Transcript
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Jim Cramer (1:04)
My mission is simple to make you money. I'm here to level the playing field for all investors. There's always a mo market somewhere and I promise to help you find it. Mad Money starts now. Hey, I'm Kramer. Welcome to a special Las Vegas edition of Mad Money. Welcome to Cramerica. I make friends. I'm just trying to make a little money. My job is not just to teach, but to also Entertain. So call me 170cbc tweet me Jim Cramer after an okay day where President Trump indicated that he might be willing to be flexible in the tariffs day with the dow ultimately gained 32 points, S&P advanced 0.08% and the Nasdaq rose 0.52% after a hideous opening that made little sense. How do we handle this crazy environment? One way is to get out of the office as we did this week and talk to real business people like we did at yesterday's Home Depot manager meeting or today's reporting in Las Vegas. Hence why we're at the Wynn Resorts Delilah Restaurant to talk to the top brass at this deluxe hotel. Look, looking forward to next week for a game plan. I'm focused on the unrelenting negativity and how it's bringing about real but ignored values. Ignore it because it's very hard to buy stocks ahead of the tariffs and a Fed that's no longer willing to help by cutting interest rates. At least for the moment. Look, the bargains are out there, but no one dares to take them because the analyst hedge fund journal complex has created endless fear by emphasizing we are in a stag inflation moment. Even as I'm not buying it, not one bit. The glass is half full here or maybe more and the tariffs will soon come to pass and then they'll be behind us. You can see that stocks want to go higher. If we get just a little bit of a reason to be more positive about the looming April 2nd wave of tariffs, stocks about it doesn't have to be much. I mean, today during the midday press appearance from the Oval Office, President Trump signaled some flexibility on tariffs, saying, quote, the word flexibility is important word, right? He used it sometimes it's flexibility so there'll be flexibility, but basically it's reciprocal boom that honestly didn't provide all that much more clarity. But markets seem to like the word flexibility. I like it too. After all, the major averages were decidedly negative this morning, all then finish in positive territory, proving once again that there is too much glue. This morning. Investors are obsessing over the negative earnings updates that we got from the likes of Nike, FedEx, figuring that the former was yet another argument that the consumer is rolling over, while the guidance cut from the latter showed that, well, commerce in general is slowing down. The negativity even extended companies with reports that I thought were very positive, such as chipmaker Micron. When Micron reported last night at the close its shares initially climbed nearly 7% in after hours trading. But overnight investors decided that, well, in fact they hated the quarter and the stock was well in the red before the opening bell. Thankfully though, we got no additional reasons to be negative during the trading session and that word flexibility gave us a glimmer of hope. Encouragingly, we didn't even see the late Friday selling has become an unwelcome staple of the second Trump era. Investors have been booking profits due to the fear of weekend to social posts that could roil the market. But today stocks actually rallied into the close to preserve the modest gains of the day. So now let's look at next week's game plan with an eye toward what's bad. So we're ready. Take KB Homes, who supports on Monday after the close, the homebuilders inflation issues as mortgage issues, right. Rates are too high. The stock's down from just under 90 to around 60. So you could say those are now baked into the stock price. But some investors thought the same way about Lennar, another national homebuilder that reported an upside surprise in earnings but talked about how housing prices are going down, albeit slowly, but that was certainly enough to kill that stock. So I don't see a bottom KB Home, especially when it's trading at 42 in the fall of 2023. The stocks had a relentless run. Time to bide your time. Wait for a better moment. For the record, if you insist on owning a home bidder, do you mind if you just go with Toll Brothers? I think that's best to read. Lenore did shake off more than half its losses by days and closing at 115. That's only down 5. I saw at one point down 12. Lurking behind all the negativity here is the likelihood, yes of a recession. Recession aided by stagflation. Now if you think that's in the cards, if you think we have recession, you should really consider buying McCormick which reports Tuesday this spice company has been putting up big numbers but even better you buy their seasons when the economy rolls over because during recession people do less dining out, more cooking at home. Very positive from McCormick which dominates the spice and seasoning isles after closing it from Gamestop. Now this stock has been a propensity to go up both before and during the earnings report and then it just starts to lag because nothing ever really happens. Maybe they'll announce some plan to lever up and buy some bitcoin in the end you can't Game, game stop. Wall street used to love the dollar stores because unlike most retailers, they kept putting up stores generating good growth. They went in the neighborhoods other retailers steer clear of carrying what looked like inexpensive merchandise. Well that changed during the pandemic. They raised their prices and raised them and raised them in order to pass on the value proposition. And it's never been the same, right? There is no value proposition these days. The reduced sizes often give you the appearance of value, but people know when they're getting had. That's why I'd stay away from Dollar Tree. This thing does not represent the kind of value that we want or that I used to get when we used to go there all the time. By the way, even Wal Mart struggling. So when Dollar Tree reports Wednesday, I'm not thinking it's going to be great. We got a pair of small business oriented companies that also port Wednesday Cintas and Paychex. Cintas French Uniforms provides many other services small medium sized businesses. Last time reported the market didn't like it and this stock got drilled. I'm worried about small business formation right now and therefore I have to worry about a company like Cintos that sells uniforms and then takes care of them. As for paychecks, this payroll processor is a lot of bearish analysts covering it. And I got to tell you something, they got smoked in that last quarter. Just smoked by the great numbers paychecks. I think it's going to continue to do well. Be sure to pay attention to Chewy when it reports on Wednesday morning. This online pet food store has been going strong now for the last two quarters ever since they called the bottom of mad money. They're crushing. Thursday we're going to hear from Lululemon and oh man, this is a battleground. I mean just incredible. Lots of short sellers betting that Lulu won't sell enough because of its high price point. I think this is a remarkable company that makes me want to buy the stock on any weakness. We also have an investor day event for Dutch Bros. I like the Bros. I like the BRO CEO Christine Barone. But man oh man, this one expensive stock regional national natural growth story for the coffee chain is still very much in place, which means Josh Pros can be bought on weakness. We get pending home sales on Thursday and we're trying to assess whether there really is a huge slowdown in housing instead of just some anecdotal negatives by one company or another. Numbers can help spell it out. Desperate for something good that the Fed cares about. We also get the personal consumption expenditure numbers on Thursday and this is their favorite inflation indicator. Unfortunately hasn't been a good one. Sentiment turns to be Seems to be turning south. I don't know. I feel I know about you because of these geopolitical worries. But we lack hard and fast data that confirms this new worldview. And that's why I'm grateful for the University of Michigan consumer sentiment index on Friday. If it's real negative, it will confirm the action we've seen in the last couple of weeks. So here's the bottom line. There's a lot going on next week, but until we get some resolution on the trade front, you need to expect more uncertainty, more volatility like we saw today. There's just too much negativity and for the moment it seems impossible to fight it. Although when it gets extreme for no reason, as it did this morning, you still have to pounce, if only for a trade. Jonathan in California. Jonathan.