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 4/26/24
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So call me at 1-800-743-CMC, tweet me at Jim Kramer. Now look, if you took your cue from the action in meta platforms, you would have sold big cap tech immediately. And you know what? You would have been terribly wrong. That's because meta's trillionaire rivals, Alphabet and Microsoft, reported two of the absolute very best quarters I have ever seen. And ages. Just last night. Now they're both spending like Med on artificial intelligence and the cloud and search. Just as meta is. But there's enough business for all of them. Throw in some tepid inflation data that kept the hopes alive for a rate cut. And the market just roared the Dow gaining 154 points. S&P jumping 1.02 percent. House of pleasure. And then the Nasdaq surging 2.03 percent. All right, I like that. Now this is a good set up. All right, maybe, maybe one of the toughest weeks we've seen in ages. And that's because it's loaded with earnings and we have a Fed meeting and also the later report on Friday. I am already exhausted by next week. Let's take the weekend sequence starting with Sunday night. Usually don't do this, but Bill Whittaker from 60 Minutes interviews Jensen Wong, the CEO of NVIDIA. Normally I wouldn't care about my business news shows. Absolutely. This time, though, I bet it could have impact on the stock because so many people are fascinated by NVIDIA that I think they want to know it and they want to know more about it. And I say maybe be prepared for a Monday bump from 60 Minutes. Now Monday, we hear from the company I get the most questions about. It's called SOFI, SOFI. This one's become a tortured stock people where the numbers keep getting better, but the share price doesn't go anywhere because of its convoluted balance sheet. We're issuing equities out of the earnings, but it crushes the stock anyway. I think there'll be some mystified analysts on the call, including those who will ask, "Okay, what does the president's student loan forgiveness program have to do with SOFI's earnings to profile?" Now, I honestly actually don't know the answer to that, so I'm going to be listening too and I will fill you in. We also get a flash from Domino's Pizza where newest CEO Russell Wiener has really brought back the old Pat Doyle magic. I expect one more great set of numbers because Domino's has executed the second only to Chipotle, and that is a high bar. Tuesday, wow, okay, we, oh, don't you love this, this is about losing weight, and this is about gaining weight. Okay, Tuesday, we find out exactly how well the GOP-1 diabetes and weight loss drugs are selling when he liability reports. Now, I expect great numbers because the least constantly sold out of Zepbam, which is the version of the drug aimed at obesity, although the lack of product might actually cause some analysts to be concerned. Now, does they actually miss on the top line because they can't make it fast enough? Now, we want to hear about the procedure for more comments from the FDA on Louis Alzheimer's drug. It's more important even as Biogen's competing product is already starting to get some traction. We're going to be pressing Lily to see something about that drug. We do hear from McDonald's too, and I'd like to think that they'll address how they raise prices, perhaps too much. Hey, maybe they need to roll them back. I think the incremental series of price X is really turned off customers. I don't think it's the great taste, although in the end, we're Wendy's baking at her household. Also on Tuesday, American Express. They got a full day antle spinning on the heels of what was one of the greatest quarters where the stocks just kept going up and up. I bet this meeting will be a blockbuster. Emics is probably doing everything right. After the close, we get results from a host of important copies. The biggest is Amazon. We'll be like fellow megacap meta platforms where heavy AI spending felled in stock or will be more like Microsoft or Alphabet, which gave you unbelievable good cloud numbers. So nobody cared about the spending. Alphabet also put up some excellent ad numbers for YouTube. I wonder if Amazon saw the same thing from their ad business. I know Amazon spending like Nvidia chips like there's no tomorrow, but these guys don't do anything unless they know they have the customers first. On top of that, I'd like to find out if Amazon has lowered the cost of sending packages to you. By the way, that's the key metric for an upside surprise. Starbucks reports. Ooh, intriguing. We were on ten books about this position. Jeff Morris and I, when we did our same investing club Wednesday, has China gotten better? Have they solved the throughput issues that have dogged both breakfast in the afternoon? Well, they face up to the fact that there are too many variations of coffees. How's labor? Have they the misdirected pro-Palestine boycott subsided as people realize that Starbucks has no connection to Israel? Can't believe it's come to this, but it did hurt the numbers last time. Thanks to customer intimidation. I know it's just I know it's just trying in my mind, but everybody's got the whole quant that I just mentioned. Let's see. I don't know the answer. We are longing for the trust, and I'm nervous, call me nervous. Wednesday morning, we find out about CVS and whether I've been able to avoid the maelstrom, if you manage care, or Walgreens, a drugstore chain, new stock just stands up going down. This is a tough road, not made easy by the fact of what I call the theft epidemic. Maybe they should have thought about that before installing or those self-check out kiosks. What's the role of a drugstore when Andy Jassy from Amazon is doing his best to take the customers that go there and reorient them to prime with many have same day delivery for these kinds of things that they sell at CVS. Pfizer reports to him, we're getting used to disappointment here. I want to see what the company's harvesting from its acquisition of CJ, that's the old Seattle genetics, which had an amazing anti-cancer franchise. We've seen what key truth has done from work. I want CJ to do the same for Pfizer, but that is a total order. We also get results from Marriott, and this company's been a reliable source of upside surprises. I expect the same thing this time. Somehow, the analysts just refuse to believe that mayor's great numbers can continue. I bet they will as we've got a much more travel-oriented society. Remember, we travel with less goods, more travel. You want to cut me to giving you endless earning speeds. It's a little guy. I'm bringing it out, though, because I think you can still make money on this. Wingstop. I keep thinking this stuff will go down so I can recommend it, but it just won't. You know what? That's often the way of a fantastic stock. On Wednesday afternoon, Fetchief J. Powell shares with you the musings of the Open Market Committee. Has those dreadful press conferences. I suspect we're more chatter about rates staying higher for longer, even as I believe from the empirical work that I do and anecdotal, frankly, that the economy is weaker than most people think in the month of March. I think there are enough brown shoots, may have money, speak for signs and weakness, that we're at risk if the Fed actually goes all conventional wisdom and starts talking down rate cuts. That'd be bad for the market. I'm concerned that the people stay too restricted because they don't yet realize the economy has truly started slowing. I think that it started slowing just when they kind of gave up and thought it would never start slowing. It happens. It's because Wednesday we have Carvana, which we covered last week. This knocks on the move and there's a monster short business. I can't believe they didn't cover. That was foolish. Anything Google calls a short squeeze and that will lead to another leg higher, even though the other used car companies did not do that well. Thursday is Apple Day. I don't even bother to mention other companies because this is what matters now. Apple is going to have a disappointment. It's the most telegraph disappointment in Apple's history. There's so much negativity that you have to wonder if a shortfall is still a shortfall. So it's the most compelling. A shortfall is a shortfall. When everyone knows it's coming, the stock's been creeping higher anyway. It's getting further away from my 160 downside target. Two things could help the Apple clause. First, it could do a rest of world ROW rubric, which would lump all the countries that aren't China and the United States together and make people understand the scale of the international opportunity, which is bigger than China. Second, a tie-up with NVIDIA that would help along the Vision Pro as a piece of hardware for the enterprise, not just the consumer, would be terrific. Whole construction companies, auto dealers, and realers would boost their sales if they embraced it. But Apple is a consumer company. They would have to change their stripes to do what I just said. They should. Finally, on Friday with the employment number, and you know what, this one is real tricky, if it's a strong number, we'll think that the Fed never should have stopped raising rates. If it's a soft number, we'll want to know why the Fed talked about keeping rates higher for longer at the meeting. It is what I call fraud, not a way to end the week. But you need to know it's coming. Bottom line, we have to run another ridiculous call next week that I have no idea how to play out by a short open place. I like we saw it today. But I do think the economy is getting weaker. I just hope the Fed Reserve has noticed. Fed, brown shoots. But you know, why don't we start? Let's go to Ryan in Virginia. Ryan. Oh, yeah, Jim. She's got to get your thoughts on a retail stock that has been decimated. In the VF corporation, a falling knife or a great company that's going to turn things around. This is a very dicey one. I'll tell you why, because there's a guy in there, back in Darryl, who is sensation. I mean, just absolutely loved him at Logitech. He's P&G. He's got real horse sense. But we have to get a clearing event. We have to see all the inventory gone. We do not have that done yet. Once we get sure that all the inventory's gone, then I will probably sound the buy my mind. I can't do it yet. I say we go right now, clear across the country. I say we go to Tyler in California, Tyler. Big boy from California. How you doing, Jim? I think that was more than one person, frankly. I'm doing well. How are you, Tyler? I'm doing good. Thank you for asking. Hey, what's your look on Dexcom? Look, I know Dexcom's great. I absolutely know that it can be done in conjunction with the GOP dash ones, that it is not the enemy of the GOP dash ones. But I don't want to have to defend it, because I have to defend so much. I just finished defending Starbucks. I, he who defends all, defends none. All right, get ready for the go on the next week. If the economy's getting worse, let's hope the Fed is at least paying attention and not throwing their hands up and saying, I guess we couldn't do it after all, man, money tonight. You got them for your credit score. What is your fight going up right? Anyway, I'm thinking of the quarter to send the stock lower to see if investors getting poverty and getting all this company, because the stock almost never goes down. Hey, then you quote on Western Union. You know what I said I had to do? I said I'll do a little homework. Done the research. I'm ready to turn in my homework with the help of Ben Stoto. And SAP Global Turners saw a quarter yesterday. The top of the street test was, I'm learning more about what's working with the company's top risk. What a stock that is. So stay with Kramer. 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. 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Terms and conditions apply. Need to hire? You need Indeed. We've got some work to do here because we've got to feel what just happened to the Fair Isaac Corporation stock. The analytics software and service company best known for being the keeper of the FICO score. Fair Isaac. After a really hot start earlier in the year, the stock came down some steps over the past few weeks. Thanks to worries about rising interest rates, higher rates translated into less borrowing, which means less business for Fair Isaac theoretically. Last night's something interesting happened. The company reported fantastic quarter size will top and bottom line B with accelerating revenue growth. Management also raised their full year forecast across the board. I loved it. Unfortunately, the stock got hit, plunging more than $80 or almost 7% today because even the Fair Isaac raised its guidance. It wasn't enough to catch up with Wall Street estimates. See, people already expected a beaten race quarter and there's still very much worried about the long-term interest rates going higher. So could this be the buying opportunity we've waited for for a high quality company that very rarely comes down? Let's check in with Will Lanceys to see how Fair Isaac gets a better sense in this situation, Mr. Lance, and welcome back to me have money. Thanks so much, Jim. All right, so well, we just let's just deal with this right in front. I mean, to me, all of your metrics were were exceeded and it was really a quite beautiful quarter for FICO. We agree. Well, I mean, then why do we do you like my analysis that perhaps you didn't raise earnings enough, estimates enough, that they were unhappy, that they being people really don't understand your company as far as I'm concerned? Well, I'd say the part of your analysis I certainly agree with is that there's a buying opportunity here. That's the part I agree with. And I agree also that the numbers are fine. I'm a weepy guidance and we're weepy consensus and we're happy with the results. I do think that there's a little bit of an overhang from a fear of interest rates not coming down quickly enough. Earlier in the year, certainly people thought the rates would come down sooner. And with lower rates come higher, mortgage score volumes, which is good for us. So any kind of postponement and rate decline is always going to clip us a little bit. But generally, we're very happy with the business. We're in a good place. Okay. Look, and I agree with you that it's the hire for longer, trap people and that kids, people who I think are a little too small minded about your stock, gets them to do something that I disagree with, which is not love your stock. But I also have, in my hand, a letter from a fellow by the name of Senator Josh Hawley. Now, I was brought up by my mom and dad to think because there's only 100 senators, you better revere them. But when I read his letter, which was to Jonathan Kanner, the assistant attorney general, he's talking about monopolies. Well, there are more people doing what you're doing than ever before. It's just you have the best one. Why can't this senator see that that's what's going on? When you are exactly right. I mean, we don't have a monopoly. There are alternatives to the FICO score. What we do have is the best score in the lowest cost and the best way of evaluating credit for a broad population at the low cost. And so there are people who get concerned about our level of success because we do have a lot of market share. And we are widely used over 90% of credit decisions in banks in the US are driven by FICO scores. So there's a reason that people notice it. But as you point out, there are alternatives and we're there because we're good, not because we have some kind of special privileges. Well, also, well, there was a period where a lot of these upstart companies came on and that's actually using the analog in the name that said, Hey, listen, they don't do 360. They just drilled out on one thing. You've got a 360 product too from what I can tell it's better than anybody's. That's exactly right as well. So you have to distinguish between the scores and the software. We have two businesses, sports and software. And at the end of the day, what we try to do with both of them is make these superior credit decisions. The scores is a low cost, broad population approach. And the software says, let's take into account lots more inputs into the decision, a little more sophisticated, a little fancier, a little more complicated, and a somewhat more predictive decision as a result. We have both available. And so it's important to compare apples with apples. There are a lot of fintechs who have new technology for making credit decisions. Typically, they start with a FICO score and then they build on top of that with whatever their secret sauce is. Well, that's what I thought. I mean, we just got to say an outfit like an upstart. I mean, no one's impeding them. They could be in every bank if they were better than you. I mean, I think a center may just look at the situation. There have been more competitors that have been created that tell me, listen, they've got the algorithms and FICO doesn't. I understand this maybe 10 years ago, when the competitors weren't around and you were the best. But now this is the most competition I've ever had you see. And yet you're winning constantly. And that's what matters. That's absolutely right. That is right. Look, the FICO score is going to be used for a very long time. It is the most predictive, low cost way to evaluate the credit worthiness for large population. We do it. We do it at low cost for our bank customers. And what I'm proud of is it enables us to get credit into the hands of almost anyone who can responsibly handle it. We score more people. We get credit into the hands of the people who deserve it. And I'm proud of that. Well, the only thing I want to say is you're stuck to get it on the ladder because people I think are a lot sophisticated by your situation, they seem to think that you make a ton of money per mortgage. I mean, the fact is you take about 20 basis points. I mean, that's it. You can't even see it. That's that's also true. No, it is the case that mortgage score cycle. Mortgage scores are pulled for almost every mortgage, both conforming mortgages and nonconforming mortgages. But the FICO score is a percent of the total fees that a consumer pays for mortgages is tiny, tiny, tiny, tiny. But now one of the things I did do over the longest period of time was to see what's happened when your stock has had this drop. And I know you should be very proud every single time when you have this big a drop. It's been an amazing buying opportunity. I don't see anything else other than the fact that I think it was a mistaken sell-off. And I say that this is right. And I know you agree with me that, but I'm not kidding. You know, every single one of the sharp dips has been accompanied by a multi-year rise. And I think this is just another one of them. I think that's exactly right as you're spot on. Inevitably, there's bumps and dips in a stock. ours has generally been up and up and up. And most people have trouble getting a hold of the stock because they find the PE exorbitant. We think that it's fairly priced based on our future prospects. But when you get a dip like this, it's certainly an opportunity. One of those questions, you have not been contacted by Mr. Tanner's office. Have you the antitrust office? No, no. And I think it's probably worth pointing out that there was an antitrust investigation by the Department of Justice several years ago, and we came out clean. I mean, there's not anything inappropriate here. We're squeaking clean on competitive practices, and there's nothing to be concerned about. Oh, I'm sure because that was the only other thing I said was, well, maybe they reached out and we don't know about it. But I didn't think, I know you would have disclosed it immediately. You disclose everything. You're totally up from company. Every footnote answers to every question. So I want to thank Will Lansing, Fair Isaac, for presidency. We love this stop. This is our chance. It's the first break. Thank you. Well, good to talk to you. Everybody's back in the break. Coming up, you asked and we answered. Kramer turns in homework on a classic American company. 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 american express.com/business gold card. Last Thursday night, we got a call from Corey in Washington. We wanted to know about Western Union, the 173 year old money transfer company. I had to confess that I hadn't followed this one for a very, very long time. Aside from wondering how a heck Western Union could have sunk to the point where it now has a nearly 7% dividend yield. So, I promised to take a fresh look at it circle back after the company reported it over this week. Western Union is a long and storing history, but the Western Union of today only regained its independence after it was spun off by first data corporation 18 years ago. Back then, the company was mostly focused on cross-border money transfers. Over time, they've embraced new technology making it easier for people to move money overseas. After getting hit during the Great Recession, the stock gradually made a comeback before PE in February of 2020, right before COVID hit. Problem is, the pandemic crushed international travel, which meant much less demand for these cross-border money transfers. Meanwhile, Western Union has faced all sorts of old competition, including from cryptocurrency. After PE at $28 in 2020, the stock came down to $10 in March of last year. During the period, Western Union has never stopped struggling to take control of its own destiny. In 2021, they sold a non-core business to business units, and then they brought a new CEO from Pfizer, a great company. His name was Devin McGranahan. About a year later, he led a new strategy to combine the company's long-separated technology and retail money transfer business. In the old days, people would just go to Western Union to make a single money transfer. Now, they're trying to embrace a more relationship-centric business model, with their tech offerings like digital banking services, keeping customers engaged between visits. Basically, they've been losing shared arrival fintech place, so they decide to get in fintech themselves and use their huge network of stores to give them an edge. Now, at the time, Western Union was realistic about the fact that any kind of turnaround would take some time. They introduced some long-term financial targets in October 2022. They're pretty modest, targeting 2% revenue growth by 2025, paired with operating margin roughly in line with what they were already doing at the time, and mid-single-digit earnings growth. I know, not exactly impressive, not a high bar, but at least the numbers wouldn't be shrinking anymore. Six months later, the stock finally did manage a bottom after still one more ugly quarter, and over the past 13 odd months, it's worth its way from $10 to $13 in change. So why is Western Union doing better of late? Simple. The stabilization plan is working. In fact, on Wednesday night, the company just reported its fifth solid to good quarter in a row. Last night, they delivered a top and bottom line beat and reiterated their four-year forecast last July. They had another top and bottom line beat coupled with the race forecast. Western Union gave you the same kind of beat and race last October. By the beginning of this year, these guys had some real accomplishments. Western Union's full-year 2023 numbers were much better than the lighted initial guidance that they provided in October 2022. Full-year 2023 revenues was down 4% on a constant currency basis. Their operating margin came in at the middle of what they guided for, and their earnings per share came in at a whopping $1.74, a management standpoint, they were going to be earning $1.60. Retail transaction growth was flat year every year, with revenue growth of 1%. Again, for Western Union, flat is an improvement. New brand of the digital customers grew by 13%. That's not paid. Digital transactions were up 11% double-digit. The company also rolled out new digital wild offerings along with debit cards and lending services in several additional markets, and they made progress on the cost cut front too. That's it. When Western Union reported its fourth quarter numbers roughly three months ago, Wall Street didn't love it. Because while the sales were better than expected, the earnings were merely in line after three straight quarters of big upside surprises. Management's full-year forecast for 2024 also seemed lackluster. But with this new Western Union that bites a CEO, Devin McGranahan, it's clear that the company likes to underpromise with its guidance and then over to live with tax results. You pot. Sure enough, on Wednesday night, this company reported a pretty good first quarter. Western Union posted a slight revenue beat with a 3% growth on a constant currency basis, and they earned 45 cents per share when Wall Street was looking for just 41. That's generally 5% earnings worth. Again, not too impressive in the grand scheme of things, but pretty darn good for something that's widely regarded as a no-growth business. Western Union also raised its full-year revenue and earnings forecast pretty substantially. It's now looking like 2024 will be an up year. In response, the stock initially soared after our trading, but then it got dragged down by the negative tape. I understand that. It finished the session down more than 2%. Today, the stock bounced a bit, but it's still below where it was before the quarter. I kind of like that. Now, taking a step back, I find that encouraging the Western Union's core money transfer business is making a comeback. Total transactions growth in the cross-border vibes have now been positive for four-string quarters. Meanwhile, their brand-in digital transactions have consistently been growing at a double-digit clip over the same period, all good. So where do I come down on Western Union first? I agree with Cody and Washington. There's a legitimate turn going on here, and the new management team, Western Union, deserves credit for making it all happen. I also like the fact that the stock does remain very cheap, currently selling for less than eight times a midpoint of management's full-year earnings forecast. I like that. That's kind of really inexpensive. This stock has an excellent dividend yield. It's a legit 7% payout, and I think you can trust it as Western Union's bouncing is fine. Over time, I believe the stock can grind higher, assuming there are no real setbacks that turn around ever, and there certainly haven't been any setbacks so far. So if for some reason you're in love with Western Union, I think you can justify buying it here, but in this big butt, it's not a position that I'd be excited about. I definitely wouldn't recommend it with a reclamation project on a Western Union over a payments company with real growth and a nice, exciting future. Like, say, American Express, for some perspective, Western Union is working toward a target of 2% revenue growth and mid-single-digit earnings growth next year. AMX, long aim for 10% plus revenue growth and mid-teens earnings growth. You figure which one you like more. These are important in a nice quarter of the other day, and it shares got a solid pop over the long haul. Visa and Mastercard have been much better performers than Western Union. By the way, those two also have plenty of cross-border vibes. So let me give you the bottom line. Western Union, is it a turnaround story? Absolutely. Can the stock go higher from its current to press level? I think so. But in the end, I think you can do better with a visa, or a Mastercard, or most certainly, an American Express. Let's go to Joe in Georgia, Joe. Booyah, Kramer, longtime listener, first-time caller. Fantastic, Joe. How are you doing today? I'm doing great. I've got a question about Mastercard. I really like this stock, and I'm a little apprehensive about buying in at these levels. What do you think? Should I buy in now or wait for a full plan? I think this is... I mean, I saw it in the other day that we're here bringing the bell. I think this is a terrific level. I think you should buy some here, and then wait and buy some lower. But Mastercard is a sensational stock. I made a lot of money for it for the Travel Trust, and should never have sold it. That's my highest compliment. I think Western Union is a turnaround story in the making that you can make money with. It will go hard, but I think you can get better in the payment space. Watch where we have money here. We're all about making money here, and sometimes there are companies that fly to the radar that can bring you some big returns. I think S&P, global, fits that mold, and I'm breaking down the company's quarter with the excellent CEO. Then, one thing stayed this week, same this week, from being a complete meltdown. How are we all what it is and how you can get in the reaction? And, of course, oil calls, fabric firing tonight's edition of The Lighting Round. So, stay with Kramer. Every earnings season, all sorts of high-quality companies, report good quarters, but still end up flying under the radar. Why? Because there's just too much information to process. Take S&P Global, which is mainly a ratings agency, for the bottom market, but also runs all the S&P and Dow Jones industries on top of all sorts of offerings about market intelligence issues where money managers need and live by. Yesterday, more the S&P Global reported a strong top bottleneck beat, with management also raising their full-year forecast. But because the, well, saying the action was so ugly yesterday, well, the stock only managed to rally a half a percent before cacking on another tiny game today. You know what? I think this is a quarter that deserves more attention, especially with the stock still down more than five percent. This is a high-quality company. Don't take it from me. Let's dig deeper with Doug Peterson. He's the president and CEO of S&P. Well, what person I've known for a very long time to find out how things are going. Well, Doug, first of all, thank you for coming on this show. Thank you. It's always an honor to be here. Thank you so much. You're very kind. I always have to start with the fact that you have this amazing ratings business, but each time I see you, you have more and better other businesses you've added, even in the times as I've seen you last. Talk about some of the new things you've got. Well, as you know, we did the acquisition of IHS Market and brought in an incredible portfolio of businesses. We brought in the fixed-income indices to put together with S&P Dow Jones indices. We've got this energy suite, which includes incredible conferences. We have all the information you need about alternative energy, about what's happening to hydrogen markets, as well as price benchmarks. And then the market intelligence business, we have 13 million prices now that we can put into all of our products and services. Well, this is really important because there's a lot of opaque analysis this time. And then there's your empirical analysis. For instance, we often hear about private credit and how they're doing, but we shouldn't be relying on them. You actually have benchmarks. You actually have the numbers. Well, we have the numbers, and this is one of the highest growth areas for us. Last quarter, we grew that business 15%, because not only do the actual investors themselves, the private credit managers want more information about their own credit portfolios, want to look at concentrations. So do the LPs. The LPs are looking for information. So our ratings business benefits from providing the private credit analytics, securitization analytics, and then in our LP business, we're providing through eye-level information for all of those LPs about the portfolio. And we can apply all of that pricing technology we have to what's inside of those credit portfolios. It's a win-win for us, and we're really excited about that. I want people to know this. When you had these things, even in my time, the managers made up the numbers. They just went take a look and say, "Oh, well, this is worth X. That is unfair." And you busted that, which is terrific. At the same time, we got to go into the IHS. You come into that market, and with energy markets gigantic, it's something that we don't mean worldwide now, we're dominant. And you become the single sole source of truth for all the big institutions very quickly. Well, when you think about the energy market, this is one that, as you say, it's quite opaque, but it's also going through a massive transformation. One of the things I say that every single company is an energy company now. Every wants to know, what's your energy footprint, what's your carbon analytics? Do you have a net zero pledge? Is that net zero pledge something that anybody can ever get to? We're providing the kind of data and analytics that allows you to run your company as an energy company, understand those analytics, do all of the energy transition, financing side of it. So we put together something that goes from the financing side to the energy side to the pricing side across the entire business for multiple investment industries. Well, the people who say, "Look, the interest in ESG has died out." It may not be as fervent, but it's going to be, it's mandatory. You have to have it. You can't just say, "Oh, nobody cares about it right now. That's not the way it works." Well, we're in a third inning slump, and we've still got many more endings to go on ESG. And right now, all of the focus has shifted to energy. And it's shifting to environment, it's shifting to climate, to carbon analytics, to carbon markets. And this is where we play a really important part through what we had with true cost and acquisition we did many years ago, what we've built through the combination of plats and the energy business from IHS. So we have those analytics that you need to be able to do the ESG. We also have over 3,000 companies that give us information about their own ESG factors that we can use to help the market understand what's happening. Well, I think the old days, people used to say, "Was there issuance?" Yes, by S&P. If there wasn't issuance, no. But you still have a very big issuance business, and issuance is really on fire. Well, a last quarter are what we call build issuance went up by 45%. And our transaction revenues went up 54%. So the ratings business revenues last quarter were up 27% overall. And the margin was up very, very substantially, not just for ratings, but the entire company. We had 14% top line growth across the company, organic growth, and we had a 27% EPS. So we had a really, really phenomenal quarter. Now, how do you find these different acquisitions? For instance, Ken Show was something that was interesting. And now you may Ken Show in a really profitable business. Well, Ken Show was, goes back five or six years ago, we had a vision that artificial intelligence was going to change the way people did their work. We thought that it wasn't going to change roles and jobs, but it was going to allow you to automate things that were underneath what you did and make you smarter and work faster. So we've seen that playing out now. And so we've had Ken Show in the company for over five years, and we built a Ken Show layer of machine learning and analytics using textual data to turn it into actual data you can turn into being able to make decisions on. And now we're applying that to generative AI. We have a whole generative AI roadmap, including products that we've started building, and an internal platform we built for ourselves. So we have our own internal platform by keeping our proprietary data inside of our firewalls. We can bring the models in, and then we're not losing our intellectual property. That is terrific. And I think people should understand that it is, you're not idle. You are creating things all the time that it turned out that we needed that we didn't know we needed. Well, we think that there's always going to be some angle of data and analytics that we need to, we want to get ahead of. As an example, we actually have an RMD team that's looking at what we call DeFi. It's digital finance. It's, for instance, stablecoins. We now have a team that assesses the quality and the risk of stablecoins. Where's that going to go? Right now it's small, but we want to be on the leading edge of things like this. So we can be at the leading edge of energy transition, of digital finance, what's happening in private credit, etc. This is our vision is to be on the cutting edge, and then make sure we protect all of the businesses we have that are so strong. Oh, that's so great, because there's so many of our viewers want to be in, they desperately want to be in Bitcoin. They want to be in crypto. But the stablecoin is the big issue, because we know that it's opaque. You're able to get good information on stablecoin. Well, we have a, we have a criteria. It's like, I think it was like a rating criteria. It has literally 30 or 4 different criteria that you have to be able to understand, to judge the quality of that stablecoin. So we have a stablecoin assessment now. We're also rating digital bonds. Well, you are? Yeah, if there's digital bonds out there, we have a rating criteria for digital bonds, if they're using any kind of a digital technology. I regard you as the great equalizer between the limited partner or the customer, and the company that is doing the thing, because the government itself doesn't have the tools or actually the vision that you have about what people really want. Well, we see what they also what where they're going. You know, we're trying to stay a step ahead. Some of the things we do don't necessarily work out, but we got to stay ahead of the markets and have this R&D in the investment. And we also know that our business requires us to continuously improve our relationship with our customers. We have to add value, bring better technology. We've been doing a lot of launches across our products the last couple of years to make them better and easier to use all the time. People should know, I sold a business to Doug a multiple years ago, and it's been treated very well. And that's why I do know him. And you are an outstanding business person and a great person to deal with. Thank you so much. Thank you so much. That is Doug Peterson, he's the president and CEO of S&P Global and it's a terrific stock. May everybody start to get this thing. Coming up, hit us with your best shot and electrified fast-fire lightning round is next. It's time to start with the white-brown convention wave program. I'm going to never see it in the stock. I'm going to tell you about myself, I'm going to go to the little course, I'm going to step into the wave. And then the lightning round is over. Are you ready, scheme, dad, it's having a light round, can you hear what? I say we start with hutch in New York. Hutch. Hey Jim, it's hutch. What's going on, partner? See where you think about the wealthiest hole thing. I'm liking Celsius. It went down because of the monster, but the problem with the monster really the wind for Celsius. And I only had four of them this day. Just four, I cut back. Let's go to Brian and Texas. Brian! Right back at you. He was wondering what's your thoughts on Schomburger ticker. This was a ballerooning the fact that Fattie Call. I mean, I got to tell you, SLB did not deliver. I feel terrible because I like coming very much. But it was weak. Actually, Hal Burton did better. That's saying something. Don't forget, we like cotara for the travel trust. How about we go to Rhonda in Kansas, Rhonda? Hey Jim. How are you? I'm good. How about you? I am well, Jim. Diamondback energy, bang. It is so great. I should have mentioned that along with cotara. I'm back there. I saw they were debating like a bull bear debate earlier on the stage, going on our show on Network. And then kind of came out and said, well, maybe it's good, maybe it's bad. No, it's great. All right, let's go to work here. Let's go to Edna in New York, Edna. Oh yeah, Mr. Kramer. Oh yeah. I know what's happening. How are you? I'm doing well. I'm using my shits of cotara. And I still have shares of PXD. Would you recommend that I sell or wait until I get X on stock? Oh darn it, X on stock was down today. And it hurt pioneer. I want you to can chain, can chain, okay? You can chain, can chain and you get to the cotara. You get to the cotara, man. I think it'll be good for you. I need to go to James in New York, James. Hey, Jim. I'm calling. First of all, I love yourselves. Huge fans. You made me a lot of money over the years. I love your thoughts on the next big thing in the fight against cancer. I called you before it was approved. But now it's been approved, Booyah, and Kiva, and Unity Bio. Yeah, I know. I think someone's going to have to pick them up. I mean, because everyone needs a picnic. First of all, what Merck's done. Look at how much money Merck's made. Merck is a great, honest company. Rob Davis doing a terrific job. But I agree with you. I'm with you. I am with you, partner. Let's go to Larry in Oklahoma. Larry! Who yucky, Jim. Oh, good job. I want to ask your opinion on a company that dropped 15% in the last month, made a recent deal with Oracle, and its earnings come out again on May 6th. You know who I'm talking about? Palantir. Oh, look, I like Palantir. But you know what, they've become uncommunicative on me from me on the show. That doesn't bias me. I am a fine man. I'm a good man. But I wish they had come on because I do like to stop. Let's go to Josiah and Florida. Josiah. Yeah, I have a question as far as BRB, nice and many ups and downs on it. Yeah, it is up to down. That's why if you want the insurance business, I'm going to say you're progressive. I think progressive is better. And that ladies and gentlemen is the conclusion of the Lightning Round. The Lightning Round is sponsored by Charles Schwab. Coming up, Kramer puts a bow on the Dow's wild week. Don't start your weekend without hearing his final Friday thoughts. Next. Look, we know what to say to us this week. The demand for artificial intelligence input that boosted the portions of Alphabet and Microsoft. Demand for AI is so strong that it's reverberating throughout the whole country. You know, it's triggering data center revolution, use construction everywhere, a growth of power use that hasn't happened in years. Most important to need for semiconductors. Traders locked up Broadcom and Super Micro and Arm Holdings. Those are all good analogs, but the most notable move of them all came from what's become, I think, one of the most controversial stocks in the entire month. The stock of Nvidia. Case and point size. Nobody seemed to think it mattered all that much when Alphabet's stock passed a $2 trillion mark, right? I mean, surely it's been a week lately, but when a company does a $70 billion buyback, it gives you a $0.20 quarterly dividend. It's only fair for this stock to rally 10%. It's been around though. It's far over these levels of work, totally rational. Microsoft's been the market's alpha dog for ages. Ever since Apple's iPhone sales stall and critics dismissed it as a new growth company. When Microsoft talked about its artificial intelligence business, we learned about how that it gave the Azure Cloud division an astounding 7% boost. That is incredible. That's open AI and chat GPT. Microsoft also has a terrific copilot product. It's taken the world by storm. And by the way, you might not know it, but pretty soon it's going to come to your PC. Maybe July, maybe August. We know these companies are making fortunes, but we often have to be reminded why that's happening. It's in large part because of the solutions made possible by Jensen Wong, the CEO of NVIDIA. I don't know how many of you remember the movie Field of Dreams. If you build it, they will come. It was fiction. If you build a baseball diamond in a cornfield, there's no way that actual baseball stars will show up. But you know what? Jensen Wong pulled it. If you build it, they will come. Story. It's real. He built chips. Originally to make video games look better, which quickly became much faster than anything else in the market. For several years, they languished as the kind, non-promotional CEO built it. And nobody came. And then one day, his friend, Sam Altman, came and played ball. The rest is almost fantasy because it just can't be reality, can it? No, it was. In one chat GPT went so viral that you can see what's happened by looking at the amazing results of the companies that embraced Jensen Wong's super chips, including the two last night. There's just one problem. Unlike Microsoft or Alphabet, NVIDIA, the stock basically came out of nowhere. The idea that this company has a $2.2 trillion valuation just rankles people. It's regardless of alchemy. Some sort of customer gain, a flute that will eventually be undone. Unlike its fellow trillionaires, Apple, Alphabet, and Microsoft, it just doesn't seem right that a company could sneak into that esteemed group through the back door. It's like people think NVIDIA didn't pay its dues, even though it's been in business for 31 years. They don't know how long Jensen's been working on this project. They don't know that he is the ultimate dues pair. I might ask you to believe that if Jensen built it with all the earnest nature and optimism, the companies will call the hyperscalers will come. But I am asking to stop dally just because you only discovered the stock a year or two ago. Now, NVIDIA still has plenty of critics. This talks about 100 points from his high. If it doesn't take that high, I am sure that it'll become suspicious that it will go much lower. That's what the technicians would say. These customers are all working to try to create their own semiconductors. That's true. They might even end up competing with NVIDIA, although I can tell you the world is starved for NVIDIA's wares right now. It is sold out of much of what it makes before it even builds it. I say this, open your mind about this amazing stock and its humble CEO. Sure, it might seem new to you, but if you haven't watched this show for a decade, NVIDIA is no stranger. And if you haven't owned it for years now, all I can say is, what took you so long? I like to say as always, it's more market summer. I promise I'd find just for you right here, man. Money, I'm Jim Kramer. See you Monday. 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