Listen to Jim Cramer’s personal guide through the confusing jungle of Wall Street investing, navigating through opportunities and pitfalls with one goal in mind - to help you make money.
Mad Money w/ Jim Cramer
Mad Money w/ Jim Cramer 4/17/24
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The electricity, a big idea that's inspired countless new ones, from powering the light bulb to virtually powering our entire lives. 30 years ago, State Street launched the Spyder S&P 500 ETF, Spy. A big idea that inspired the world to invest differently, and still does. What can you do with Spy? Before investing, consider the funds, investment objectives, risks, charges, and expenses. Visit sga.com for a prospectus containing this and other information. Read it carefully before investing. Spy is subject to risks similar to those of stocks. All ETFs are subject to risk including possible loss of principal, helps distributors and distributor. Hey I'm Kramer. Welcome to Mab Money. Welcome to Cray America. Other people want to make friends. I'm just trying to save you some money. My job is not just to entertain, but to educate, explain. Call me at 1-800-743-CBC or Tweet me at Jim Kramer. Sometimes everything seems to go wrong, and it makes you just want to throw on the couch. But after daily today, where the averages started really strong, then collapse, then rebalance, then pull back again. They'll ultimately decline in 46 points. This will be sinking 0.5% and the NASDAQ losing 1.15%. If you're such a selloff, then it's better. You just kind of hold on. Maybe you just hold on for a couple of percentage points to decline, and then we'll be so oversold we can reverse again. After all, we did bounce yesterday, if only for a 20-year or treasury auction, that went much better than fear. While the rebound was indeed short-lived, it did give you a better chance to sell than at the lows. Although there were better moments to sell at the beginning of the day when it looked like the market was going to skyrocket. It's exhausting. But tonight, I want to put myself in the shoes of the seller. The one who's really in control right now, not the ones who sold at the bottom forget them, but the ones who held on and got back to even at least for this session. I will never ever fight any viewer who wants to just dump all the stock. It's not my style to fight, but it's also not my style to do that. However, not many things are working, and we've had a huge run. It's natural to bring the registers. Nobody wants to turn a profit into a loss. Plus, the stock market is ignoring anything positive about companies that report off such surprises while staying laser focused on the negatives. JB Hunt, big trucking company, number four reported numbers that were disappointing by its own admission, stock dropped 8%. Same with Prologists, the biggest warehouse company in the country. That's what stock plunged more than 7% today on what I thought was a shocking lowered forecast. These two companies used to generate impressive growth. Now they're offering sub-part numbers. Worse, they're quite very lively, not that long ago about how well they were doing, especially Prologists on our own show just last month. Neither saw this weakness coming. I was very, very disappointed. We've also had plenty of big-picture negatives. Long-term interest rates are rising. Commodity prices are rising. Oil is soaring. Europe's very soft. The Middle East is close to the brink after a ram-fired missiles in Israel. The past few sessions have been rough. But today, let's see. Oil plummeted, broader commodity complex guide hit. Europe's looking a little brighter. Israeli government seems to be leaning toward restraint. Yet, those positives only seem to matter for about an hour. Hey, you get some green shoots, and the bear just savages them with a sickle. Does it make you want to give up? It does. Especially when the next season will be breaking down really badly after my news and run. Oh, and let's not forget that you can get 5% for just sticking your money in a certificate of deposit. Wow. Days like hey, doesn't feel good. Look, this is a market that wants to go down. That's a use to say at my old hedge fund. It's very easy to say the evaluation is just a stretch. We hear that all day. Jesus can convince yourself that when the bell others like Apple or Tesla or Nvidia roll over and boy, they roll over. Nothing else can work. So you just get out of dodge. But is that really a good reason to just sell everything? No. And you never sell it all at once, even if you think it's time to go. For the chapel trust, we did something different. We sold stock at almost every day in the last four weeks. Something I guess you would have known if you'd joined me. You seem to see me see a best of club. We did think some variations were momentarily overstretched and not after the decline. We didn't want to lose all of our positions, so we did something called scaling out. Meaning as the stock went higher, we sold some shares to raise some cash. If it ever comes back down, we can always use that cash to scale back in. We figured the market might have a short-term peak because the Fed may have jumped the gun when they told us they know we needed to raise rates. We've been very skeptical to Fed's dot plots calling for three rate hikes. This three rate cuts this year. I mean, no central bank cuts rates quickly went unemployment is below 4% for, I would say, and we start getting overheated inflation numbers. And that's why we were adamant that there could be no rate cuts until we saw some weaker economic numbers, somewhere, anywhere. I also recognized that this is an aggravating team, but get this. When I saw Ava Labs put up terrific numbers this morning, raising the low end of the forecast, only for a stock to just get annihilated. Well, I know this market's got too negative. We bought some Ava today for the trust. We're going to keep buying and tweak this gradually. Ava's numbers were actually terrific. Nobody even bothered to listen. Nevertheless, let me do this. Let me go over what's really out on this market, and what might cause it to keep going down, because that's a very real possibility, people. First, you know what? Investors aren't buying the dips here. We get any rallies, sellers come out of the woodworking. Will they ask any buyers? This change in tactics is what's killing an Azda. That's why it couldn't maintain any advance today. Who buys a dip knowing that your head might be blown off it after a percentage of gain? Second, many stocks have had parabolic moves. I've talked to you about that nightly. They've rallied practically straight up, but like a parabola. When you see these, you should remember high school algebra, because parabolas go right back down just as fast. That's what's happening. We're now reversing the parabola, and we're now going down. When that happens, stocks then shift to what's known as a head and shoulders pattern, with the head being at the top of the parabola. So many names have made that bearish pattern in the last few days, where you just need to wait until the stock stops going down. Don't worry. It's not hard to tell. If the stock's way down from the highs, and you've already sold some at higher levels, you got by busting to start buying the back at a lower level, but not more than that. Why not buy more? Because thirdly, this market is not yet oversold given from where we're coming from. In the investing club, we take advantage of the special deal we have with this market edge to get the S&P oscillator every day, right after 4 p.m. And I don't want to get aggressive at the buyers until we get an oscillator that reads minus 7, which means that there's really a huge amount of selling pressure. It had minus 6 and changed today. I got away till 7. That's not enough to cure the other than this, even as this is now the longest downturn since January. Four thousand concerned that many people were clean to the hope of rate cuts. Rate cuts that are unimaginable in a world where there's so much economic activity and so few workers. There's an incredible amount of business formation. There are more and more mergers and IPOs. None of that's what you want to see when the Fed's trying to cool down the economy. I think Chairman Powell was willing to cut rates when we got some weak numbers. But these recent numbers are way too high. It resets the clock on potential rate cuts. We need to see at least two months of cooler numbers before the Fed even considers cutting. Right now, there is no sign in this economy of any slowdown other than pro lodges and JB Hunt. Finally, the market tells you when the endless sellings finally come to an end. Usually you get a day when the market starts down, not up like it did today. Down big. Therefore, it gives you a chance to get in after the washout. You get a whoosh. You get a crescendo of selling. And upstart like we had today is a nightmare. You need to wash out all these people before you can buy them. And we're not near there yet. Do you think all the sellers of Tesla are done now that there's a chance to amend a Elon Musk salary package while the company's reportedly delayed cyber truck deliveries without explanation? Do you think all the sellers in Nvidia are done now that everyone's convinced that Amazon, Alphabet, and Med are producing competing chips? Even as they said over and over again, that's not the case. It's like my interview with CEO Jensen Wong from Nvidia explaining what this never happened. Hey, can Apple really bottom on every day? We get this quarter number cut. So here's the bottom line. If you want to get out, go ahead. But I would say that the time to sell was when the market was going powerball. Time to buy is when the parabola finishes. It comes down dramatically. We don't know when that moment will come yet. But at this point, you sure aren't buying at the top, are you? And you are more likely coming in near the end of the great parabola. How about we go to Tyler in California to start Tyler? Hey, big boy. I'm from California. How you doing, Jim? I'm doing well. How about you? I'm doing good. Thanks for asking. I bought this IPO at $51 per share. And I wish I just bought more. But at the same time, I like my average being 51. I'm diamond-handing arm. What's your take on averaging up? You know, we talked about arm today in the office. And all of a said, the same thing. What a great company. But where the heck should it be worth now that it'd go on parabolic to all the way up to the mid 100s and now come back down. And the consensus was that it might go down into the 80s. And that is where we would feel comfortable owning or buying some. Remember, great company. Renee has doing a great job. But the market changes complexion. Let's go to Georgia in Pennsylvania, Georgia. Hi, Jim. Joining your club was one of the best investments I've made. Jim, thank you enough for all your help. Thank you. We're really digging in. I took some time off my vacation because I did not want to leave Jeff Marks alone in this sell-off. And we just hope he don't let you down. How can I help you now? You certainly have not. I had planned to add shares of Palo Alto on pullback, both in my portfolio and for grandchildren accounts. Should I reconsider due to the class action lawsuit? No. As a matter of fact, we got our first note, which indicates that things are going better than expected of Palo Alto. And analysts said, you know what, we think that some of the worst may be behind them. Why that is, they were brought in by United Health Division that was hacked. And they are the single source of truth for United Health. If they were doing so badly, why would they get the single best contract of the year when it comes to cyber terrorism? Let's go to sunny in Illinois, sunny. Hey, Jim, a big, sunny booyah to you, my friend from Illinois. I'll take it. What's happening? Hey, I just want to start off by giving a shout to your staff, Nicole, and everybody there. They are phenomenal, my friend. They are the best. And they make people feel good because they're polite and they're kind. And that's what I want to see from people at this point in my career. We have nice people here. And I just think that's terrific. How can I help? And so are you. You're nice people too, my friend. If I get upset. But you know, I'm pretty good normally. I'm a perfectionist. I tell my wife, I said, listen, I can't stay with you tonight. I got to work. I think that's why I felt last night. It was not well received. It's okay. Yeah, exactly. Speaking of wives, my wife, Amal, my son, Jimmy, and my son, Zachary, are huge fans of you and your show. Thank you. And last but not least, wanted to give a shout out to your morning show with Carl and David. You guys do a phenomenal job. By the way, David is my friend. He doesn't seem like it. I get that. Yeah, I was wondering. Sometimes you guys get a little rough on each other there in the morning, but that's all for fun, right? Yeah, a lot of times. All right, let's get down to business, man. I'm a longtime fan, investment club member, and a fan of your book. Thank you. Yeah. So I know you love Ford. I know you love Farley. I know you own it for your charitable trust. Ford's come down about maybe 10 to 15 percent off its recent high and it's sitting around 12 almost near its 200 day moving average. Now, Mr. Farley's gonna be reporting earnings next week. Can you tell me the investment club members and all your fans and stare at that TV screen and push that button by, by, by ahead of the earnings? Right. Well, look, I have to tell you, this stock has you so used everything you said this night. Thank you for saying this stuff about the staff. I will tell you this. This stock has come down a great deal, as you said, in the last few weeks, and I would buy ahead of a quarter. The once-hundred-five, six-prick times earnings like United Airlines, I thought, well, they did. Ford's like that. All right. I think the time to sell out of this market was when I was going parabolic and now we're well past that. We don't know when the moment will come to buy. I admit that, but I just know this. You aren't buying this market at the top anymore if you come in and start doing some purchasing bad money tonight. Are any seasons begun with the big banks taking things off late last weekend? I am taking the big six head-on. Give you my tape and voice our life to learn. Then from big banks to regions, I'm checking them with a Tennessee bank book first horizon, 160 years to see how they're doing. And I got a phone to pick with the way we handle antitrust in this country, and I'm laying all the reasons out why I think maybe it needs to change. It's a little anti-business, stable cram. Don't miss a second of mad money. Follow @chimcramer on X. Have a question? Tweet Kramer #MadMensions. Send Jim an email to madmoney@cnbc.com or give us a call at 1-800-743-cnbc. Miss something? Head to madmoney.cnbc.com. Fact. Running a business is not getting easier on your wallet. With higher expenses on materials, employees, distribution, and borrowing, everything costs more. Also a fact. Smart businesses are reducing costs and headaches by graduating to NetSuite by Oracle. NetSuite is the number one cloud financial system, bringing your accounting, financial management, inventory, and HR into one platform and one source of truth. With NetSuite, you reduce IT costs because NetSuite lives in the cloud with no hardware required, accessed from anywhere. You can cut the cost of maintaining multiple systems because you've got one unified business management suite. You improve efficiency by bringing all your major business processes into one platform, slashing manual tasks and errors. Over 37,000 companies have already made the move. 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Join more than three and a half million businesses worldwide that use Indeed. Listeners of this show will get a $75 sponsor job credit to get your jobs more visibility at indeed.com/madmoney. Just go to indeed.com/madmoney right now and support this show by saying you heard about Indeed on this podcast, indeed.com/madmoney. Terms and conditions apply. Need to hire? You need Indeed. Last Friday, first quarter earning season kicked off with three major banks, JP Morgan Chase, Wells Fargo and Citigroup, and then on Monday and Tuesday, bear from Goldman Sachs, Morgan Stanley, Bank of Margaret. These results came during a rocky period for the overall market, which is one reason nearly all the big bank stocks sold off hard. But some of them got hit a lot harder than others. More importantly, when you actually go through the quarters of the action that banks just doesn't seem to reflect the quality of the numbers, JP Morgan got killed, City got killed, Bank of Margaret got killed. Meanwhile Wells Fargo, Goldman were flat and Morgan Stanley was up in a decent amount over this three day period. So tonight I want to walk you through what we heard from the big banks because these are some of the most important companies out there and they give us a tremendous amount of insight into the rest of the economy. They often are predecessors to what's going to happen after. The insight only matters if you really know what happened rather than just extrapolating from the tape, which is what most people do. So we're going to start with the four big money centers and then we're going to go to the two major investment banks after the break. Yes, these are that important. Let's start with JP Morgan. This is generally considered the best run in the strongest bank in the country, even as the stock was hit the hardest. If that wasn't because it wasn't, you've got to understand this, it was not because the numbers were bad. JP Morgan delivered a top beat, bottom beat, with 8% earning swoath, that's terrific. Average loans up 3% when you back out their acquisition of First Republic. Loans were up 16% when you include the First Republic numbers and why not include them from the same. JP Morgan had extremely solid expense banks, but two of their credit metrics mostly look good. In fact, this bank's provision for credit losses came in nearly a billion dollars lower than expected down 32% versus the previous quarter. That's sensation. Well, then you probably asked them what the heck went wrong? Well, you could argue that JP Morgan's core net interest income, this is this NII thing. Forecast for 2024 was only raised by a tiny amount. Wall Street was hoping for higher for longer rates would help them post bigger net interest margins, which many banks are having. Didn't help but Jamie Diamond, he was so cautious in his comments, but mainly I think the stock had simply run too much in the quarter. It was up 15% year day, 52% of the previous 12 months, right before the company reported. Hey, throw in the ugly market that day and you had a recipe for a sell off, even though the numbers were just fine. That said, the stock has reversed so hard at this point that it's lost a lot of his premium. You know what, that makes it a lot more attractive than when it reported. I was kind of thinking, hmm, maybe this is a good level. Slightly later on Friday morning, Wells Fargo reported this terrible trust name got the best response from the market. That day with its stock down less than a half of a percent, 1.1 is up nicely. Wells delivered a meaningful sales underneath speed, even as average loans were down 2% year over year average deposits were down 1%. Those lines aren't as important for this bank though, because it still is a fed mandated asset cap. Expense management was solid, credit managers, I thought looked really good. How about the forecast? Wells Fargo maintained its four-year guidance from net interest income and net interest expenses and management confirmed that they planned to buy back more stock in 2024 than they did last year. We'll talk about a vote of confidence. Overall, it was a solid, if unspectacular quarter from Wells, but you know what, in the banking business, it's unspectacular is fine. We've owned Wells Fargo for the travel trust for one three years betting on a turnaround. The idea is that they're gradually getting better operationally and putting up clean quarters and that will eventually cause the regulators to ease up, please, and allow the stock to earn a higher price during its multiple. With that in mind, I think CEO Charlie Sharpe and his team did exactly what they needed to do. This stock is still below where it was six years ago. Hey, that's compelling in itself, because it's a much better bank now than it was then. City Looper was on the final bank report on Friday, and the expectations were much lower here, because City's been an extremely long-term underperformer. Fortunately, COG and Frazier pushed through a big restructuring plan last year, so now we're looking at steady results. And you know what, that's what we got. City delivered a solid revenue beat and a substantial earnings beat, management reiterating both their four-year forecast and their longer-term targets. Hey, I'll take that. That's why the stock initially was heading higher on Friday morning for a quickly reversing and then traded lower, especially during the conference call. City ended the day down 1.7%, and it was the second worst performance of the six major banks over the three days from Friday through yesterday. Disappointing. Why did this happen? Why did it reverse? City had some negative credit quality trends in the retail services business to get, I think, consumer credit cards. Management worthy division will continue to have higher than expected net credit losses through the current quarter and possibly the full year. I did not like that. They tried to frame these numbers from a post-pandemic return to normalcy, but the comments here really spooked a lot of people. Including me, at the same time, I think there was a lot of profit-taking. City, because the stock had run from the high 30s last October to the low 60s over the smoke. Yeah, as I said at the top, you got to be aware of these parabolic moves. People are betting on a turnaround, but they didn't know if the turnaround would work, so they look for any excuse to ring the register, and that's exactly what they did, honestly. It's the responsible move, I think. Finally, back to market reporting yesterday morning. This is a conundrum. I mean, Wall Street didn't like it. Stock falling, 3.5% response. What point was down 5%? Did it deserve to get punished? You know what? I'm going to position myself as being on the fence. I hate being on the fence, but that's where I am. Bank of America's quarter was solid enough for the healthy revenue, beaten and decenters, beat positive. However, unlike the other Money Center Bank of America's provision for credit losses was merely in line with expectations, with everybody else's number was actually smaller than expected. The company's seeing elevated right off some commercial loans, prime managers have more exposure. Here we go, to office real estate than any of the other big boys apart from Wells Fargo, which reported benign credit metrics. For what it's worth, managers said they expect lower losses from the office properties in this quarter with a notable decline in the second half, but right now they have more exposure to the bad stuff than I thought. More importantly, at least for me, Bank of America said they expected their net interest income. That's at NII again, to fall in the first quarter, but actually grew. That's a positive. As we're talking about the core banking business here, management now says they expect their net interest income to fall in the second quarter, but quickly rebound from those lows. Bank of America was much more positive than the other big banks in the net interest margin front. In the end, though, there was a lot of trust us. Things will get better in the back half of the year, and that's hard for many investors to swallow, particularly with the bank. Now, if you believe Bank of America's management, you know what I do, because I think they're very reliable, that maybe this pullback is a buying opportunity. Then again, I cannot blame anyone for not wanting to stick their neck out on the bank stock in this tape. Bottom line, if you want to take your cue from the bank stocks, keep in mind that the big money center banks reported mostly okay to decent numbers, even if that's not reflected in their stocks, which had run into earnings. Stick around, though, we're going to go through two major investment banks that got a much better reception than the money centers, and that reception is not over. Man, money is back after the break. Coming up, more major earnings from the big banks. Kramer's bankable take on the financials continues. Next. Take your business further with a smart and flexible American Express business gold card. You can earn four times points on your top two eligible spending categories every month, like transit, U.S. restaurants, and gas stations. That's the powerful backing of American Express. Four times points on up to $150,000 in purchases per year. Terms apply. Learn more at american express.com/business gold card. Now, we've heard from all the major banks of serving season. I want to walk you through the results one by one. These companies reported during an ugly period for the market, and I don't think they're getting their due. That's certainly how it felt when we went over the major money center banks just now before the break. What about the other two? The two big investment banks. That's Goldman Sachs and Morgan Stanley. They're put on Monday and Tuesday. Now, these two firms are more lever to capital market activity, and I want you to think that's about stocks and bonds, less for line on consumer banking. So, there's less of a myopic focus on these metrics like this net interest income I keep mentioning, or deposit and loan growth, or provisions for credit losses. They don't like to have credit. They don't like to give it out. Well, the outlook for the big money center's banks is more muddled. Right now, we know we've got a big rebound in capital markets activity, which is terrific for the investment banks. It's not as important for most commercial banks. I don't know what a company's lever to. I always tell you that. Let's start with Goldman Sachs, which I argue reported the best quarter in the group on Monday morning. My old firm gave me a monster revenue beat. They brought in, listen to this, $14.21 billion, $14 billion. Wall Street was only looking for $13 billion, 16% revenue growth year over year, 26% growth versus the previous not-so-hot quarter. At the same time, Goldman had impressive expense control, which trades later in a gargantuan beat. Get this. They earned $11.58 per share. And it's when we're looking for $8,073. That's 32% earnings from a bank. You know what? That's the old Goldman, solid, meaningful, surprise, on all lines. What's driving these numbers? Goldman had tremendous strength in the global banking and market segment, which houses its investment banking and sales and trading operations. Revenue is up 15% year over year. Investment banking is up 32% year over year. That's extraordinary. Fixed income currency and commodities trading up 10%, equity trading up 10%, all substantially better than expected. Goldman's other two segments, asset and wealth management and platform solution, which is the small consumer business that they're trying to deem size, both did well with double digit revenue growth. But the real story was the booming business in the investment banking and brokerage side. As CEO David Solomon explained in the conference quote, I'm going to quote him here. It's clear that we're in the early stages of a reopening of the capital markets with the first few months of 2024, seeing a reinvigoration in new issue market access, end quote. And sure, maybe it's just getting started. So let's sort of rethink this one. Ever since we heard from the major investment banks the last time they reported, I've been telling you that we're witnessing a return of capital markets activity, and it'd be very good for their numbers. Sure enough, that's exactly how it played out. Goldman's practically printing money here. I think the stock is a buy and a weakness, like we got yesterday. But unfortunately, I'm not the only one who arrived at that conclusion, otherwise the stock wouldn't have ordered today. Remember what I said? These banks can be great tales for the future economy of the country, not just their industry. Goldman's quarter made me feel better for the entire market, despite how negative it's become. Finally, how about Morgan Stanley, which for me on For the Chapel Trust? The thing about Morgan Stanley is that it's been shifting away from traditional riskier investment banking, and embracing more of a wealth asset management business. I like that model. I'm glad I own this one because it jumped 2.5% yesterday in response to the quarter and kept climbing today. Remember, I meaning my travel trust. As I told CNBC investing club members in an alert yesterday, the positive reaction for Morgan Stanley was a relief, as this position has been testing our patience of late. The stock had been lagging the group as the market sizes up its new CEO, Ted Pick, who took over at the beginning of the year. James Gorman retired. The latest frustration came last Thursday when the stock dropped more than 5% in response to a Wall Street Journal article about a federal investigation. They were looking into the company's vetting practices for its wealth management business, which is now spreading butter. Hey, to be fair, the gains of the past few days just represent Morgan Stanley recruiting some of that ground that was lost. And I even hold it. Still, this was a good quarter. Morgan Stanley delivered a substantial revenue beat driven by higher asset prices and an improved macro economic backdrop, which helped their wealth management business tremendously. Even though their net interest income came in weaker than expected. Remember, it's not as important for them. And it was more than offset by the strength in their fee-based income, which is very important. Clearly, it's shifted the wealth asset management. It is working. Hey, by the way, Morgan Stanley reached $7 trillion in client assets at the end of the quarter. That's between its wealth and asset management divisions. And it is up more than 18% year over year. Management says they're well in their way to the goal of $10 trillion in client assets. I thought they were slipping, apparently not. The firm's institutional security segment, that's investment banking as well as sales and trading, also with a good quarter, led by strong numbers for equities trading and underwriting. As with Goldman Sachs, the traditional part of the business is doing well. Capital markets activity picking up expense controls solid too. So it all added up to a 35% earnings beat off a $1.67 basis. That's 19% earnings worth year over year. And thank heavens, because last time they had a beat, but it didn't look good when you went underneath. Underneath this time, it looked good. The cherry on top was when Pick addressed this last week's federal investigation news. It took putting a head on in a conference call. As he said, I'm going to quote you, "This is not a new matter. We've been focused on our client on importing and monitoring process for a good while. We have ongoing communications with the regulators as all the large banks do." End quote. He then continued, quote, "We have been spending time, effort and money for multiple years and is ongoing. We have been on it. And the costs associated with this are largely in the expense run rate." End quote. I really like that. I don't want any more investigations of any company my trust owns. I hate being surprised by these banks. And sure, don't worry about that terrifying Wall Street Journal piece about an investigation of the wealth management betting practices. Morgan Stanley sees this just to run the mill interaction with regulators. Any costs that come from it should already be baked in the numbers. I said, "I still don't like surprises, but I do think that this was one of those that was overdone." Clearly Wall Street bought it, and I certainly hope it's true. That's just one reason why this quarter was a big relief for the travel trust. Morgan Stanley's doing well, but we'll keep watching closely to see how this situation develops. So where do we ultimately come down on these big banks? While most of these stocks ended up lower after that three-day stretch of earnings, these were all bad reports. Not even mostly bad. Most of them were actually better than expected, although a few of the banks got hit by specific issues, like the consumer credit quality numbers from Citi or the office real estate loan losses for Bank of America. As for the selloff and JP Morgan, it was mainly a victim of high expectations. But Wells Fargo gave you steady numbers, which was all we needed. It's a buy. And as for Goldman and Morgan Stanley, they are doing great. And their stocks did great too. And it might be early in their turn, because as what David Solman, CEO of Goldman said, it's just getting started. Here's the bottom line. When you go through the actual results of the big banks, they're pretty good. I feel much better about the grip that I did last week, even if their stocks don't yet tell the story, and the market has gotten really hard. Sam in Colorado, Sam. Jim, how are you? I'm doing well. How about you? I'm all right, Jim. Among the few I've read that I see today that is our regional bank, one company in particular seems to stand out. And that's the Wilmington saving fund society. They made an acquisition of Brynmark Trust, which is a really well regarded bank back in 2020. And I'm curious what you think about the company's ability to grow organically in this great environment. I'm glad you mentioned Brynmark Trust. That is a very, very good bank. It used to be a very big position for my old hedge fund one time ago. Look, the stock, it doesn't have a good yield, 1.4. It is at, it's five points of its high. I think they're better fish to fry. I like it, but I like first horizon even more. If you want to have a regional bank, FHN is the one I want, because you get a 4% yield, you'll see. How about John and Florida, John? Booyah, Jim. Wow, Booyah, right back at you. Hey, Jim, I'm seeing a lot of toast in restaurants, and I'm not talking bread. I'm talking T-O-S-T. What do you think? You know, I've been, I had been very circumspect because having run two restaurants, I felt that this business is, you can pull them out, put them in, pull them out, but they do have some special characteristics, including the best way to be able to actually pay at the, you're at your table. I think the stock's too expensive, that I'm making enough money. I wait till it comes in, because it's a 24% for the year, and then I buy it. How about we do this? Below 20, I like it. All right, now that we've gotten to all the big bank's earnings, I feel much better about to put them in last week, even if some of their stock prices don't tell the story. Much more mad ahead, including my Susan, with First Horizon. After calling off its Virgil with TD Bank, the stock has finally recovered from this lows. So it's now the time you can start to bank with its regional financial with 4% yield, I'm going to check them with the CEO. Then I think this administration needs to approach any trust a bit differently. I'm sharing where the focus is now, and where I think it needs big. And of course, oil calls rapid fire tonight's edition of the wide new app, so stay with Cramer. Now they've already heard from the major banks. We're starting to get results from the smaller regional banks, a group that was in dire straight, so here we go. Take First Horizon, long my fame, a Tennessee-based regional bank that had agreed to sell itself to the TD Bank for $25 per share, only for the deal to fall apart last spring, causing the stock to plunge below $9. We were still in the midst of last year's mini banking crisis, don't forget that. Since then, though, the stock's probably more than 50% for its lows, because it never should have been down to the first place. And they had jumped another 1.9% after First Horizon reported a top and bottom line beat with management raising their four-year guidance for non-interest income. But even after this move, it's only $14 in change, so could it have more room to run. Let's check in with Brian Jordan. He's the chairman and CEO of First Horizon. You get a better read in the corner, but you're joining about the next minute money. Thank you for having me. It's great to be here. All right, so before we get into how the quarter was, which was quite good, I want to congratulate you for 160 years in business. Maybe people don't know that. And you've gone from a Memphis outfit to pretty much one of the dominant players in the fastest growing area in the country, the southeast. So what do you attribute the excellent performance and duration that your bank has been able to have during this period? Well, thank you for the congratulations. I'm excited about what we've accomplished over the last 160 years. It really is somewhat hard to think about. Abraham Lincoln was president. We were founded in the midst of the Civil War. And to be in the 12th state franchise today, I give a lot of tribute to the associates in the organization today and the tens of thousands that came before us, really building a connection with our customers and our communities. Now, let's talk about that, because you've got a deposit campaign. It seems like last year, people were worried about whether you would have deposits. Now, it seems like you're the great aggregator deposits. We've had very good success. Our teams have done a fantastic job. In the second quarter alone, we raised $6 billion, roughly 10% of our deposit base and new to bank deposits, 32,000 new to bank accounts, 6,000 of those being commercial and the other 26,000 being retail accounts. It's really impressive what our team has done. And they built on it in the third quarter. They built on it even further in the fourth quarter. And we had good deposit trends in the first quarter of this year as well. Can you give us the color of what the commercial are? Because I know that you've got a good franchise business. Yeah, we have a very broad commercial based banking business. We have a number of specialty businesses, everything from mortgage warehouse lending, retail, restaurant franchise finance, to straight asset based lending. And then we're a very strong commercial middle market lender all across our footprint. So our commercial base that serves a broad economy. At the same time though, your commercial base did not seem to be riddled with the kind of commercial real estate that we're all worried about. Our commercial real estate portfolio continues to be very, very good. We have a very diversified portfolio. And in fact, in the disclosures we put out in our earnings portfolio, we broke it down both geographically and by a collateral type. We've taken very strong credit positions in terms of borrower commitment, down payment. At the same time, we've worked to not get over exposed in any asset category or geographic market. And as a result, that portfolio has performed extraordinarily well. I'm very grateful that you did it geographically. When I looked at it, you're the only one so far that has given me that information. It makes me feel more confident, not less. More information better. Now, you did say something that I want to be sure about. You said loan demand, okay, not great. What would make you great? I think that's exactly what I said. It is okay. The economy is doing okay or well. It's not a strong economy in my beauty. There's still a lot of pressure from inflation and in particular higher rates. And as a result, loan demand has not been off the charts. It has just been okay. And I expect that that will improve what will make it better is more certainty about the direction of the economy that the Fed is going to be able to stick, so to speak, the soft landing that everybody is hoping for and looks possible at this point. But I think it's going to take a little bit more clarity. And I think to the extent that rates can start moving down, it's going to make it easier and necessarily cheaper, but it's going to make it easier for people to lean in and borrow more money. Will there be a time where that will be the focus and not net interest income? Now, your net interest income was terrific. And you did point out that what would happen if the higher end of that guidance, in other words, fewer hikes, fewer cuts, definitely less rate cuts, you would do better. But I just think at a certain point, we got to be bankers. We can't be being counters. I think you're a banker, and you're a lender. And I think that there's too many people in this business who just say, all right, how much did you make off that deposit? I want to see lending and I want to see fees. When will that be the focus of Wall Street? I think it's going to be a focus, whether it's late this year or next, I'm not certain. But clearly, it is not about the subcomponents of our business. We don't push exclusively on fees, we don't push exclusively on deposits, and we don't push exclusively on loans. We want to build broad, deep relationships and serve our customers in deep and meaningful ways. Essentially, as I said on our call this morning, create long-term partnerships that survive and endure and work through any number of cycles which we're invariably going to have in our economy. One last question. I know that the mayor of Kansas City was saying, to the East, send us your immigrants. We have too many jobs and not enough people. Is your area a too many job not enough people area? In the South, we still have a shortage of workers. It has come more in balance, but it is still out of balance. We need more workers. And I think that will persist. We're seeing a lot of people moving into the South, and that dictates a strong economy, a strong economy dictates you need workers. And so I think we're coming into better balance, but I don't think the problem is solved today. Is the government in the way or is it helpful? I think having a sensible immigration policy is probably the most important thing to solving that problem long-term. The birth rate in the U.S. is not likely to be sufficient to create all the workers that we need in this economy. And I think we've got to solve the immigration issues which draw a lot of passion on both sides of the argument. But ultimately, we've got to come to a sensible conclusion on that. And then if I am a first horizon shareholder, you've got the authority to repurchase 650 million of your own shares, which this is not JP Morgan. That's a lot of money and a lot of shares. Yeah, absolutely. We bought a little over 10 million shares, or 154 million in the first quarter of this year. We have another 500 million dollars of share authorization. We've got a 11.3% CET1 ratio, which is the shorthand for the regulatory ratio that we work off of. So we believe we have the ability to operate at around 11% plus earnings this year. We think we have capacity to buy back some more stock over the course of the next two or three quarters. And while we think it's on sale, we think it's a great opportunity to accumulate and redistribute capital to our shareholders. And with a 4% yield and with the record you have it, it is definitely on sale. Brian Jordan is the Chairman, President and Chief Executive Officer of First Horizon Corp. It is always a delight to have you on, and I love a straight shooter. Thank you. Thank you. They have money spectrum. Coming up, hit us with your best shot and electrified fast-fire lightning round is next. It is time. It's time for the light round, but that's where you close by. I'm going to start by myself. So I don't have any questions ahead of time. I step ahead and play this out. And then the lightning round is over. Are you ready, ski? Dang, cover the light round, crazy much, but go to Chuck and Arizona, Chuck. Hi, it's King Charles here. Hey, King. What's up? Yeah. We speak again, my investing friend. I'm going to dedicate the Pet Shop Boys song opportunity to us. You've got the brain. I've got the bronze together. Let's make a lot of money. Well, there you go. I like that. All right. It's kind of like Mozart needs Beethoven. I guess. Okay. Last month, I took a position to hop on the energy trade and X on mobile. It shot off like a SpaceX rocket in the last couple of months. Parabolic move, my friend. We don't like parabolic moves. That's a very good example. So it goes to 123. It's only 118. I don't think that parabolic move ends until at least it gets to 110. Let's go to Devon in Florida, Devon. Oh, yeah, Jimmy too. It's Devon from Florida. I love this show by the way. I just wanted to tell you that. Thank you. I wanted to know your outlook on marathon digital and its relationship. Okay. If you want to own marathon, this will just go by either Ethereum or by Bitcoin. Okay. Let's not fool around. That's what you do. Let's go to George in Arizona, George. Big Humvee, Booyah, Jim. Oh, it is humble. And it's just here in Arizona. All right. Let's go to work. Let's go to work. I like our last six and I think we're moving in the right direction on the AI trade. How about if we add some color to the big data centers? What do you think about stock and our symbol? You can. Right. Okay. So when it comes to data centers, I am inclined to say that no power company is going to make money off of it. And you better buy better to buy birdie or eat. That's the way to do it. And that ladies and gentlemen, the conclusion of the lightning round. The lightning round is sponsored by Charles Schwab. Coming up out of fashion, Kramer challenges the FTC's reaction to a luxury merger. Don't miss it. Next. And I saw this morning at the FTC might be preparing to block tapestry. The parent company of coach Kate Spade and Stuart Weizmann. I'm buying Capri, the parent of Versace, Michael Corsa, Jimmy Chiu. I actually thought it was a joke. It felt like a parody of the Federal Trade Commission's usual activities. Why hadn't bothered blocking sacrifices? It's not about monopolization or higher prices for goods. It's not even about workers. Its jobs are plenty for them in power space. They don't think you actually want these two companies to merge so they can stay viable. Fashion business is hard notoriously. Many fail. They still could create a strong American company that could possibly compete with LBMH, the French House of Law Group brands, which had to report a weak quarter yesterday and it still went hard. I wish I could say the same thing about Capri, which has been getting pummeled ever since the company reported an amazingly weak quarter that questioned the rationale of the entire deal in February. It was so bad that I thought tapestry might walk away. So it's not monopolistic. If it's happening in the most fractured of industries, if the European Union and Japan have checked off from already, what's the point? Why bother blocking? I think it's simple. The administration hates mergers. The FTC's particular dislikes companies with even a hint of power. Period. We'll stop. By going after this petty deal, the FTC's saying don't get your hopes up about more M&A. We're going to keep trying to stop deals because the only real beneficiary is the shareholder and the shareholders are rich to begin with. This FTC seems allergic to big companies. They seem to think big companies hurt smaller companies just by existence. It's not just the FTC though. I think the Justice Department's current antitrust division is just as hostile a business. Just look at the case it recently brought against Apple, one of the most bizarre episodes in so-called trust buster history. But just in that case, Apple's phones are so good. You don't want to switch from them. And they make it hard to do anyway. You take the most beloved company in America, the one with the highest customer satisfaction rate, the envy of the world. And you basically sue it for making its customers too happy? Honestly, if you were to ask most Americans which company they regard as the most pro-consumer, I think it'd be a tie between Amazon, which is already being sued by the FTC, and Apple, with new features that always sit down and went over nearly everybody. Call me crazy, but I was actually hoping Assistant Attorney General, Jonathan Cantor, understanding trust division, would go after actual antitrust violators. It's not hard to find companies that might be colluding to raise prices in lockstep. It sure feels like doesn't it when it comes to medical and auto insurance? Or else they wouldn't have such severe inflation, stickiest of increases? Anything that goes relentlessly higher like insurance should be looked at, I think. Or how about the airlines, where the government allowed so many murders that had crushed competition, made the cost of flying much more expensive, and it would take a price to seem to go up all the time. After all, Canner was a corporate lawyer from Paul Weiss, the firm I used for my work. I thought, mistakenly, that he'd seek answers for what hurts us, not attack those who help us. I thought he'd be more than once and less ideological. Looks like I was wrong. Canner previously went after Apple a bit, accusing them of being a monopolist in digital advertising. Even as everybody on Wall Street knows that the company's losing its grip on that market. Now, TikTok's a big dog, advertisers don't have to go to Google. And by the way, they don't have to go to Google for advertising, they just go to trade tests. Now, let's just step back for a second and acknowledge why all this is happening, and let's just own it. We have a president who was historically not cared for big businesses, who were for investors. He picked people to represent his view. That's what's happening. He got a positive spin on it. He actually embraces a little guy. I think it's admirable. But everybody in this administration seems to think that you can only help the little guy by hurting the big guys. Even the ones that don't do anything wrong. And I think that's just a darn shame. I like to say, there's always a bull market somewhere. I'm starting to find it just for you right here on Mad Money. I'm Jim Kramer. See you tomorrow. Last Paul starts now. All opinions expressed by Jim Kramer on this podcast are solely Kramer's opinions and do not reflect the opinions of CNBC, NBC, Universal, 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 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 it should not be relied upon as such. To view the full Mad Money disclaimer, please visit cnbc.com/madmoneydisclaimer. The spirit of performance defines Acura, and now it's electric. Introducing the all-electric ZVX, Acura's most powerful SUV yet. While what powers their cars may change, the energy that makes Acura never will. Crafted using the same formula that brought them electrified supercars and multiple MSA championships, the ZVX has tracked tested performance that packs an energy all its own. 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