Transcript
Bank of America Representative (0:00)
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Jim Cramer (1:03)
My mission is simple. To make you money. I'm here to level the playing field for all investors. There's always a bull market somewhere, and I promise to help you find it. Mad Money starts now. Hey, I'm Kramer. Welcome to MAV Money. Welcome to Cramerica. Other people make tens. I'm just trying to make you some money. My job is not just entertain, but to educate, to teach. You get through these tough days like today, okay? That's what we got to do. So call me or tweet me, I don't care. But today we had a monthly call for the CNBC Investing Club in the middle of the stock market. In the middle of it, I sensed a positive move. I wanted to get excited. But you know what I had to do? Had to hold my breath. Because when this market's getting a head of steam going, you know what you can bet on? The President will post something rancorous, dispiriting and confusing. And the market will immediately get put through the meat grinders. Wouldn't you know it? That's precisely what happened. And it set off a firestorm of selling that burned through the rest of the session. Dow ultimately tumbling 537 points, S&P plunging 1.39%. Nasdaq plummeting 1.96%. And you know what? It can all be traced to a gratuitous message on his social media platform that said that April 2 tariffs are going to go on. Not that anyone thought they wouldn't. Now, if you didn't know any better, you'd think that the President saw the market starting to make a comeback, decided nibbit. But this really is the Walmart White House. They never stop trying to give us everyday lower prices. Except it's our 401ks and our IRAs that are going lower. But I think President Trump doesn't understand right now is just how easy it is to send this market down. It's become ridiculously fragile over the trade issue and there's always something that goes wrong, especially when you have a president who regularly gives us new negatives because he's mad as hell he can't take it anymore. I sit here and wonder why the President does it. I dispute what some tell me, which is that he wants the market to go down quickly rather than more slowly, more measured. But the quick and noisy retribution to the action of our thoughtless trade associates takes us by surprise. And the uncertainty is crushing us. How else can he suddenly and explicitly post that he's going to put on 200% tariffs on all wine and champagne and alcohol products coming out of France and other areas of Europe? And that's in all caps? Sure, it'd be better for Napa and Forest park than whites. If you slap a 200% tariff on real champagne, they're going to triple the shell price. Did the White House know that? I'm not sure. Funny thing. Beneath my gnarly vinyl exterior, underneath all the dollar signs that surround my vital organs, is an actual positive spirit. So I got an idea to counteract my negativity, not yours. I say we do something. I say we take a look and think about what would happen if President Trump were positive, a positive person with a positive attitude. What if he put his sense of humor to work in a constructive way, to remind us that it's not all pain, the house of pain. What would he be posting? And it would all be realistic. It'd all be good. What would he be posting? Let's change the dialogue. Let's make it so. It's got the added value of being true, but it's got a different tone to it. And you know what? On this given day, this miserable day where you lost a lot of money, I can tell you that President Trump, hate him or love him, would post something like this. First post. Hey, don't be glum, chum Chen. Dollar General just put up some good numbers. A lot of stores. Inflation fighter. I think he's back and bigger than ever. And it's ignited dollar tree too. You ought to take a look at both these. If they could actually keep prices down and make portions bigger, they could give Wal Mart a run for the money. Maybe it's a buy. Bye. Bye. There, see? Nice and positive. All right, so come on. A little hyperbolic and little facetious, but you get what I mean. How about this one? Quote? The last guys who were doing my job gave this Intel a lot of money. And boy, was I angry. I'm still steamed about it, but I see they picked this guy Lip Bhutan as CEO. I'm here in his dynamite. Intel's a national treasurer. This could be great news caps. Then how about something positive about the worst performing stock in the market? So many sellers at Adobe today. I got a tutorial on this Firefly that does their AI and I think it's super. You can do anything with it. Why are people giving up on Chattanoo? He. He's allowed more people to be creative than anyone on earth. Maybe we just have to look at it differently. Might want to do something like this. How about that Southwest Air? I was getting worried about that team. But come back. Who knew charging for bags would make such a difference? And then a simple one. I hear Nvidia's got this Woodstock of. I can't wait to hear that Jensen keynote. He's a cool guy. I hear he's a good cook. To Renaissance man. Final stock, they are shell Mark Zuckerberg today. I think Met has beaten the Chinese, crushing them at their own game. Gts, which means good to see. All right, now he's not going to tweet about it. Sorry. Post about individual stocks, but you get my trip, right? I mean, look, he could post something like this and this would be, I think, something that would have been very reasonable. What the heck's wrong with the stock market? Didn't you see that CPI yesterday? How about that PPI today? These are amazing numbers. We have growth without inflation. Or how about this one? I hear people are cutting back. They are scared and they're worried. I have to get these tariffs on because we are being abused by everyone. Just turn to my webpage. You can see all the tariffs that they're forcing us to pay. If you have a better way to get these trade barriers down, tell our team we'll refine it and put your name on it as it is. I'm surprised Trump doesn't post. This is the first 10% correction in two years. Told you there'd be a lot of pain. What a terrible streak for Apple, they're killing that one doesn't seem right long term. We all use their phones. Look, I'm not trying to get some Pollyanna thing going. I don't want to sugarcoat it. And the stock market's bad 10% correction. First wonder why trillions lost. But if the White House only talks about the bad and not the good, that is business, not the good that business does for our country, not the good that we should be proud of, then it's a distortion on his part. That's right. That's wrong. In the end, the President's no pain, no gain attitude simply is not working. He periodically we're going to have some down markets, sell offs, corrections, bear markets. Look, they're fine because maybe sometimes they're deserving. We're going to see some stocks sink, even favorites like Apple because they might have trouble making a quarter. I'm not saying that Trump has to link his performance the stock market at all. That's a mistake. I am saying that he could afford to be a little more constructive. Constructive is good. Notice I didn't say positive. Said constructive. Something uplifting that is the added advantage of being true is great. He's going to create his own spiral down otherwise. Now, if he's doing the tariffs to help solve the budget deficit, I don't know how about some more reasons because that may not happen. If he's doing it to get companies to do more manufacturing in America, then he needs to explain that it is going to take years for this to play out. And in the interim, we've got some good things happening here too. There are plenty of ways to be negative. There are fewer ways to be positive. I want to accentuate the positive because when you're the President of the United States, you can create a negative mood that actually hurts the entire country, even if it's not intentional. Call it the Jimmy Carter syndrome. For those of us who are old enough to know. Is it ridiculous to note the comeback in cvs? I don't know. Is it silly to congratulate Costco from strong same store sales number may be too granular. What matters though, is that both the President and the Treasury Secretary seem hell bent on making us feel bad on saying that the tariffs will cause real pain. People don't understand what that means. They don't even know what a tariff is in a lot of time it is hard to understand it's not necessary to do this, nor will they highlight anything good that's going on here. Makes people feel like everything's terrible, which Isn't true the White House can't control the entire economy, but they can't control the message. Maybe they shouldn't celebrate firing people or brandish a chainsaw like Elon Musk did. Instead, they should quietly go about getting other countries to do better trading partners. Be more honest with us, be less punitive to us and lay off people without fanfare. Even if you think they shouldn't be laying them off at all. So here's the bottom line. Every day there is something to celebrate in the business world because the business world is fantastic. We'd be in much better shape if the administration would highlight that. Believe me, the bad doesn't need your help. It'll get the word out all by itself. Paul in Massachusetts.