Caller (10:17)

Todd, hello Mr. Kramer. Thank you. And Sean from your team for all the great work.

Jim Cramer (10:23)

They're great. Our team is good. Congratulations. Ben Stodo. I'm going out to see him get married. Works on the show. He's the research director. He's a dynamite guy. And I like the fiance too. I know I kind of introduced them each other in a peripheral way. What's happening?

Caller (10:38)

I had called in a couple weeks ago to ask you about some healthcare stocks that had gone down so much due to policy uncertainty and federal investigations. At the time you had said, wait after, until after they reported. And now that they've all reported, and as the company with the least exposure to Medicare Advantage of all the managed health care stocks, what do you feel about Cigna?

Jim Cramer (10:58)

I'm going to take a big, big monster pass on Cigna and suggest that you pull down some cvs. Yes, because I think the old consumer value stores, by the way, I think CVS is crushing it. And I think this guy, David Joyner, you know, Mikasa Sukasa, David Joyner. What does that really mean? That sounds good. Okay, now listen, if you trust what Jensen is saying and I don't know why you shouldn' Then you should own Nvidia, not trade it because I still think it can make you a lot of money. All my money tonight. CrowdStrike soared today after the street changes due to the cybersecurity leaders from last night when they Bozo sold it down because they didn't know what. I don't know why they sold it down. I don't know. I mean, they went to college to get stupid, that's why. All right, I'm sitting down with the company's CEO to see how the company's positioning itself for the second half. Then Axon is giving up more most of the gains after reporting another solid quarter this month. Maybe it's setting up for real buying opportunity. I got the company's best and Gap is trading lower for the Bell. What's that about? Hey, maybe tariffs. I don't know. We'll get to the bottom of it no matter what. So I need you to stick stick with Kramer.

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Jim Cramer (12:34)

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Jim Cramer (14:51)

The market often gets things wrong during earnings season, but sometimes it self corrects pretty quickly. Take CrowdStrike, the cybersecurity play that we own for the Chapel Trust. Last night, CrowdStrike reported what I thought was a very good set of numbers. Aside from a slightly soft revenue outlook for the current quarter, everything else was terrific. Yet the stock plunged in after hours trading to the point where we told members of the CNBC investigate buy. Didn't even wait, just buy. Sure enough, after opening down hard this morning, CrowdStrike came roaring back, finishing the session up more than 4%. It was the fifth best performer in the entire S and P. So can you keep climbing? Let's take a close up with George Kurtz, the founder and CEO of CrowdStrike, to learn more. Welcome back to Mad Money.

George Kurtz (15:28)

Great to be here Jim.

Jim Cramer (15:30)

George, I was pondering about what really happened last night and I'm thinking that something you taught me was that you need to look at the at the annual recurring revenue. That's the best indicator of what's going to happen. I now learned that not only should I look at that, I should also be looking at new new annual recurring revenue. And can you explain to people why that was the key metric and those who sold may maybe didn't understand what the importance of that was? New net annual recurring revenue yeah, well.

George Kurtz (15:55)

The health of the business is really judged by annual recurring revenue and net new annual recurring revenue which exceeded expectations by many multiple of millions. So this is the first quarter since our outage that we've accelerated. Now net new air are a quarter before we actually said we were going to do that. So an incredible performance by the business and I think when you look at ARR, that's a forward looking indicator of what's happening in the health of the business revenue is a rearward looking indicator and there's some customer commitment packages and, and partner rebates that impacted revenue and impacted the revenue guide, if you will. And you have to understand the accounting of that that operates as a contra to your revenue, meaning it's a deduction. So those are temporary in nature. And what you need to look at is annual recurring revenue. And one of the things that we actually put out very prescriptively our CFO did was that in the back half of the year, for the next two quarters, we're looking at 40% growth in annual recurring revenue, which is an incredible feat in stats. So we're confident on that and put that out there.

Jim Cramer (17:01)

Yeah, I mean even the most bullish are looking for 35%. Nothing I thought of is, is that when you did the customer commitments, you did a lot of them that are going to roll off that you did them in the next month. So I mean the idea that we could see multiple win after multiple win after multiple win from things that you actually, I'm going to say gave away because you wanted to keep your customers happy, it turned out to be, it was by far the best policy is the way I look at it.

George Kurtz (17:26)

Absolutely right. You know, Jim, working with customers and even partners, I think we were very strategic, smart and did the right thing. And ultimately it's going to be a win win for all parties. We have customers that are now using our technology. Yes, we gave it to them, but those, those customer commitment packages begin to roll off in Q3, Q4, and then subside, you know, in the following quarters. So the whole idea though is when people use our technology, it solves real world problems. It's sticky. And in general, if someone is using our technology, we have a 95% chance they're going to renew it and, and move forward. So we feel confident about that. And I think that also bolsters our outlook for the second half of the year.

Jim Cramer (18:10)

Okay. I do want to, I always like to learn from you, George. And you made this, this point and I really got to understand and I want our viewers to understand IT technologies mature very quickly. You said, what does that mean for those who fail to innovate?

George Kurtz (18:25)

Well, you have to innovate. If you look at where we are today, and I've said this a few times, so it might be repeating myself, but security parallels the slope of the technology curve, meaning the more complex technology gets, you have to have security follow that. So in general, if we believe, and I do, that technology is going to be more complex in the future and you're going to have more AI then by necessity, you're going to have more security. And you have to, you have to be able to be on the forefront of that and drive innovation. And that's what we've done with our integrated Falcon platform. It's integrated, it works, it solves real world problems of stopping breaches, driving down cost and lowers complexities for customers, which is why you see such an increase in things like our Falcon Flex licensing model.

Jim Cramer (19:08)

Now we're going to. But you have a big conference coming up in less than a month. New products can be available. There are talk about things that you've done right or that you're going to do right. What do you got?

George Kurtz (19:17)

Well, I'm excited about the announcements. You know, we've got to leave a little bit to the, to the imagination until we get to that day. We don't want to spoil any surprises, but we've been driving innovation in this industry since I started the company. Customers provide the feedback that we need, we're delivering and I think stay tuned because there's going to be more really interesting announcements in mid September.

Jim Cramer (19:42)

Well, how about this announcement last night about ONAM autonomous intelligence at the data source? You kind of slipped it in there, but it's a big deal.

George Kurtz (19:49)

It is a big deal. It's a very strategic deal. And Jim, one of the things that I talked about in the conference call was our next gen SIEM business, right. And that data is the lifeblood of a security platform. And we're in the throes of this agentic SOC transformation which we're really pioneering. So when we think about onam, it's a pipelining technology. The simplest analogy I can give you is if you own the railroad, you can move the data from one place to another. This is equivalent to owning the railroad. We can get the data from wherever it is into our Falcon platform and we can drive down the cost for customers and we can make SIM transformations and faster and easier, which means we're going to take customers off legacy products and put them on our next gen SIM, which we put out a stat grew 95% year over year. So very strategic. And if you own the pipeline, you're going to own the SIM market. And this is why this acquisition folks may not know much about it, but it's going to be very strategic for us in this.

Jim Cramer (20:48)

George, I felt at some point when I was going through the conference call and then listening to you and then looking some of the notes, I said, you know what, maybe George is doing something much bigger than any of us realize. Maybe when you want to, to start a new company, maybe you call them and say, listen, I want to build it on a CrowdStrike platform. Would anyone do that?

George Kurtz (21:06)

You know, Jim, it's actually thing we're doing that today. We have something called the, the CrowdStrike Falcon Store and it's a marketplace. And essentially what we've done is we allow not only customers but partners to build their own apps on the platform. It's called Falcon Foundry. And a true mark of a platform is that you can actually build upon it. Think Salesforce, you can build upon it. Think some of these other platforms. And that always my goal when I started CrowdStrike to be that salesforce of security. So we have partners that are building using our agent as a service and taking advantage of the broad distribution that we have. And that's a monetization area that we've yet to tap.

Jim Cramer (21:43)

Right. Last question for me is are we, have we had any agent? It's been hacked. I mean, is it, are there some, some agents that are doing things that you just never thought would happen and companies realize we got to slow down here, we got to bring CrowdStrike.

George Kurtz (21:57)

Well, absolutely. If you think about an agent, it's just a superhuman, right? It has access to data, it has an identity, it has access to workflows, it has access to systems outside the corporate network and those need to be protected and they need to be inspected and tend to have the right level of compliance. When we think about AI security, something called prompt injection, which means you ask questions in a certain way and the model gives you answers that it shouldn't be giving you. In fact, there was a recent one in the Microsoft environment where if you were, if you received an email, copilot would actually give you answers back that it wasn't designed to give you that since been fixed. But those are the kind of attacks that we've seen out there. So we're in the early innings of that. I think we're in the perfect poll position to be able to secure all of those AI agents in the future.

Jim Cramer (22:44)

Well, I have to tell you, I think that you've been very transparent the whole way that this could happen over and over again. You've come on and said, said we're going to get it. The only thing that happened was that it was accelerated and it was much bigger than we thought. I want to thank you, George Kurtz, founder and CEO of CrowdStrike. Hey, what can I say? Congratulations on a quarter that sent the stock down 30 and then set it up 60. But it should never have gone down to begin with. Thank you, George.

George Kurtz (23:06)

Thank you, Jeff.

Jim Cramer (23:07)

Everybody's back after the break.

Show Announcer (23:10)

Coming up, could this provider of law enforcement tech give a jolt of energy to your portfolio? Kramer's got the the CEO of Axon Next.

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Jim Cramer (24:25)

Let'S talk about the incredible run Axon Enterprise. That's a company formerly known as Taser but now so much more than that. Especially for instance Body Cam after the police evidence management software which is something we talk about tonight. Over time Axon steadily worked its way higher with the stock now up. I'm not a typo. 830% over the past five years because it just keep delivering great numbers. We saw the same thing over this month when the company reported another terrific top and bottom line beat driven by strong demand for the new products with management also raising their full year forecast in response. The stock jumped over 16% the next day. But you know it's getting back a chunk of that. Hey, maybe this could be the big buying opportunity. Let's check with Rick Smith. He's the founder and CEO of Axon Enterprises. Always shared everything with us. Mr. Smith, welcome back to Man Bunny.

Rick Smith (25:09)

Hey Jim, it's awesome to be with you.

Jim Cramer (25:10)

Thank you Rick. Rick, I'm on the call right? And I hear that you have just closed almost $150 million of bookings from the AI Year Plan and that you are doing bookings growth in the high 30% range. That is the highest I have of any company. How do you keep doing it?

Rick Smith (25:29)

Like our team just keeps delivering fantastic products. You know we acquired Drone. We're in the counter drone space now as well. Our, our platform services, which is basically VR and counter drone is up 86%. Our AI bookings are growing at like a 500% clip. And I want to be specific that we booked about 100 million last year and we booked almost 150 million last quarter. So we're just seeing growth across the entire ecosystem.

Jim Cramer (25:58)

You know, I was thinking about you when I read an article about anti drone back in August 4th and I said, geez, you know, I would think that the Defense Department would be there. You can correct me, I'm wrong. But you may be ahead of the Defense Department when it comes to counter, countering UAVs. Can you tell us what happened in Ukraine? What you learned of what you taught?

Rick Smith (26:21)

Yeah, I mean Ukraine is just an incredible. The entire country is a startup that's fighting for its survival. And you know, I went there personally a few weeks ago to check in. We have hundreds of counter drone sensors across the country. I met with many of the tech leaders across, you know, maybe companies there. And you know, we're learning a lot. I think the world is, you know, we saw the Ukrainians destroy a sizable percentage of Russia's strategic bomber fleet with thousand dollar drones. So yeah, everybody around the world is very interested in counter drone, not just militaries. Like if you operate a power plant or you're protecting executives home, I mean literally anything of value is now subject to drone risks. We just saw police in Colombia I think this week lost a Blackhawk helicopter to a small FPV drone. So it is, it's a really important space and we are one of the world market leaders now.

Jim Cramer (27:14)

Is it something I should be focused on? In addition to the body cam, in addition the AI that saves so much time and money, I kind of feel like that Axon has become this conglomerate it of defense and offense and I got to follow every part of it.

Rick Smith (27:28)

Yeah, I mean it's a lot to wrap your head around. But we're not like, you know, we're not doing disconnected businesses. Every piece of the puzzle we get into has got to become more valuable as part of the ecosystem. And that's, you know, it's pretty magical that when things, when we launch new products, they're just way more valuable because it works with everything else. So if you're a police running a real time crime center and you want to be able to see cameras in a school where God forbid something terrible would happen. From that same platform we can now show you drone activity and Integrate feeds, you know, across all the different pieces from our ecosystem.

Jim Cramer (28:02)

Well, I also felt that we are seeing the President of the United States wanting to step up law enforcement in cities. And I understand that, but he's putting people safe in the National Guard. And now they may not be as schooled as police, but boy, I'll tell you, they need these body cams. They're going to be accused of a lot of things that they might not have done. Can you help us?

Rick Smith (28:23)

Oh, for sure. Although I have to tell you, there's one thing that is a little frustrating. The guy who invented the Taser way back in the 1960s did it because. Related to the National Guard firing live ammunition on college campuses during the Vietnam War.

Jim Cramer (28:38)

Because of Kent State. Did it because of Kent State.

Rick Smith (28:40)

Yeah, yeah. That was one of the. That was one of the driving factors that led to the original Taser creation. And unfortunately, today, when the National Guard is deploying in cities and they still don't have Taser weapons, folks that don't. So that's. Yeah, it puts them in a bad position. Look, if you're in the National Guard, the last thing you want to do is use one of your lethal weapons on an American citizen. So we're trying to work through, to get. To make sure that when we're deploying military units in the cities. Right. They just, they gotta have the right equipment.

Jim Cramer (29:09)

Thank you. Thank you for doing that. Because the whole country changed after Kent State and the country just was divided. There's no need. We cannot have that happen again. How about in Europe? Where are they with your stuff?

Rick Smith (29:20)

We are extensively growing across Europe. I mean, every. I was in two countries. Let's see in the last month where before I went there, I hate to say it, but, you know, I would have struggled to point out where they were on a map. So these are not the. The biggest countries and we're working very big deals even in smaller countries now.

Jim Cramer (29:37)

Amazing. Now the one. The only thing you do so much that is so transparent, but you actually have a page where you actually talk about the hours that are saved. Because what happens is everybody says, yeah, and I'm sa. Saving some hours. 11 hours when it comes to draft one redaction assistant, 10 hours, auto transcribe, six hours. These are the actual savings. Right. You can point to this and say, this is how we are saving money for our town. Yeah.

Rick Smith (30:02)

I mean, we want police out, keeping our streets safe. And unfortunately, they've been bogged down just doing paperwork and data entry. And this is one of those things look, it's not the sexiest air in the world, but automating bureaucracy has huge dividends in productivity and that means effectively, it's like increasing a police force 50% effectiveness overnight because those cops are spending more time on patrol and not sitting behind a desk.

Jim Cramer (30:27)

Well, I gotta tell you, another great quarter. So many, so much opportunity for you. I'm keeping this National Guard thing's in my head. We gotta help everybody in this one. And I know you'll be the man who does that. That is Rick Smith. He's the founder and CEO of Axon Enterprise. He never talks about himself. I make him do that. He always talks about his team. I really like that. Mad Money's back after the break. Thank you, Rick.

Show Announcer (30:48)

Coming up, are these earnings better in denim? Kramer's talking to the CEO of Gap, fresh off the company's report. Next.

Jim Cramer (31:06)

What'S happening? The stock of Gap this evening after the close, the retail chain that also owns Old Navy, Banana Republic and Athletics quarter, but let's call it a mixed quarter. Gap posted a 2 cent earnings beat off a 55 cent basis. Revenue came in slightly weakly expecting same store sales up just 1%. Some were looking for two. On the other hand, management looks like it's making real progress the once ailing Bad Republic. But then management also forecasted problems with President Trump's tariffs. And I think that's going to be a drag on the company's margins. And I think it, because I said anything that's involving tariffs just gets people really scared. But you know what? The stock rallied after hours because the conference call was terrific. I love this. Right now, Wall street only seems to care about the impact of the tariffs on retail. That will not stay the same. There's some palpable signs of return here. Let's check in with Richard Dixon, he's the president CEO of Gap. Get a better read on the quarter and what's next. Mr. Dixon, welcome back to Money.

Richard Dixon (31:56)

Thank you, Jim. Always good to be here.

Jim Cramer (31:58)

So, Richard, I listen to the conference call and I know some people were freaking out initially. But look, we know that the tariffs changed, okay? We know that they were fluid. We know it. Whether it's Laura Albert, amazing merchandise at will with Williamson, Urban Outfitters, it changed. Stock got killed. I understand it. Gap was part of that problem too. But in fact, really what was you couldn't control what happened with the tariffs?

Richard Dixon (32:22)

Look, there are things that you can control and the things that you can control. I think what we are representing is the things that we can control. We're Doing really well. The team is doing a great job with our mitigation plans. You know, we've been thoughtful on our adjustments to sourcing manufacturing assortments and other actions. I think when you look at the quarter, quarter overall, what you see and what we're reinforcing is that our strategy is working and it's showing up in the results. I mean we had another solid quarter. We over delivered on our profit expectations and we achieved our top line goals. Comps up 1%. You know that's the sixth consecutive quarter of positive comps for us.

Jim Cramer (33:00)

Yes.

Richard Dixon (33:01)

Our largest brand.

Jim Cramer (33:02)

I remember before you got there. I remember nothing but negative comps. Honestly, how quickly people forget what was happening before you came in. But I also know that this is one of the things I like about you. You recognize Athleta was dragging things down. You changed out. I don't know. You got a person from Nike who is a rock star. Maggie Gagger. She is going to look at this situation, she's going to turn it.

Richard Dixon (33:27)

I agree with you. We couldn't be more excited about Maggie. She is a proven leader in the active women's space for over two decades at Nike she was most recently leading the North American women's business. She's only three weeks in, Jim, but I feel the energy. She's working closely with the team. She's assessing short and midterm opportunities. The brand is going to go through a reset cycle but I really believe that this one could reemerge as a real purpose LED brand with great product, great trend and great storytelling.

Jim Cramer (33:57)

Let's talk about what may really matter because these things are zeitgeist and you understand it.

Caller (34:01)

It.

Jim Cramer (34:02)

There is an ad Cat's Eye you put on TikTok. You see it. The number of impressions are unbelievable. The, the people who are viewing this thing, they're in love with it. We have enough artificial intelligence these days that I bet you you can even tell this is an actual needle mover for your company, isn't it Jim?

Richard Dixon (34:24)

This, this really does represent the playbook in action. It's working. This is just the latest example, our Better and denim campaign which we just launched last week as you called out, starring Cat's Eye. It's driving, record breaking responses for the brand. I mean early reads on this one.

Jim Cramer (34:44)

Is it.

Richard Dixon (34:44)

It is in striking range, I'd say of being one of the most iconic brand campaigns certainly in our history. But out there overall people aren't just watching it, they're actually actively engaging. It's suggesting that this is a cultural takeover, not Just a advertising campaign, denim story everyone want to be part of. We have social full sororities are playing it back for us. And we have 20 million views. We had in the first three days, over 400 million total views, 8 billion impressions. And get this one, Jim. We are the number one search on TikTok. This is legitimately proving that Gap is a powerful pop culture brand. And this is what it looks like when we advance our playbook. And I'm telling you there is a lot more value creation ahead.

Jim Cramer (35:35)

I think that this is part of what you talked about on the conference call. You're spending less, you're getting a lot more. I also know people have to understand Taco Bell people may not happen to like Taco Bell, but it was through this method that they became the number one brand within that, within first that group and then within the category. By the way, the big turn at Brinker almost entirely driven by online. I saw this ad and I said, I've got to ask Richard, does he have early warning figures that perhaps you may have? Like I saw on TikTok, people standing outside the store watching the video, pointing and then trying to do the dance and teaching other people to dance. And they're always doing it in Gap.

Richard Dixon (36:18)

It's extraordinary when you, when you really connect with culture, with authenticity, with the right creative asset executing against our playbook in the context of what we can create. It's amazing and unbelievable. And I really do believe, as you've seen, the sequential order of our progress, this is just another marked moment of the progress that we're making. One of the interesting stats is the unmute button has been the highest point of engagement on our site. Connecting music with fashion and as we've called it, it fashion tainment. This is a proprietary, if you will, methodology that we're going to be continuing to drive. And ultimately we really do believe the value creation ahead is extraordinary.

Jim Cramer (37:03)

Okay, so let's talk about the turn in Banana Republic. You told me it would happen. We are somehow, because of tariffs, we're not even paying attention to it. It's happening, it's real. You gave it, you are doing it ahead of time. What's going on in those stores for other people to know because, you know, I know because I like their stuff so much, much I appreciate it.

Richard Dixon (37:21)

And you know, we believe it's a sleeper in our portfolio. We've been working hard at re establishing Banana in the premium lifestyle space. This comp 4% in the quarter really does reflect significant progress against that ambition. I mean, we've tightened up our assortment, we've refined our product esthetic, we've enhanced our marketing campaigns, we've improved our service levels, we've worked on fit and function, we found the right price value equilibrium to drive consistency. As you know, men's has been performing well, but now I'm really pleased to see the women's piece start start to align with that. We've worked on the bottoms piece of the women's business, which is really the gateway to wardrobe. So quarter after quarter, you're seeing clear signs that the brand is really coming together. And our Q2 performance demonstration, it's meaningful traction as the brand's reinvigoration takes hold. I am very excited about the progress that we're making.

Jim Cramer (38:17)

Okay, one last thing. It's very hard because the president is very much his own keeper. But do you feel confident that where you are right now in terms of the charges will be the last? We have to hear about these look.

Richard Dixon (38:31)

Things that are not in our control. I can't necessarily speak up what happened, but I can tell you today's outlook for fiscal 2025 reflects both the strength of our execution and the continued brand momentum as well as our view on all the headwinds from the latest trade policies. Our playbook is working. You know, we believe and are confident and are committed to the cost discipline actions that we're taking and we will drive a future proposition down here.

Jim Cramer (38:59)

Danny, look, if it's a 27, it'd be a tough call down here. No, not a tough call. Richard Dickson, presidency of Gap. Go watch. Just turn on TikTok. You're going to see it. Second. Thank you, Richard.

Richard Dixon (39:11)

Thank you, Jim, as always.

Jim Cramer (39:12)

Man's back. We'll be back after the break.

Show Announcer (39:16)

Coming up, Kramer takes your calls. And the sky's the limit. It's a fast fire lightning round.

Jim Cramer (39:23)

Next.

Caller (39:26)

Jim Kramer, the die hard of the doll. Hey, Jimmy, love the show.

Jim Cramer (39:30)

My five year old grandson loves to watch your show.

Caller (39:33)

I have to thank you for making us money. When it's there to be made. Our world is a better place.

Jim Cramer (39:38)

With you in is time to start. The white girls close and then the lightning round is over. Are you ready? Ski dad time. The light round cram. Let's go to Jim in Florida. Jim. Jim, how you doing?

Caller (40:10)

Thank you so much for taking my call.

Jim Cramer (40:12)

I'm thrilled you called in, Jim. I'm thrilled you're a club member.

Caller (40:16)

Yes, I am. You better believe it.

Jim Cramer (40:18)

Thank you. Let's go to work together.

Caller (40:21)

All right, let's do it. So I'M originally from El Salvador and I recently took a small position on a company that I wonder and I'm asking you to please guide me in the right direction here. You know, I live most of my life in Jersey. You know, Patterson, Randolph, Dalmead and so on. And I am married to a Cuban woman that I do not suggest anybody to please do. You know, Nonetheless, nonetheless, nonetheless. My stock is APH Anthony.

Jim Cramer (40:56)

Okay. This is an amazing company because it really. Before we really got all excited about the data center, it was really just a kind of coaxial cable company. It is highly valued right now. It's in the hive 30s multiple. I can't say chase the stock. If I owned it, I guess I'd hold it. That's all I can say. But thank you for the kind comments and the funny stuff. Let's go. I needed real joke, you know. Let's go to Tom in Minnesota to top. Booyah.

Caller (41:21)

Jimmy, chill. Thanks for all the knowledge you share with us every night. You are the man, meth and legend.

Jim Cramer (41:30)

Thank you.

Caller (41:31)

I'm calling in tonight about a stock that's been on a really nice run. It's midsize, position of mine, the picture symbol eme. Should I. Yeah.

Jim Cramer (41:39)

Another. Another data center like company. It goes into a lot having to do with infrastructure manager. It's a good company. I'm going to say it's a little less valued, cheaper than Anthony. I would hold on to the stock. I can't push it right here because it's had such a move. I feel like I've missed from the bottom. I've missed 200 points and I can't just come out and say it's fine right here. I need to go to Roberto in Florida. Roberto.

Caller (42:01)

Hello, Jim. Thank you so much for taking my call.

Jim Cramer (42:04)

Long, long time.

Caller (42:05)

Your show, first time. Call it on behalf of my teenage son Nicholas, who, thanks to you, it's really interested in the stock market and has the definite talent.

Jim Cramer (42:14)

You know what he's going to be. I don't want to ever promise wealth, but he's got a much better shot at making a lot of money than everybody, almost everybody else in this country because of what you thought. Thank you.

Caller (42:24)

It's because of what you're teaching him. The question is this. We bought a few shares of this company before the pullback and a couple more during the recent pullback, averaging down to the low 160s. His question is is should he buy a few more and keep averaging down, hold or sell the company? It circle. Jim, thank you so much.

Rick Smith (42:42)

No.

Jim Cramer (42:42)

Okay. The way. Thank you. The way you like to do this thing is when you have a high basis like that, you've got to wait till substantial decline to be able to bring your basis down. I think under 100 the next time. I would buy that. They're very proud people. They're never going to tell you, listen, our stock's not, you know, is not worth 30 billion. But I've got to tell you, I need to come down because I don't make a lot of money recommending companies that are losing a lot of money other than if they're nuclear or quantum. Okay. Now let's go to Gary in my home state, New Jersey. Gary.

Caller (43:10)

Yes. Welcome Jim, up front to Morristown, New Jersey.

Jim Cramer (43:14)

Here my stock is Rush Street Interactive Gaming. Oh my God, it's gaming. It's doing really well. But again, it's higher multiple than DraftKings. So I gotta send you the DraftKings because it's cheaper stock. And that, ladies and gentlemen, conclude of the Lightning round.

Show Announcer (43:31)

The Lightning round is sponsored by Charles Schwab. Coming up are signs of a slowdown showing up yet in the private sector? Kramer's revealing the data he looks at to keep tabs on inflation.

Jim Cramer (43:45)

Next, who's going to eat the cost of these tariffs? Now, we've heard from a plethora of retailers this week and it's the tariffs that are controlling their stocks. Believe me, put it bluntly, no matter how much a retailer might say, don't worry about it, the market remains very worried about the tariffs being passed on to the consumer because the consumer might balk at higher prices. At the same time, Wall street doesn't love the idea of these companies eating the cost either because that could crush their margins. These stocks trade on gross margin. So when you get what looks like a surprisingly good quarter from Williams Sonoma or Urban Outfitters or Dick Sporting Good or Best Buy and you look under the H at what prices could be coming, sellers suddenly materialize and knock these stocks right down. It's painful to watch William Sonoma get date CEO Laura Alpert's doing yeoman's work trying to keep prices down. In the end though, she's got a double whammy. Tariff issue, the current import from overseas and then the president's attempt to put additional tariffs on imported furniture to bring back our own domestic manufacturers. Now in the conference call, Albert made the point that some furniture just can't be made here because we no longer have the capacity. She's thinking about some of the cheaper Asian products stocks but the market doesn't care about any of that. Meanwhile, when you look at the retail stocks that are winning their ultra low price closeout operations like tjx, which had a magnificent quarter, or Burlington Stores, which offer stunningly low prices, these closeout chains have no real tariff exposure because they buy excess inventory from struggling retailers for pennies on the dollar. It's those struggling retailers that pay the tariffs when the goods arrive, not Burlington. Okay. And not tj. Now, there's a theme here.

Caller (45:19)

Here.

Jim Cramer (45:19)

In order to encourage domestic manufacturing, Trump slapped on tariffs all over the place. Wall Street's very clearly saying that tariffs will hurt sales and cause a decline in consumer spending. That's why Trump's so eager to get his own people, the Federal Reserve. He sees a slowdown, fears, and wants the Federal Reserve to cut interest rates in order to give the economy a boost against that. Does it make sense? To some degree, sure. The stock market saying that the tariffs will generate a slowdown. The offset of lower interest rates could help, especially for anything that needs to be funded by a home equity loan. And that's why Home Depot stock has been rallying despite tariff pressures. Pressure. I think the President might believe that lower rates could do the same for a lot of other retailers. There's only one problem. The uncertainty at this moment is not caused by job anxiety. Is the labor market's fine. It seems to be caused by higher prices, whether they be from inflation in the supermarkets, say, or tariffs or both. Lower interest rates won't solve that problem. If anything, rate cuts could make inflation worse. So how do you cut rates in this environment? The answer, you fire the Federal Reserve officials who are worried about inflation and you bring in people who are more worried about a slaughter down. Hence the pressure on Powell and the President's attempted firing of Lisa Cook. What's so strange about all of this is that the President doesn't have to lift a finger if he wants lower rates. Powell's indicated he's not averse to cutting rates as soon as next month. And besides, his term ends early next year. I think that Cook would go with the Fed chief here, too. In other words, the President will get his rate cuts either way. There's no need to fire any of these people. But understand the market saying the President's tariffs will be costing inflation. And it takes a compliant Fed chief to look the other way at too much inflation after he makes that first cut. Now, I know that most people rely on government statistics to aid in this kind of reasoning. I look at the stocks. Why? Because they're more forward looking than the data. And these retail stocks say a slowdown is coming regardless of employment. But the slowdowns caused by the president's tariff agenda. I'm sympathetic to what Trump's trying to do. I am not a globalist. I'm probably tougher on this stuff than Trump. But in the short term, term it's going to be inflationary. That's part of the you got to accept that. But that's why the Federal Reserve needs to cut rates slowly. Prudence dictates that course of action. And the best way to get prudent monetary policy is with an independent Fed. Honestly, Trump should want that too. The last thing any president needs is resurgent inflation. Just look at what happened the last guy. Like I said, as always, bull marketing somewhere problems that I find just for you right here made money. I'm Drew Kramer. See you tomorrow.

Legal Disclaimer Narrator (47:34)

All opinions expressed by Jim Cramer on this podcast are solely Kramer's opinions and do not reflect the opinions of CNBC, NBCUniversal or their 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 Jim Cramer 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 it should not be relied upon as such. To view the full Mad Money disclaimer, please visit cnbc.com madmoneydisclaimer it's not rocket science.

Show Announcer (48:15)

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