting to get some, get some growth around those as well.

[B]

All right. So, Mr. Chairman, one thing I want to point out, there are a lot of nuclear companies that come on air and they've been in business for a couple of years. And I think that's terrific that people want to move into nuclear, but I don't think people understand your long background and what you guys have done, and maybe they don't understand the history of BW Technologies.

[D]

Can you tell us that, yeah, certainly can. So BW XT goes back to Babcock and Wilcox, which was formed in the middle 19th century. So we've got 170 years of industrial history there. And we've been doing nuclear force literally 70 years, starting with naval nuclear propulsion back in the 50s. And so we get a super long legacy. Now BW XD itself didn't become a separate public sep, a separately traded public company until 10 years ago. But even though we have that sort of old school industrial history, I think it's pretty interesting that in the ten year history we have as a public company, a separate public company, we've tripled literally the top line of the business and we've also tripled the bottom line of the business. So old school industrial company, but we're exhibiting I think high tech growth characteristics.

[B]

I think because of that history. You got a 30. We have the 30 year shipbuilding plan which is finalized in March of 2024. And you're very integral to that.

[D]

Yeah, we absolutely are. So BW XT are one of our primary line of business is that we make all the nuclear reactors for the nuclear navy. So for literally every submarine and aircraft carrier, Virginia class submarines, Columbia class submarines, Ford class aircraft carriers, we manufacture the fuel, we manufacture the reactor itself, the pressure vessels, the steam generators, pressurizers, control rod drive mechanisms, literally just about every bit of mechanical equipment in those compartments other than pumps and valves. And we're the only supplier to do that. So that 30 year shipbuilding plan, super meaningful to backlog visibility at BWXP.

[B]

Sure. That has to be appealing to the companies that are doing AI driven demand growth for data centers, correct?

[D]

Yeah, I think that's right. So you look at the characteristics of growth around BW xt, I've said they're kind of three layers to the cake. On the commercial side, certainly there's decarbonization, the desire for clean baseload power which nuclear will deliver. There's electrification of everything. Transportation industrial processes are moving from, you know, behind the meter to on the meter, so to speak. And then you've got a data center demand out there in the future. On the government side, it's a different set of growth drivers. Right. We've got recapitalization of the nuclear triad, reconstitution of what I'd call Cold War capabilities, and then sort of new domains of application for nuclear power and propulsion, for government missions. So there's really quite a, there's a, quite a demand that we see on both sides of the business.

[B]

And how about National Nuclear Security Administration. That enrichment contract.

[D]

Yeah. So that's what I was referred to in that second layer of growth in the government business. You know, we sort of laid down our arms in the, in the early 90s, 35 years ago and stopped doing things like enriching for, enriching for naval nuclear propulsion and making high purity depleted uranium. A lot of those uranium products we really just stopped making and now we're depleting those stockpiles and we have to do them again. So BWXT is a natural company to do that because we understand uranium processing and we have the licenses and regulatory relationships for it. So we won 3.3.13 billion in new contracts with the National Nuclear Security Administration in the third quarter to do both high purity depleted uranium and defense fuels.

[B]

Now where do you think we really are with nuclear in the country? I, I know that when I speak to GE Vernova who does nuclear, they're saying, look, we got to be realistic, Jim. It's really, if you want to build a new nuclear reactor, even a small module, you really shouldn't expect any success. If you broke ground now until 2031, 2032, is that do you think, too conservative?

[D]

I think that's about right. But, but that's, that's the, you know, that's the end point for a new plant. In the meantime, there's a lot of business to be had. I mean, we are right now manufacturing a micro reactor for the government that will deliver next year. That's generating revenues for us. In the case of ge, which you just mentioned, BWXT is making the reactor pressure vessel for that first reactor that's going into southern Ontario. We're manufacturing that, we've bought the forgings, we're doing the cladding and integrating that vessel right now. So for a company like us that makes pressure boundary components and is involved in long lead materials, the revenue shows up pretty early, actually.

[B]

Wow. Okay. I know we're trying to get up there. That's an extraordinary story and a hopeful one I think for our country, as I for Canada. But I really want us to have nuclear power. It's been my bias for a long time. I want to thank Rex Driven. He's the president CEO of BW Technologies. Rex was great to have you on the show. I hope you come back.

[D]

I'm so happy to be here. Thank you.

[B]

Thank you. Before we start the lightning round the, there's a special offer to join the CNBC investing club going on right now that I do not want you to Miss, get all my exclusive insights and market takes when you scan the QR code behind me or go to cnbc.comkramer club to join today. And now it is time. It's time for the lightning round. Crazy roundhouse on Sam. Stocks at a buy by buy sell soon of the course and have it done by Stanford's. We have plans to sound and then the lightning round is over. Are you ready? Ski dads on the light. Let's start with Terry in Washington. Jimmy from Seattle. Action alerts member. I want to thank you for letting me retire at the age of 57. Jimmy. God bless you, buddy. Thank you, thank you, thank you very much. I got a question regarding the data center, Jimmy. What's the best play I got? Vertive, do you think? No, Vernon's the best. I love Vertiv. That's of course the chairman of that is Dave Cody. It just had a very big jump so it might pull back because the market's gotten ugly. But just be aware, it's a very good company. Let's go to Dave in Illinois. Dave. Dr. Kramer. How are your and Lisa's recoveries coming, my good man? Mine is ahead of schedule. Schedule. Leases is behind schedule. Thank you for that. Great. Jim. This $16 billion company is a one stop shop for all things military ships including build, rebuild and overhaul. Jim, your thoughts on Huntington Ingalls? Huntington Ingalls has been a buy, Dave. It's been so right for a very long time. And you know what? It's going to continue to be right because it's not that expensive to stock. And you're absolutely right. It is the best thing we have when it comes to the Navy. Let's go to Bill in Texas. Bill. Booyah, Jim. Booyah. Proud club member, longtime listener here. Excellent. Thank you. Oh, thank you. Just wanted to see if it. Just wanted to see if it was time yet to maybe dip a speculative, speculative toe in the water on some super micro. No, I'll tell you the truth. I mean I would rather have you if you're going to do that by Dell. Although Dell is about to report on the 26th. But Supermicro is my no fly zone. I'm sorry. Let's go to Eddie in Virginia. Eddie. Hey, Jim. A.P. newport News. Booyah. Oh yeah, Booyah back. What's happening, Jim? I'm looking at a stock. No tire fears. No, no disruptions. Printing money like the Fed. Easy PW, little known name. What's your thoughts? Yeah, one stock that sells at 15 times earnings. It really is just a credit Company. I don't think there's anything wrong with that. I think it's a very good stock and it's a company. I looked, I have not had to use them but boy, I'll tell you it's. It's a well run company. How about that? Let's go to Sam in Pennsylvania. Sam, Jim, I hope everyone is safe there in New York digging off in the snowstorm. We got hit pretty hard here in Philadelphia. Just wanted to highlight that but I know, wow, what is quite a storm. Anyway, I'm calling day about an interesting company. Company is Rambus. They make memory interface solutions. Has not kept pace. It's not kept pace with the others. I think it could in that space. I do prefer Texas Instruments. I think that they are a better buy as is Analog Devices. Let's go to Brian in Pennsylvania. Brian. Jim, thanks for taking my call. Of course. What's up? Listen, I'm glad you're you're back even though I enjoy the curling. Thank you,

[D]

Jim.

[B]

I've owned Chevron since the early 2000s when it was they bought out Unocal. So my cost basis is really low. The stock has run up quite a bit recently. So I'm wondering if I should take some profits or do you think it's going to run up a little bit more? I think you can go up a lot. I think that chevron has the 3.85 yield. They've always been a big believer in that, in making that dividend big. Mike Wirth's doing really well. I would hold on to that. And that. Ladies jump a conclusion of the Lightning round.

[C]

The Lightning round is sponsored by Charles Schwab. Coming up is Anthropic's Claude AI really coming to bury every industry. Kramer's not sold. Abby's drawing his line in the sand next.

[B]

So guy stops and I'm checking in my hotel last night because the blizzard, all that shut down traffic in Manhattan. I recognize him. Executive bank, great friend. We shake and immediately like a complete lunatic, I say, you know what? Maybe there has to be a line drawn somewhere. I mean some line where we can't just say that's it, I'm not going there. I'm not going to say that such and such an American industry is going to be destroyed by Anthropic. You know when you get lost in thought but are actually talking to someone. I mean, I don't know, maybe you don't. Doesn't matter. I'm not bothering to read the room here. I just keep going. I mean like it's 2008 all over again. Except it's tech and private equity. A whisper, a short seller, a fearful person who just wants to get things rolling. That's what's happening now. It's happening, it's happening. They could take down anything. Then I had this brief moment of self awareness and reflection where I apologize for going into this ran out of nowhere. But of course I wasn't done. You see what's happening right now, don't you? Right now Anthropic, which just raised money and is working, doing an IPO later this year, can put out a press release about anything and anyone in that space is finished, done. Stick a fork in it. I think he may have nodded. I don't know. It really wasn't paying much attention. I kept going with the my log though. They put out a release about cybersecurity and how they can protect anything and that's it. That's the end of those stocks. Every software company so easily taken down they can't be owned anymore. I'm not playing that game. And then at that point I said I was sorry and I tell him I think I'm kind of lost in thought. He wisely made his mistake, his escape. He probably wished that had happened earlier. But even though I sound like a crazy person here, a total lunatic, this is where we are. I know Anthropic Claude will disrupt a bunch of different businesses, but not everything. Because some mission, some missions really are critical and require human touch. I know George Kurtz from CrowdStrike whose stock was pummeled by anthropic cybersecurity release for two straight days now. He put out a COGENT Retort on LinkedIn yesterday called did Claude just kill cybersecurity? Kurtz runs with one of my favorite bits. He asked Claude directly can Claude co build me a tool to replace CrowdStrike? The answer quote I appreciate the ambition George, but I have to be straightforward. Building a replacement for CrowdStrike isn't something I can do here and it wouldn't be responsible for me to suggest otherwise. End quote. Immediately I thought about the half dozen people who told me the exact opposite. Urged me to sell CrowdStrike as if it's some non proprietary hack software as a service business that merely analyzes your data makes the recommendations. George explains the distinction best quote Clog code security finds bugs in your source code before they are exploited. Pro proactive development stage security, end quote. Crowdstrike on the other hand detects in response to threats as they happen, very different missions. The CEO of CrowdStrike is not in denial about Claude strength. He goes on to say that, quote, AI is powerful, it's transformative, and it absolutely makes security better. But it doesn't eliminate the need for security. It increases it. End quote. Now, I don't expect everyone to read some CEOs LinkedIn post and change their minds. Short sellers have made a ton of money rumoring down software companies and they're not going to change their playbook for something as pedestrian as the fundamentals. But let me just say the issue here isn't what Claude can or can't do. Claude won't even try to do what CrowdStrike does. They're not trying to replace the cybersecurity industry. They're trying to sell tools to the cybersecurity industry. The real problem is that Claude's very existence does attack enterprise software. Most of the people who trade the enterprise software stocks have no idea what these companies really do. They're just traders. They all claim to be mission critical, they all claim to save you money, they all have something called annual recurring revenue, and they're all expensive. Those stocks are all way too easy to take down because the price earnings multiples are still much higher than the average stock. Maybe they no longer deserve the premium. That's what's going on. I don't want to be part of the takedown. I want to draw a line in the sand. Of course, who the heck am I to do anything? Well, maybe I'm a guy who didn't try to rumor down every bank in the 2008. Maybe I didn't want to say gold was worthless because of crypto or that Quantum would destroy every form of computing. And now I'm a guy who says that I won't destroy the cybersecurity business, even if it puts a lot of pressure on most enterprise software stocks and causes me to act like a crazy person because I just don't want to rumor down good companies that will thrive but with lower stock prices. I like to say this always bull markets are my problem. Just for you right here, man Money. I'm Jim Grammer. I'll see you tomorrow.

[A]

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. 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 and it should not be relied upon as such. To view the full Mad Money disclaimer, please visit cnbc.com madmoneydisclaimer for adults with Crohn's disease or ulcerative colitis symptoms, every choice matters. Tremphya offers self injection or intravenous infusion from the start. Tremphya is administered as injections under the skin or infusions through a vein every four weeks, followed by injections under the skin every four or eight weeks. If your doctor decides that you can self inject Tremphya, proper training is required. Tremphya is a prescription medicine used to treat adults with moderately to severely active Crohn's disease and adults with moderately to severely active ulcerative colitis. Serious allergic reactions and increased risk of infections and liver problems may occur. Before treatment, your doctor should check you for infections and tuberculosis. Tell your doctor if you you have an infection, flu like symptoms or if you need a vaccine. Explore what's possible. Ask your doctor about Tremphaya today. Call 1-800-526-7736 to learn more or visit tremphyaradio.com.