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 4/18/24
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The market doesn't joke around, so why would you? Get serious. Choose tasty trade. Tasty trade gives you the tools you need to make smarter moves. Dig into data with advanced charting, track profit accurately with order chain trackers, see risks clearly with curve analysis, and trade with low-cap commissions, stocks, options, futures and more. All-on-one platform. No wonder serious traders choose tasty trade. Join the club genius. Tasty trading is a registered broker dealer and member of FINRA and SIPC. My mission is simple. To make you money. I'm here to level the playing field for all investors. There's always a more market somewhere, and I promise to help you find it. Mad money starts now. Hey, I'm Kramer. Welcome to Mad Money. Welcome to Kramer America. I'm Bill McFriends. I'm just trying to save it all money. My job is not just to entertain, but to explain this stuff, so call me at 1-800-743-CBC, preview it from Kramer. When you stop it already with the morning bind, that is what I've been screaming lately, writing a camera when I'm on commercial break for the morning show on one. Consider these stats where morning buyers have been getting steamrolled, including today, where the Dow opened up 94 points and only finished up just 22, and the S&P declined 0.2% after opening up 9 points, and the NASDAQ lost 0.52%. Yesterday, just looking at the S&P, we opened up 5,068, up 17.56 points, or 0.35%, and then closed at 5.022. The day before that one, we opened up 5.064, up 2.77, or 0.5%, and we closed at 5.051. Monday, we opened up 5.149, and closed all the way down to 5.061. Last Friday, we actually opened down more than 27 points at 5.175, but we still finished the day even lower, at 5.123. Yeah? A lot of people keep making the same door mistake. I think there's a wise tip I believe that you can still buy the dip. That's been the right move ever since the long-term interest rates peaked back in October. It's worked before, so the thing is going to work again. Well, that's really good thinking. Now, though, buying the dip is the quick, essential, wrong thing to do. It is just off the tracks, and I'm going to tell you what. First bonds are in charge right now, not stocks. Bonds are in charge, and once again, the long-term interest rates are going higher, like they did today. Like they've been doing throughout this whole recent decline. Sure, there's been a flight to quality on some days, but we know that didn't count. Ever since we started getting hot inflation numbers, the bond market's been doing the work of the Fed, yet traders and investors just can't seem to resist, because dip buy had been working. But it was only right when rates were going lower. It's wrong when rates are going higher, because you are fighting the tape. Second, I have enough of what I've started calling brown shoots. That's my name for signs of a slowdown, just like green shoots are signs of an acceleration. Brown shoots can come from companies with disappointing earnings. Right on the show, I'm going to walk you through the sudden downturn of prologists and gigantic real estate investment trusts that's a global leader in logistics facilities. And JB Hunt, one of the nation's largest trucking companies, brown shoots abound. I could include two auto-related names, Carmax, the used car dealer, which blew up when it reported and snapped one tool. It's a reliable specialty tool company that sells the individual auto repair shops that lost in a stemming 7.6% of its value on a rare earnings miss. But we don't have a lot of blow-ups in the morning, so buyers figure out maybe the coast is clear on most days. It isn't! There's no coast is clear a call, because we aren't trading on earnings right now. We're trading on fear, and fear does not lead to great closes. Third, not all stocks are created equal. We have what we used to call leaders, and the leaders, they are failing us. The biggest failure, Tesla, which is going down relentlessly in a totally scary pattern. How much will Tesla lose this quarter? That's a common refrain. How about that pivot to going into a robo-tax? Well, Hurts tried that going big with Teslas, and that failed. Why would that be any better for Tesla itself? The country's just not ready for self-driving cars. Instead, Americans went solid and expensive electric vehicles. Not expensive ones. Those are dumb. And they sure don't want Tesla's Cybertruck. I thought Elon Musk's fanboys would buy it, but the darn thing has what I call no mojo. Maybe because it needs to be advertised? I don't know. I mean, perhaps Tesla needs to run a traditional pickup truck ad. We're some gravelly boy sky. It talks about ditching the form with FEP 150, because the Cybertruck has bulletproof windows. I can't think of any other selling point. Best I can do. Next, Fury Leader is Apple. Now, I've said you should own it, not trade it. I'm not going away from that, but if I had to buy it, I'd either wait until the stock pulls back to 160, or at least wait until the company reports, and then it cuts its forecast. What you need to know is that stocks have not been bottoming when estimate cuts in this market. They fall, and then they fall again. Can Apple pull rabbit out of a hat? Sure. Anyone can. Elon Musk can, too. But I don't see magic happening yet with Apple. Its dreariness is so palpable that it weighs on us every day. See, it cuts forecasts, goes down, and maybe next date goes down. Let's get some downgrades. And then it bottoms. That would be the pattern. Final devastating leader is my pal Nvidia, which has the stock they can't find its footing. Even as it managed a small game today, this is a very discerning market. And the rallying Nvidia into its phenomenal GGC conferences have been more than wiped out. Now, this is not a new pattern. Nvidia tends to rally, and then drift, and go along. And then we get to the quarter, and it rallies again. We're going to repeat. It differs this time. Your enemy, your fellow shareholders, who either don't know what Nvidia does or is, or now believe the gender of AI is a scam. The stock won't be safe until all these weak hands get washed out. Unfortunately, so many of these fellow travelers bought Nvidia at the wrong time. They didn't experience the run. They came in late, and they have a real bad cost base. It's a terrible entry point. These are the people who cannot take the house of pain. The house of pain. They know nothing. Maybe market leader Netflix can break the scan of wooded leaders flailing in the market. It's an important good number this evening. But why does it become a typical of the accentuate, the negative pattern? The company's boilerplate warning about the future may be just being okay. Maybe that's transcending all the good news. Who knows? Fourth, we aren't getting any good aggregate data, and people don't seem to care. Well, that's wrong. They buy anyway. That's wrong. Why don't they realize that the data is in control of the CPI, the price to play, or the non-farm payload report? Because the data determines the interest rates and interest rates determine the stock market action right now. You cannot ignore the data anymore. You need some really weak economic market data to make the market go higher. Because Wall Street's desperate first slowdown that we give the Fed an excuse to cut rates. It needs an excuse. It doesn't have one. Fifth, we keep ignoring the Middle East. And then when we get to Friday, we get scared of death and something will happen over the weekend and people dump everything. There's always something to worry about in this conflict, so the pattern keeps repeating itself. Now, what would happen if people stopped buying in the morning and instead sold big from the get-go? Set, set, set, set, set, set, set, set, set, set, set, set. That, friends, is what I've been waiting for. You're not going to get a bottle, a serious bottle, a lasting bottle until you have the big give-up. The gigantic end of days decline where people just can't handle the house of pain at all. No way. They want a new address. They want the 5% CD address. The stock market address is just two horrendous. Don't buy. Don't buy. If it's just open to down one or two percent abyss staring you right in the face, then the market has a chance to wrestle to our former. You need to have that what I call "wush" where we just crate-earth the opening. A bottomation that includes lots of formerly bullish, now scared-to-cat owners who don't want out, who they just went out so badly, they don't even hear what price they get. Not only that, but the down opening doesn't mean a bottom for that day. For that, you need to have a true crescendo to follow the whoosh, whoosh, then crescendo. Typically, that means you see a rally at the open, a whoosh down, and then machine-gunners come in at those brave souls who try to buy the market, like the first day of the song. Then you get what I call "the crescendo" just like in the music, where there's a colossal blowout that leaves people a gas and you get a chance. The next day, you see the local news trucks with those weirdy and tan-eye on the roofs. They'll have well-copped men or women with a mic in their hand, hanging around wall and broadsheets staring at a new camera, trying to grab them. Some bystander will talk to them about jumping off a building or something. You know, I used to go up to those people and when they would ask me what I thought, I would say, "Hey, you know what? I think 'cause you're down here, it means the market's bothering me." Ha-ha-ha! Well, of course, my interview's never aired. Bottom line! When you get the news to trucks and the journalists asking people how they feel about losing fortunes in the stock market, that made market the real bottom. Unfortunately, there's been no whoosh, no crescendo, and no local TV people with mics and their funny trucks. Until then, presume we have not yet bottomed. Hey, how about Matt and New Jersey, Matt? Hey, Julia, Jim, how about you? Not bad, I wasn't filling up today, good time, how about you? Very good, very good. Excellent. The stock I am calling you about today is the American Airlines. Their earnings are coming out next Thursday, and I would like to know if you think I should add to my position now, before they post earnings or wait. And in your opinion, is American Airlines a buy, sell, or hold? Okay, so let's, you know, we've got Delta reporting good numbers, and we have, without a doubt, United reporting great numbers. Well, American, continue that. I would tell you that a market of 14 is back to where it was, I mean, so, so long ago. You know what? I don't want to play airliners, we left, but I do believe that 14 bucks, I don't know, one down, two up. Hey, how about we go clear across the country to Jeff in California, Jeff? Hey, Jim, I'm in LA, I'll get right to the point. I bought $8,000 worth of square or block three years ago. It's up 16% in one year, bam. And in three years, it down 71.3% ouch. So I'm minus $6,000 in three years, Jim. I have very little patience. I told my son, David, I'm not a doctor. I have no patience. I feel patience. Should I continue praying, Jim? I'm very spiritual. Or should I sell now? BAM! Okay, let's think about this. I happen to think the company, it can go higher. I like the last quarter. I know it's painful. I know that you don't have any patience, but can I ask for you to have four to two? 'Cause that's what it'll take. All right, once we get the new trucks in, the funny trucks and the things that are about, and the journalists, I feel about losing fortune in stock market. That smells like a bottom, but unfortunately, we haven't seen that yet. Well, man, what do you try? If there's one thing you can count on during earnings season, it's that Wall Street will get some of them all. Tonight, I'm eyeing a charitable trusting. Abbott Lab is one of the best companies in the business, telling you why the market may have discharged this one all the way down there. Are the packaged goods stocks the whole package? Ha ha! I'm taking a closer look at the comeback we're seeing in that space. And forget, green shoots, you know what I'm eyeing, I'm eyeing the brown shoots that are being revealed by two major operators this earnings season. And telling you what it means for the overall market. So stay with Kramer. Don't miss a second of Mad Money. Follow @JimCramer 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 When you're hiring, the best way to search for a candidate isn't to search at all. Don't search, match. With Indeed, Indeed is your matching and hiring platform with over 350 million global monthly visitors, according to Indeed data, and a matching engine that helps you find quality candidates fast. Use Indeed for scheduling, screening, and messaging to connect with candidates faster. Plus, 93% of employers agree Indeed delivers the highest quality matches compared to other job sites, according to a recent Indeed survey. Leveraging over 140 million qualifications and preferences every day, Indeed's matching engine is constantly learning from your preferences. Join more than 3.5 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. The one constant about any season is that Wall Street's always making mistakes. There's so much information coming our way that people get sloppy. They react emotionally. They focus on the wrong things. And so a lot of results get misread, which leads to ridiculous and often wrong action in the stock market. Take out the laboratories, the medical technology company that we own for the travel trust. I've been very confident this one since we spoke to CEO Robert Ford at the Big JPMorgan Healthcare Conference in January. I wanted to go down first. But Abbott reporting yesterday morning, even though the company delivered a healthy beat and raised quarter, the stock still got slammed. Pulling back roughly 3%. Okay, this pick has been going very well for the CMC investing club and told about a month ago in Wreck-It-Benkeezer, a competitor, big maker, baby formula, lost a major lawsuit in Illinois, cast upon the entire industry, including Abbott Labs, which also makes formula. But I was hoping Abbott could turn the page on that story when it reported its first quarter results. Because this is a very strong company, fantastic balance sheet. Just a tremendous agglomeration of medical devices and medical instruments, a storied business. Sure enough, these guys delivered a huge sales and earnings beat as their core business, which excluded COVID sales, was up nearly 11%. Wall Street was only looking for 9.5% so you get double-digit growth here. Abbott's medical device division in particular is on fire. Remember, tons of people delay getting on urgent surgery during the pandemic, and there's still a huge backlog of patients who need these devices. This time, the start was their diabetes care business. I was looking for that to be the start. With 20.7% or 20.7% organic growth, thanks to their popular blood sugar monitor, which is now getting more reimbursement coverage in Europe. According to vascular devices and structural heart devices, we're both a double-digit as well. Oh, yeah. Another part of the business management highlighted new products in diagnostics. Abbott recently gained FDA approval for its I stat traumatic brain injury instrument, which can tell if you have a concussion in just 15 minutes. Even a non-hospital setting. Think of all the uses for that, unfortunately. And then there's a cherry on top. Abbott raised the low end of its full year forecast for organic revenue growth and earnings per share. And keep in mind, it's extremely rare to see this team raise guidance at all right after the first quarter for noted on Abbott's call. That this was the first time since 2016 that the company hadn't done so. That was a single two. Five out of five. So why do they have to stock sell off anyway? There are a couple potential culprits I'll point them out to. Even though Abbott raised its full year forecast, their guidance for the second quarter was thought to be a little light. I'm not worried about that at all. Some people are worried about the strong dollar hurting the company's overseas sales. Others say Abbott's COVID business was too strong, which obscures us really going on. I mean, come on. I don't think any of that explains the pullback. In pre-market trading, before the call, Abbott's stock actually jumped a couple points on the initial news, although it had given back those gains by the time the conference will start. Then about 20 minutes into the conference call, Abbott took eight questions from JP Morgan analyst Robbie Marcus. Marcus asked why Abbott was confident enough to raise guidance after just one quarter. And then he asked about the litigation concerns I just mentioned that have weighed on the stock since that record bank he's ruling in mid-March. Even though the two companies have very different, not formulas, but labels. I think this resurfacing litigation worries is what weighed on Abbott's scarce, which quickly fell to 104, down 4.5% in the first few minutes of trading history. And once investors saw the stock was down, they just assumed that something must be very, very wrong with the quarter. So Abbott couldn't really recover yesterday. That's a typical theme, by the way, of this particular release period. So the stock even told a bit more today. But what it's worth, even ignoring the first part of CEO Robert Ford's answer, where he talked about how strong Abbott's businesses are, I thought his response to the litigation question was very thoughtful and even encouraging. Ford first offered a reminder of why the product in question formula for premature invincency is seen as necessary by the medical community. He reminded investors that there are clinical studies that have, quote, "repeatedly established that these products are safe," end quote. That the products have been in use for decades and that, quote, "catless babies have benefited from these products with life-saving experiences," end quote, in many cases over many years. Ford claimed that the plaintiff's lawyers pursuing these cases are distorting the science, and that their allegations are not supported by the medical community. Still, the fact that this issue came right at the top of the call's Q&A? Well, that was enough to overshadow Abbott's strong earnings. It's also possible that a couple of the data points that were raised by the JP Morgan analysts in Ford's response, including, after about 1,000 cases that have been filed with the first trials on this subject starting July, might have been news to some investors, even if these facts were publicly available for yesterday, and we talked about them as members that, if you remember the club, you know about it. My view, look, our legal system can make things very difficult for businesses when there's a jury trial, especially in cases with highly sympathetic victims, like families of babies who got sick or even in some rare cases die. But lawsuits like this one are unfortunately par for the course when you're running a large medical company. More important, I think Abbott has a defensible position. As spelled out by Ford in his response to the JP Morgan analysts yesterday, don't forget, Abbott has the medical committee on its side, and these baby formula products for premature infants are mostly used because they're recommended by doctors. You're not playing litigation with that if you bet on Apple here. It's like the J&J situation where the damage was endless because the jury's believed the plaintiff's lawyers, who contend that J&J knew the worst cancer-giving asbestos in its tap baby powder and didn't tell anybody and didn't take it off the market. Thanks to J&J Joe, there's a great fear of litigation in the medical space. But again, J&J had 100,000 claimants from this issue where certainly about 1,000 claimants for this premature baby formula. Sure, Beckett and Rankezier had to pay out the $60 million to a single family, a verdict that the company does plan to appeal, but Abbott Labs has much less exposure to this one than they do. When that verdict came down in March, a couple analysts took a stab at figuring out how much damages could do, and they figured it might be as much as $200 million to $300 million problem for Abbott over the course of many years. Meanwhile, Abbott's marketing cap position has shrunk by over $23 billion since then. I think that's absurd. At the end of the day, I think we're getting a buying opportunity in this one. If yesterday's fabulous beaten race quarter, it's clear that the bulls are right about Abbott Labs. The business is great and not getting enough credit for it. At the same time, the baby formula litigation will not something to ignore. It feels very different from J&J because the company had a warning label and it's been approved by doctors' life-saving nutrition. So the bottom line, I recommend using this mistaken, emotional sell-off to buy more of this dividend aristocrat on wheat-us, which is exactly what we did for the travel trust yesterday, lowering our cost basis of the process. And if you don't know any Abbott at all, you can buy it more aggressively because this is the cheapest the stock has been all year. They have money back after the break. Coming up, the total package, Kramer, chomps down on the comeback in packaged foods. Next. Take your business further with a smart and flexible American Express business gold card. It offers flexible spending capacity that adapts to your business. You can also earn up to $395 in annual statement credits on eligible purchases at select business merchants. That's the powerful backing of American Express. Terms apply. Learn more at americanexpress.com/businessgoldcard. Have the packaged food stocks finally come back into style in the Wall Street fashion show? After spending a couple years lost in the wilderness, we're finally seeing something positive here. Over the past few weeks, we've gotten good earnings from three high-profile packaged food companies and wonder wonders their stocks actually rallied on the news. That may not sell like much, but there was an extended period of time where the food stocks couldn't get much lift, even from strong results. Why don't we take them one by one, starting with Hormel Foods, all right? This is the company best known for spam, although you might know them as Applegate Farms, Planners and Skippy peanut butter among other brands. Hormel imported a seven cent earnings pita off the 34 cent basis at the end of February with meaningfully better than expected sales, and the stock immediately popped almost 15% in response. This was the first quarter of positive sales versus mid 2022. Even though Hormel's retail and international businesses were, let's say, not so hot, their food service division was on fire up 9.4% year over year. More importantly, Hormel's strength came from volume not pricing. The total volume was up 3.7% year over year, as the company rolled back some previous prices increased. Still, Wall Street lapped it up. Because the package was totally tempting. Because the last few years, the package's fruit place mostly got their growth from raising prices, even at the cost of volume, which is not a sustainable strategy. Now, we did speak with Hormel CEO Jim Sne, later that night, and he explained how the company's winning, not this way. Thanks to its focus on protein. Remember, these GOP-1 weight loss drugs, I just wanted to syrup anyway, caused people to lose muscle mass too, which is why doctors tell anyone who takes them to get as much protein as they can. Hey, by the way, I've been recommending Tyson, not the fighter, but the foods, for the same reason since last November. The stock shall give you a nearly 23% gain. Holy cow, my smart. As for Hormel, I wouldn't be surprised if it's gotten more room to run. Okay, just try to get my teriyaki. Next to on March 20th, generous mills, as we used to call it on Wall Street. This is a darn good company, imported a darn good quarter. And the stock probably 1.2% response. While the market's rolled over, since then, mills has just hung in there. Tough. As Hormel, general mills, turn in a solid set of numbers, inline sales that were a couple of percentage points, it's better than expected at least, and size will always be. Unlike Hormel, though, this company's still stuck in the trap of raising prices to stabilize its growth, even as the expense of losing volume, which was down 2%. But it's all about the direction of these trends. That's the way it takes on Wall Street and the 2% volume decline. It was an improvement from a 4% volume decline in previous quarters. You should take it A and stuff of them. The closer from mills was the 12% earnings beat off the dollar of five basis. Their biggest earnings beat on a percentage basis points since mid-2020. And that was the height of COVID lockdowns, what all we did was eat Cheerios. Imagine what also reiterated most of the... Probably could open back then. We entered most of the key lines for its full year forecast, which was enough to push the stock. Our third example, Klineg, were brands. Dare I pick this one, or that one, which turned it in robust quarter, two weeks ago, and the stock jumped more than 2%, 5%. Hey, by the way, this was the best performer in the SB 500. That day, and the company had struggled to grow for ages, and that frankly is still struggling to grow. But we're finally seeing some improvement based on better volumes. Klineg, our net sales decreased by 1.7%, although it still came in a little better than expected. The company took a 0.2% hit on price mix, still experienced a 1.8% decline in volume. Doesn't seem exciting, but in the previous quarter, net sales were down 3.2%, thanks to a 0.5% hit from price mix, and a 2.9% drop in volume. Klineg, it was clearly missing, clearly moving in the right direction. Fortunately, their margins came in better than expected, but actually much better than expected, which translated into a healthy earnings beat. And management even raised their full-year operating margin forecast. We spoke with Conaugra brand CEO Sean Conley on the night of the report, and he painted an encouraging picture, explaining that the company's previous supply chain investments are now paying off in the form of cost cities. Those savings allow Conaugra to spend more on advertising and innovation, which in then turned helped try volume improvements. Well, without compromising margins, listen to this. We're making progress for sure the quarter unfolded largely the way we expected, our supply chain did a terrific job generating cost savings, and that gave us the ability to invest in our business to drive volume, particularly in advertising, innovation, and merchandising. And we were pleased to report a quarter that saw continued volume progress, but importantly, while maintaining our gross margins. In short, things are looking up for this 4.6-year yielder. That's -- that's it. Whenever Wall Street seems to change its mind on our entire industry, there's more to it than just the results of the individual companies. So what allowed the packet's food place to get their mojo back? And we've got fire extinguisher. First, it's pretty clear that investors got two negatively industry last fall, when people were selling everything that might be theoretically threatened by the rise of the GOP-1 weight loss drugs. An episode created low expectations for the packet's food players that are now being cleared when these companies report. Hey, by the way, in the same interview two weeks ago, Sean called Connolly told us there was zero impact from the GOP just once. Second, there are some macro factors working in the whole group's favor right now. When you see the averages selling off because Wall Street's worried about the Fed won't cut interest rates, that usually coincides with investors swapping back into safety stocks and few groups are safer than the packet's food stocks. Now, you can argue that the consumer packet's good place have mostly high yields. They should have been, they actually hurt. Right? Hurt by the recent rise in long-term interest rates, 70 basis points. Higher long rates make bonds look more attractive versus the dividend yields you can get from even the best food stocks. But that's not how it's planned out right now. People want safety stocks, and that's trumping everything else. That said, I'm more interested in the trends for the packet's food companies themselves. Having gone through these three quarters, who are male, general mills, and con-aggra, we're seeing something new in the packet's food space. After a couple years, when nearly all growth in this industry came from price hikes, we're finally seeing volume improvements. That's what we really want to see. That was easy. Even if I'm just still shrinking for some of these companies, they're at least shrinking at a slower pace, meaning the trends headed in the right direction. Plus, it doesn't hurt that the food players are seeing some relief from the costs front, both naturally from lower commodity prices and from companies specific efforts to get their spending under control. The struder packet's food companies, like con-aggra, are using these cost savings to go on offense and try to take market share. Overall, it's an encouraging theme, and a market that suddenly seems to be bereft of upbeat stories. Bottom line, we'll see if the packet's food stocks can keep running. That's mostly a question of when the sector rotation ends. But with the bar set so low for many food plays, I wouldn't be surprised if the stocks can keep running simply because it doesn't take much for the underlying companies to beat the extremely low expectations. As long as they haven't had to give up too much of the pricing they gained during COVID, I think these stocks will continue to work the way hard, even though they're boring as they'll get out and could lower you to sleep. Then again, that's exactly what you want from a food stock. Why don't we take calls? Why don't we go to Armin from Florida? Armin? Hi, Jim. I'm a young investor looking to diversify. I'm all in on tech, which has done well for me, and now I want to look at Starbucks. Fair enough. We own Starbucks for our travel trust. We are down badly on it. It's been a house of pain. I talk about it with Jeff Marks every single day. I literally do every single day. We feel when they miss the quarter, which they're probably going to miss, the stock's going to go down, and that's where we're going to be able to buy more because no stock that we know has rallied yet on an estimate cut. We could be wrong. Maybe they make the quarter. Then we will miss an opportunity to buy more. I think you wait till the quarter. That's my take. My nose is watering because this was so hot. Can I go to Chrissy in Massachusetts, please, Chrissy? Hello, Jimmy. I'm a student of Dr. Fioris at Western State. My question is, would it be beneficial to invest in Krispy Kreme? I think it's run. It's had a terrific move out of nowhere. When you have a trip move out of nowhere, I mean, it's supposed to be another package. Another restaurant took up the chain's product. I think you've got to just say, I missed it and move on. Now, I wouldn't be surprised one bit if the package's food and stocks keep running from here. Given how low the bar is to clear expectations for this earnings season, for the group, it's a hot one. Well, I mean, on the tongue. Now, there's much more mad money than anywhere the eyes and marks. I'll reveal why there are reports from two economic bellwethers and flashy warning signals when it comes to the strength of the overall economy. That is a time to get comfortable with harsh overhead lighting and co-workers microwaving fish in the break room. How the five day work week is coming back into fashion at Kevin's. And all your calls wrapped in fire tonight's edition of the "Smokin' Hot Lighting Answers" today, where we're moving. We finally headed for a slowdown just when everybody's given up on the idea. As I said at the top, I'm looking for brown shoots wherever I can find them. And they're starting to pop up at important places. Look, if there's one thing people are confident about, including yours truly, it's the economy still humming. We talked about the banks yesterday, Wells Fargo, J.P. Morgan, City Group, and the like. And we didn't hear anything from them to suggest that higher interest rates are having much of an impact yet. Aside from making the banks more profitable, it's a solid moment. Not a fabulous one. As Brian Jordan, the straight shooting CEO of First Horizon told us this night, and he's from the hottest area of the country in the southeast, we've got a healthy amount of commerce and beautiful. This is certainly not what Fed Chief J. Powell was looking to see because in this environment, companies can raise prices too easily. That feeds the flame of inflation. I think he never committed to normal rate hikes. He had known that business was going to stay this strong. However, we got two companies this week that gave us a very different narrative. A real wake-up call and narrative that's rife with what I call brown shoots. We're getting these negative stories from excellent companies that are far more sensitive to immediate trends than the banks are, or pretty much any entity out there. The best examples? Profoundly weak numbers from J.P. Hunt, the fourth largest trucker, and perhaps the most, the boldest one when it came to expanding this for years and highly disappointing results from prologists, the largest owner of logistics real estate. Before I get into the numbers, let me just say two things here. Both of these companies are superb operators. J.P. Hunt, run by outgoing CEO John Roberts, and the extraordinary incoming CEO, Shelly Simpson, has put together true nationwide classes that took advantage of the COVID era to get much bigger. That was smart. Prologists, the landlord to eat commerce, regular commerce, data centers, even solar fields, is about a steady predictor of the economies you can find because they own the warehouses. It was the first Dr. Raleigh out of the Great Recession as total control of its business, or at least I thought it did until yesterday. To say that both of these companies were surprised by how slow their disparate markets have become, may be the understatement of the year. One month ago, to the day, Haman Mogadon, the brilliant clinical CEO of Prologists, came on this show, told a very positive story. Leasing activity was very strong, even as new supply was coming online, maybe too much supply, maybe not. The man looked strong, e-commerce was strong. The only weak era in the whole country was Southern California. Prologists doesn't make forecasts, but imagine it did say there could be a smaller client and rents because of an oversupply concentrated in Southern California. But their projections were very solid. A solid quarter, very good year, 30 days later, and now those predictions are out the window. Their occupancy rate was 75 basis points lower than what Haman expected just a month ago. That is, my friends, a monster plastic. Although, Haman made it clear on the conference call that this decline might be temporary. Now, Prologists is no longer just talking about a slowdown in Southern California, even the span of what that Southern California meant, mostly in the Empire, and includes now New Jersey, Seattle, and Savannah. That's a huge change for just 30 days of this extremely well-run company, isn't it? Jamie Hunt's much worse. January started OK, up 2% in sales. Then things sped up to 3% in February, but March? Down 1%. Down! That's a pretty steep deceleration and a not so hot cadence out of the quarter. If anything, that understates it, because the pockets of weakness are very weak. Jamie Hunt sold a 22% downturn in its logistics line. The core truckload business is down 13%, why it was down 5%, which is a bad sign for the rest of the economy. Prices are coming down in trucking, and discounts are going up in warehouses. Wearhouses that are used by the likes of Amazon, Home Depot, FedEx, DHL, Merisk, and UPS. There's some real brown shoots staring at us. The culprit in each case is over-building, and that is exactly what Chief Powell had been hoping for. Jamie Hunt tells this story well. Listen to Darren Field, the president of Intermodal, which was very weak. Quote, "After not having enough capacity to meet our demands in 2021 and 2022, we have consistently been growing our capacity," end quote, "to meet their customers' demands." And now, there is a surf-fat of trucks because everyone else over-built, too. Suddenly, in an industry that didn't have enough capacity, there's too much capacity. Similar to the case of the Prologists. Not long ago, there was a developing shortage in warehouses. So, just like Jamie Hunt, Prologists and his rivals built them like crazy in order to meet the demand. But so did some of these speculative merchants. That's what Prologists call them. betting that there's no limit to that demand. Who would want to bet again on the growth of e-commerce and data centers? Now that the demand is slow, though, these speculators suddenly find themselves on the ropes. As some men explain, quote, "They don't have the financial wherewithal," end quote. And he says they're so distressed that he sends his bargains because they may have no choice but to sell. Which brings me to the implications of these two reports. And yes, for the first time in this rate hike cycle, I see light at the end of the tunnel, just when others see the light of an oncoming train. All aboard? Before there are bargains for Prologists, there will be free rent enticements for the customer or, in turn, in trucking, there will be cuts in trucking rates, both very positive. These companies are experiencing what's supposed to happen in the business cycle after the Fed tightness 11 times. The truckers see great things from their customers, so they go all in. Which means the trucking companies start getting big orders. Which means the trucking suppliers perk up. The professional companies that build data centers and e-commerce warehouse see speculators move into siphoning off e-commerce business. Meanwhile, they're all put in orders by pipe from Ferguson and electronics from Vertib and Eden. Then the customers, presumably the big e-commerce companies, see a slowdown, which quickly leads to a situation where we've got too much warehouse space. The truck builders see their orders cut severely. They all frantically cut prices themselves, allowing the Fed to beat inflation in this domino situation and putting us in a situation where Jay Powell can start cutting rates before there are big layoffs and bankruptcies. However, this time, the chain of pain simply didn't happen. No one's going belly up. We can't see any major players filing for bankruptcy. We haven't seen any orders canceled. We don't see the price cuts down the line to move product. So, do we finally have the beginning of a long-awaited slowdown with Prolages and JB Hunt? Was March that bad? All I can say is that at least there's some brown shoots somewhere. But the bottom line is, it's not enough to cause the Fed to reconsider what they were saying just a couple of days ago. Then money's back after the break. Coming up, hit us with your best shot. And the electrified, fast-fire lightning round is next. It is time for the lightning round. That's pretty false, man. Remember we're just hitting this, tux, turn it up. By the way, by the way, the course is over. You play this out. And then the lightning round is over. Are you ready to keep that? It's over the lightning round. We're starting with Doug in New Jersey, Doug. Oh, big fool, y'all. From Point Pleasant, that's the Jersey Shore. Ah, Jenkinson's back inning. Let's go. Let's go to work. Come on. Yeah. All right. Long time we serve first-time caller. About to start in the Biden administration approved the Willow Project in Alaska. Even though it's not online yet, it's run up 20 percent. Should I buy, sell, or a whole ton of co-philip? I want you to whole con of co-philip, so I like Chevron, too, and my favorite is Co-Terra for the channel. Well, trust. I need you to go to Michael and that's yours. Michael. I think it's probably a sort of the company. They're in trials of obesity throughout their rhythm from the critical. Oh, rhythm farm. Okay. Looking to speculate and play. Actually, it has some obesity work. I am not again speculating bio-text for now. It looks like if there's so many bids, I'm willing to let a stock catch farm. Mark in Florida. Mark. Hey, Jim. I appreciate you taking my call. I'm calling about more bell technology. And it's been dropping ever since they had last Thursday's AI conference. It's now the time to buy more, should I hold? Okay. This is a very difficult cohort. I thought Matt Murphy told a great story. I would buy some and then wait until under 60 to buy the rest. Let's go to Menal in Georgia. Menal. Hey, Jim. Hi. Go ahead. You got Jim? Yeah, sure. You're up. Yeah. So I'm interested in LRCX, LAM research course. Okay. Production technology stock. Right now, I'm worried about LAM. Look, I like LAM very much. I do think that right now we're having a pause in that group in the capital equipment, especially if they want to sell Taiwan, send me to you if they're reported. Let's wait until that stock goes lower and we'll feel better. Let's go to Juan in New York. Juan. Jimmy. Booyah Jimmy. Leasing. I love it. And a big corporation. E, N, E, B, Ecky. What did you say? Do you like it? Do you not like it? Because I like it. Who can I tell you? You got to be making some money in that business. If you're not making money in that business, then I can't say to buy the stock. Let's go to Corey and Washington. Corey. Hey, Jim. I'm really looking forward to hearing your thoughts today. Sure. Thank you. I've been monitoring this company that has had some interesting developments and strategic shifts in recent years. Okay. That company. That stock is Western Union. I have not looked at Western Union since I spoke to them when I was at Dreamforce many years ago. So here's what we're going to do. I'm going to show you that we're going to do a homework on it because I never understood why the dividend could be so big and the stock be so low. Let's do some work and we will come back. Thank you. Let's go to John in Virginia. John. Hey, John. Hey, Jim. Thanks for having me on. I wanted to get your advice on Aspen aerogels. I bought them about a year ago. It's done pretty well. But I feel like a lot of the buzz behind the rally of the past year was tied to the potential growth of the EV market. Do you think I should hold on to it or sell because of the lack of momentum right now? This thing is up so big. And what a great opportunity to sell the stock of a money losing company if you've made a lot of money. Take it, take the profit. Have a Guadalupe in New York. Guadalupe. Hey, Jim. Good afternoon. Thank you. Thank you. Question. So back in November of 2020, I purchased a stock with the other thing and I have made over 200% on that stock. My question is, should I buy more, sell or hold? It's, uh, Matassum. Oh, Mary, don't sell, Matassum. Don't sell St. Cora. I think these things are unbelievable. These are the middle people. And by the way, let's just throw in corn. Oh, that's a threesome. I'm giving you a threesome. You can bet. You gotta get a threesome. I got once. I got twice. I got three. Let's go to Ronald. Matt chooses Ronald. Hello, Mr. Kramer. How are you today? I am good. How about you? Oh, I'm pretty good. I am a long time listener, morning and evening. And it made money from your recommendations. I would like your opinion on the PNC bank. All right, people didn't like the PNC quarter. I, on the other hand, felt that it was an enjoyable quarter, meaning that they're going to start enjoying it again and come back to it. So you buy some now and you buy some down 10%, and you will have a third position. It'll last for a very long time. Joe, in New Jersey, Joe. Hey, how's it going, Jim? Shout out to my dad watching. It's a great season. We're both longtime fans of the show. The stock I want to ask you about is bail. It's got a 6.5 Pe pays a 14% forward dividend and it's pretty much out of 52 week low. With potential tariffs on Chinese steel, what do we think will be the impact there? And would you consider bail? It's too low to sell. It's too low to sell. I wouldn't say ballet and then I have to cut the dividend. So that's nothing to bank on. But down here I'm going to be able to take a shot at it and I think I'll make some money and that. I'm going to be able to get it out of the lightning round. The lightning round is sponsored by Charles Schwab. Coming up, Kramer weighs in on competition and the work week. Next. So, to his financials, the latest alpha to order people back to work five days a week. It's only the investment backers. That's the workforce needs to come in four days, up in three days for the announcement. It's what you say, come on already. Send everyone back. Let's see who likes working at Chuis and doesn't. Good written so those who don't show up as there are plenty of jobs elsewhere. In the meantime, the large regional backer in the southeast couldn't start figuring out how to replace as many of these jobs with AI as soon as possible. Look, I'm not a Martinette but this vestige of COVID simply doesn't make sense to me. I'd love to know how much money the Chuis even saved on rent. I'm fascinated by the idea of zoom mentoring, something that happened because the bosses didn't come in. It was their rebellion. Yes, the boss is not the younger people that caused this work from home absurdity. The managers wanted to be at home. I'm sure the younger people, they got a kick out of it. But coming in was an ever deal breaker for them. I'd love to see what these absent folk watched when they were at home. Did they binge on white lotus? They predict maybe who won squid games? Or how about proxy fight and succession? Do they relax while watching Yellowstone? Or do they just play wordle and connections while away the hours betting on draft games? How did it happen that people didn't go back to work when the pandemic ended? I do have a theory it's surprising when driving from genuine homespun research that comes from doing my job. Plus, I'm a dad. The soft work week happened because the surprising cohort didn't want to go back. It's the cohort that's in the 40s and 50s who realized they were missing a part of life that they didn't get to the office. They got to attend their kids games. They saw their play performances. They played roadblocks with them. They taught them. This was the generation that refused to look back and say, "I wish I would have spent more time with my kids." Something I sure said done. I will never forget the time when I miss my daughter play Feel Hockey goalie against the best in the state. Or the shutout of one of the 18s she had in a championship game? No. Both occurred on big days that were bad for the market. Or at least they felt like big days at the time. I know this. They were forgettable days. Ultimately, just days I felt I should be at work because it was a dicey time in the market. And days my bosses felt were too important to miss. They weren't. I can't even recall what happened. Meanwhile, I'm sure I'd never forgotten some of those milestone wins or that championship game. I was just doing my job. I wish I hadn't. So I understand the rebellion by the people in their prime working years with school aged children. That's what work from home is all about. I have no illusions. The whole productivity improves shams one giant charade. To think that truest workers can do as well for truest in three days is in five is just nonsense. But to think that those people, the executives, saw their kids games, caught the plays, that's terrific for their life experience. At my hedge fund, I individually tried to order a partner back to the office because Intel was reporting, even though his kid was in a play. I said that the kid's going to be in a million plays, but Intel only reports four times a year. That was wrong. I now believe in flexible moments. If you can, you should go to the game. She should try to get to them. But never forget where the five day work we came from. Century ago, people worked six days a week. The labor movement got that down to five days. The five was the fewest days a company could allow in order to teach the next generation of leaders and do best for their shareholders. Not to mention keeping the customers happy. If you don't do these three things, your business won't stay competitive over time. Oh, and one more thing. Work is life's biggest compromise. You agree to do it. And what comes with it is the corrupt bargain where you give up a lot of what you might otherwise want to do. In exchange for the money you and your family need to live one. In fact, life, nobody's going to pay you to see your daughter's field hockey game. You are getting health insurance from watching a high school play. You can end the bargain. You can find a place that's not competitive. But if you work in a place like that, your employer might not make it because business is in the end about the survival of the fittest. They don't call it work for nothing. I like to say, there's always more market somewhere. I'm sorry to find it. Just for you right here at Mad Money. I'm Jimmy Kramer. See you tomorrow. Last call 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. 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