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Jim Cramer (0:55)
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 Mad Money. Welcome to Kramerica. Other people make friends. I'm just trying to save you a little bit of money here. My job is not just to entertain on a day like today, but really just doing a lot of teaching. So call me at 1-800-743, CBC maybe tweet me at Jim Cramer. Look, it was another miserable week. Four weeks since the war started and it's been pretty darn awful. Sadly for the bulls, the history of oil shocks is littered with bear markets. 20% drawdowns to say raise cash because it's almost never too late to sell something to protect yourself. Today was more of the same. Dow telling 7-90s and P plunging 1.67%. Nasdaq plummeting 2.15%. It's a tough rough road. My trust is the highest cash position I can recall. But you know what? It is never enough. When you have horrendous action like this, it's almost impossible to predict what will happen in the war with Iran. We got to stop trying to do that right now. The one thing that's been consistently right is to buy oil stocks. Every time, every time they're down, every time they're up. It just doesn't matter. Because crude is headed higher, that means stocks are headed lower. It's one for one. Please don't overthink it. I say that on letter X all the time. Hey, oil's down. Stocks will be down and they are. And it was another week when it paid to get out of anything in tech that used to be good. The stocks companies are still good, but not the stocks. They're all bad now, including the once loved, now disliked Nvidia. Just when we get to it showed you its best in show greatness at gtc. I'm only, I'm not trading it, but I know it's going lower. I mean people want, they want oil stocks. They do to my. They don't mind the soda stocks, Eddie. Pharma stock. And I got to tell you, they like the oil drillers. I mean that's really it tech nothing, especially in video, especially the really despised Microsoft. These are two of the greatest performers of all time and they haven't been able to what we call catch bid and what feels like ages until oil and interest rates, don't forget those stop going higher. It really doesn't matter what those companies say or do. They are not going to get love from institutions and individuals and I think they're beginning to realize that. So is there any hope near term? I mean, maybe there is what we got to do. We got to go to the game plan for next week to figure this one out. Now these days, Mondays revolve entirely around the war and ratcheting up intention. We know our president said there would be an extension of a bombing pause, but there's still hostilities, which to me means that oil goes higher. And when oil goes higher, we know that the stock market goes lower. I keep repeating that because I want people to be really understanding of what's driving the market down. It's got an axiomatic and I don't think it can change because the Strait of Hormuz is still closed and Iran's missile and drone infrastructure is intact enough to keep it closed. Even as we thought that wouldn't be the case by now. Worse, when the president pushed out his bombing deadline, something that would have one time move stocks up and it meant nothing. Why? Because oil still went higher. And nothing is more destructive for equities than higher oil prices demonstrated again and again in history. Tuesday is a day of challenged companies first, McCormick reports. And this spice stock has become very tough to own. The flavor company, as they call themselves, is said to be in talks to merge with Unilever's food business, which includes Hellman's mayo, Coleman's mustard and newer soups. If they do the deal, the combined company will own some big chunks of multiple supermarket aisles. But the food stocks have been quite Simply awful. Including McCormick with a stock that's down 22% for the year. There's only one way out of this jam, though. They've got to merge and cut costs. I think that we will like a new McCormick if they do merge, which can slot their brands through its own delivery methods and save fortunes. I love the combo. I hope it works out. I hope they announce it after the close. We have the most controversial stock of the week. Nike. Now we own this stock for the child trust and we're nervous. And that's exactly what I said in today's monthly CNBC investing call. There's no line of sight for Nike to return to greatness. At least not yet. China has proven to be intractable. The competition has become fevered. And the inventory from the old regime somehow still seems to be dogging the company. It needs to be gotten rid of. If there's still some left, I will be very disappointed. Meanwhile, we need to be see some innovation or some new products that we're stunned by that we can't live without. Essentially, we. We need green shoots of return in the US that are at least strong enough to make us feel like we're dealing with the Nike of old. Back when the stock was a winner. Now it's a loser and it's hurting my charitable trust. Enough said. We've got some important macro numbers next week. We've got this Jolts number. That's actually it. It's. It's. It's an acronym. It's for job openings and labor turnover. Jolts and Wednesday we get retail sales, both very important. We've seen interest rates creeping up late in sync with the inflation caused by the war. The incoming Fed chief, Kevin Marsh, wants to cut rates, but he needs to see more job losses to have something in his quiver besides bad housing numbers. Jolts could show us some layoffs. He also needs to see retail sales get weaker. They've been way too strong to justify cuts. I know we don't want any of this stuff that I just mentioned to happen, but we need rates down badly in this country, if only because that would give us of a housing market. We got the worst in 40 years. And look, we need stocks to at least stop falling off a cliff. Right now the only reason seems to be if you believe there'll be a quick war and a decisive win by the US that's how it would come back. It would help to have something else go the bull's way, like lower interest rates. I think Wash has a reason to cut so much of what's related to housing construction is slowing down rather quickly. Take the only sizable company that reports this on Thursday, Acuity Brands. This is a very important commercial lighting company. Look, you have to light a yet the light of business and it is really the best and show what it does. $8 billion company whose shares now trades be premium multiple stock at less than 14 times earnings down over 25% for the year. This is a consistent grower that price earnings multiple suggested there's very little hope for acceleration in construction and construction truly matters a lot of people involved in that industry bad tell Wednesday brings another report from another food stock that is hurting and that is ConAgra. Now here's the stock that typifies what's been happening to the whole group. An endless multiple shrinkage where the market pays less and less for pretty much the same boring earnings. Conagra yields 9% that is historically an unsustainable level. The company has stood by the dividend and talks positively about its frozen foods and its protein supply specialties. But the stock says the portfolio as much as it's curated by the company is simply not delivering what the market wants. And that's how you have to view it. It's not personal. Finally we have the employment report on Friday. And by the way, it's a day where the stock markets close for Good Friday. That's probably good news that it's closed again. We need a weaker set of numbers and no increases in wages in order for wash to justify cutting rates to the rest of the committee. You're going to hear me talk about rate cuts and oil increase because those two are what's in play. Incredible as it seems with all this turmoil in the beckoning of a bear market, we have plenty of people saying that the Fed chief should call for a rate hike. What are they kidding me? The vast majority of the inflation system comes from the supply shock that emanates out of the Gulf. We didn't know how intertwined we were with those countries until now. And we are learning that is a very strong suboptimal situation. Right now we have as much pessimism about stocks as we did when the COVID pandemic swept through us. The hatred for tech I find is extraordinary. Stocks like matter, Microsoft and yes, even Nvidia are being sold as if they're about to collapse. It's a wholesale slaughter and I can't tell you when it's little. And even as I'm telling you that the companies themselves are doing great. So what you're hearing Me say is not yet. But the bottom line, I have to say these declines aren't just about tech. They're about what you get when you have both inflation and higher interest rates. And the inflation is coming from oil. I think the market could continue to go down to the war is over and commodities can decline to where they were before it started and probably not before then, which is why it is such a tough time. Let's go to Tom in Kansas, please.