My mission is simple, to make you money. I'm here to level the playing field for all investors. There's always a bull market somewhere, and I promise to help you find it. Mad Money starts now. Hey, I'm Kramer. Welcome to Mad Money. Welcome to Kramerica. I've been wanting friends. I'm just trying to make you some money. My job is not just to entertain, but to teach about this crazy market. So call me at 1-800-743-CNBC or tweet me at Jim Cramer. When it comes to tech companies, you know what? It's become not enough just to beat and raise anymore. You need to have something else going on, something that's not in your control. You need a shortage or else your stock's not going to get much love. Even if you're one of those big dogs, yeah, the hyperscalers we talk about, the ones that reported after the close this very evening. Now, there are a lot of cross-currents today we should mention. A day when the Fed met, a day when the president proclaimed for a second time, then he's no longer going to be a nice guy toward the enemy Iran. But this time he added a rifle for some Rambo-like emphasis when he posted a story there. That belligerent post, plus a weak bond market where rates crept up once again, gave us today's action. Dow falling 280 points, S&P dipping 0.04%. Nasdaq actually edging up 0.04%, but I felt the market was uglier underneath. See, those higher interest rates are now banging a lot of companies, especially the banks, which were quite worrisome in their activity. We're going to talk to the relatively new banks so far later in the show. And it got hurt badly. But the funky nature of trading in this keynote group makes me anxious. I always like to see the group do better, at least do nothing. The Fed meeting today, it brought me no real solace. It's the last Fed meeting hosted by J-PAL. It was uneventful at the same time that oil went up big again. It's an unavoidable fact of life that oil soared 7% to $160 today, near the highest it's been since the war started. That in itself, I'm calling it worrisome. I've told you over and over again, though, that it isn't a rally in oil per se that matters. No, it's the ripple oil causes to the bond market. If interest rates ignore oil, we're fine. But now, though, we aren't fine. They're not ignoring oil up here. Rates are going higher. A huge part of our economy could use a rate cut, particularly housing. But at this pace of inflation, there won't be any, even under the incoming Fed chief, Kevin Warsh. Hey, Melman of Chief Warsh, where you can, the press conferences, please, maybe do a Netflix and have a journalist, maybe have them write down the questions, okay? Answer the best ones on a website, then go do some work. What else didn't go right? Well, how about the bounce in the dormant defense stocks? Boy, I don't want to see them move up. That's always a terrible sign. Sign of some military surprise that we didn't count on. That's a sign that you might need to do some selling to a lot of traders. That's the way they did it. And we saw that across the board midday, especially with tech, until a closing rally. War, inflation, what are they good for? Absolutely nothing. So what's working here? The shares of companies where they can't make enough product in technology. No, not Amazon, not Alphabet, not Microsoft, not Meta. Seagate! Seagate, the maker of disk drives that store data, including data spewed from machines in the data center. Oh, Seagate's been a horse for ages now, and it rallied 11% today on the conference call. They talked about how they can't make their product fast enough. I don't know when that will change because there aren't enough machines available for Seagate to expand its disk drive production. Boy, that's exactly what you want to see. That's what the market wants. We're seeing the same thing at Intel. Yeah, Intel, once again, it climbed 12 percent as it doesn't have enough CPUs to help alleviate the shortage. It's crippling the growth of AI agents in this new fourth industrial revolution. That's the hottest part of the fourth industrial. Then there's Generac. We had them on recently. I don't know. Do you remember? They were going to have some big orders from the hyperscalers for backup energy. They said the same thing today. I don't like when a stock rallies a second time on news we already know. But this market wants shortages. They'll take them wherever it can get them. And there is a shortage of energy that goes in at data centers. Same thing with Bloom Energy, one of our absolute favorites, which jumped 27% today because its fuel cells for the data center are in short supply. and they don't burn dirty. Or how about NXP Semi, which rocketed 25% on a shortage of chips for autos? That's a surprise because NXP's auto business has long been an albatross around the company's neck. But now that the cars are filled with software-defined product, NXP is a must. But I don't want to bury the agony and exity of this very evening, where we didn't have a lot of shortages, and instead we just had four gigantic companies that all had to go off at once, possibly because they're just trying to give me a heart attack. I mean, maybe that's the story. What are the magnificent seven reporters this evening? And remember when I told you that you would need something good from two of them, at least two of them to power us higher? Well, that is pretty much what we got. But we didn't get any shortages. See, Alphabet crushed it, okay, in every line, including Google Cloud, which was extraordinary. That's been a hot, just a really hot item for a long time now. Those guys just get YouTube strong again, search incredibly strong, which is very important because it's funding the whole build out, especially their own. Geez, their own semiconductors. Maybe those are in short supply. That could make sense. I'll go with that. Amazon. Look, I like the earnings so much, even as I know there were sellers initially all over the place. I liked it because one of its key divisions, the one that Andy Jassy, the CEO, came from, Amazon Web Services had incredible growth. 28%. That is just absolutely insane. I'm some pleasure. I remember not that long ago having some, let's say, hot words with the CFO about whether that Amazon Web Services would even grow in the double digits. Now it's growing at 28%. Now they should spend the money. Maybe that's a bit of a shortage. They may need more power, more compute just for their data Center work. I was worried that it would grow at high single digits. Nice move. Their cloud business is fantastic. Now, call me confused when it comes to Meta. I've been mulling it over before I came out here. I know they announced they upped their capital expenditures by $10 billion. And you know what? When you do that, all I have to say is, don't buy. Don't buy. But then again, they did have the fastest revenue growth in five years. So maybe they should spend. But then again, I'd like to see more justification of that spend. But then again, I absolutely like that the revenues were up 33%. You see what I mean? Boom, boom, boom. I didn't want that, though. I just wanted to be boom, right? I got this and I got this. And finally, there is Microsoft. I don't know what to say. I thought they would have something more to say than they did. Maybe you can consider it cheap, but it's software. Hey, by the way, if I really want cheap, throw a dividend yield in there and I'll buy Ford Motor. It's odd. There was a time when all four of these companies would have unstoppable growth. Now the growth belongs to those who sell into constrained areas. And there's nothing constrained about artificial intelligence. In fact, it's all over the place. The bottom line is simple. The best tech these days is ironically old tech because we stopped building old tech. And it came back into vogue because it turns out that artificial intelligence needs some old tech, too. Now the big guys can't build enough. And with the exception of Google and Amazon, there's not much else to say. Let's take some calls. Let's go to Evan in New Jersey. Evan. Hi, Jim. How are you? Thank you for taking my call. Oh, I'm glad you called me, Evan. How can I help? I wanted to ask about how you feel about Domino's Pizza. I got to tell you, I happen to love Russell Wiener. I think he's terrific. But boy, they missed the quarter. And when I read over the conference call, I just didn't find anything that made me feel that this is the level. I couldn't say this is the level because I got other restaurateurs doing incredibly well. I got Starbucks doing well. And I've got Kevin Hockman at Brinker doing incredibly well. And I have Domino's. By the way, yum was good. And but they're they're getting out of pizza. But no. No, it wasn't good. And I don't want it for the yield. Let's go to Jerry in California. Jerry. Jim, big ocean wave booyah to you from California. Fantastic. And I'm glad to have you on the show. What can I tell you? What can I say to you? What do you got? Hey, great piece recently on Viking Cruises. Oh, thank you. Thank you. You captured that to a T. So, so, Jim, we got into this early. So are we trading this or staying invested in the leaders of the sea? We do not trade Viking Holdings. We think that Viking Holdings with Torsten Hagen is about as good as it gets. We spent a lot of time with Tor on that last time when he was in New York. And let me just say this. That one, $78 stock, it feels a lot like $100. All right, the best tech days, well, ironically, the best ones are old tech. Aside from Amazon and Google, I just don't have that much to say about the others. Why don't I like Ford Motor better? Okay, on Man Money today, Brinker, the company behind Chili's and the aforementioned Brinker, I should say. Chili's and Maggiano soared today after earnings. What's working for this restaurant chain? I'm going to check in with the CEO. Then with the averages roaring back this month, the IPO market has started to pick up some steam. I'm sharing if newly public company X Energy could energize your portfolio. And SoFi fell over 14% today on an inline earnings and unchanged guidance. I've got to figure out what the heck is going on. Let's bring in the CBL and stay with Kramer. Don't miss a second of Mad Money. Follow at Jim Kramer on X. Have a question? Tweet Kramer. Hashtag Mad Mentions. Send Jim an email to madmoneyatcnbc.com or give us a call at 1-800-743-CNBC. Miss something? Head to madmoney.cnbc.com. This morning, we got one of those better-than-fiered quarters from Brinker International, pairing of Chili's and Maggianos. And that was enough to send the stock up double digits. I love that. While it's still down from its early 2025 highs, Investors were braced for a disaster somehow, and instead they got just a real good number. All of January was soft because of bad weather Then February and March were much stronger I love that what known as cadence Plus management raised the low end of their full year earnings forecast Stock had sold off hard going into the quarter and worries about rising costs instead of the consumer So these numbers were enough to send it flying. Management also said April's off to a strong start. So I bet you're going to get some analysts saying good things tomorrow. So let's take a closer look with Kevin Hockman. He's the president and CEO of Brinker International. Hey, Kevin, welcome back to Bad Money. Hey, Jim. Thanks for having me on the show again. All right. 20 quarters, 20 consecutive quarters of same store sales growth. 31 percent comp from last year for Chili's. How's that possible? Yeah, we just keep rolling with the food service and atmosphere, the fundamentals of casual dining, 20 consecutive quarters of same store sales growth. You know, we're now the number two casual dining brand in the U.S. on sales. We're retained our number one stance as the number one traffic brand. We are now the number one alcohol restaurant brand in America. So we are firing on all cylinders. And it starts with our team members taking care of our guests. And that's exactly what's happening. And our extreme value that's working in the marketplace combined with that experience is unbeatable. OK, so let me ask you, how is it possible? A little bit of magician on your part. You've got beef inflation. You've got high repair and maintenance costs. You've got general inflation areas like utilities and rent to go supplies, delivery fees, beverage and food costs unfavorable by 60 basis points. How are you able to make even more money when every one of those is unfavorable? Yeah, you know, structurally what we've been doing is just growing our business. So we make sure that the consumer gets incredible value that they can't get anywhere else. We know if they're going to pull back on trips because of the economy, at least they know they can get a great deal at Chili's. And so as we grow our AUVs or our sales per restaurant, we're able to cover those costs and then continue to grow margins. So, you know, I'm really proud of the team. We keep costs really tight. The second thing I would tell you is we have some structural economic benefits that some of the other channels don't have. We have all walks of life that come to our restaurant, you know, whether they're low income or high income, and they all want different things. And so we're able to make sure we meet the consumer where they are. If it's a 1099 amazing value meal from our three for me menu or if it's something that's more premium, you're always going to get a great value at Chili's. And that's why we're capturing market share right now. Now, a new sandwich always going to get people excited. I loved in the conference call. People should read the conference call before you buy the stock so you know you like giving people too much food. Yeah, you know, there was an insight. So a year ago, we saw the insight that people were really frustrated with fast food prices and they were posting their receipts online. This year, we saw a new thing. We call it shrinkflation. So it's when the customer notices that their portion size has gotten smaller because folks are trying to offset higher input costs. And so instead of shrinkflation, we said, let's go do the opposite thing. Let's make a chicken sandwich that's 80 percent bigger than the leading fast foods premium chicken sandwich. And we've confirmed that here in the Dallas. They are testing hundreds of sandwiches. We have a much bigger sandwich. Let's go ahead and sell it in our three for me menu at ten ninety nine with a limited chips and salsa, bottomless drinks and fries. And let's see how we do. And so far, that product or that I should say that dish is off to a great start. And we're selling one hundred sixty one percent more sandwiches today than we were pre pre the new platform. So we couldn't be more excited about fighting shrinkflation with chilies. And it's working so far. I may have to pivot and go away for three for me for the first time in a long time and go for that chicken sandwich. It sounds very good. You know, I love to eat at your place. Now, one of the reasons I love to eat at your place, and you said wealthy people, not so well, everybody goes, is that you give me name brand liquor. Are you still giving people name brand liquor in those Margies? Well, of course we're doing that. And so, you know, we have this Margo of the Month. And so this month, actually, it starts tomorrow because tomorrow is National Boba Day. And so we're going to start it a day early. This is our Popping Boba Mark. It's for $6. And it's got Lunazul tequila. It's got Deep Eddie Lemon Vodka. It's got House Sour. It's got watermelon. And, of course, it's got Popping Boba. And, you know, it's interesting. We were tasting this in the test kitchen. And the Bobas cost a little bit of money. And folks are like, how are we going to pay for this? I'm like, I know you guys will figure it out because we've got to keep this thing $6. And that's exactly what they did. Are you going to tell me? I mean, I got to get a reservation. I mean, Cinco de Mayo is going to be going to crush it. Well, you know, the cool thing about Cinco de Mayo is you don't need to have a special deal or a special day to create a great value at Chili's. You're always going to be able to get a six dollar mark no matter what time of day you come in, whether it's happy hour or not. We're always going to have that value. OK, one last thing. I think people need to know that the check really is cheaper. Three, four dollars versus every but everybody else. Now, you don't necessarily brag about that. You talk about value. Do you think that people just recognize the difference somehow that they're smart enough to know? I mean, even though you look, you have cattle, it goes up every day. There's very few companies other than you in Texas Roadhouse been able to hold the price. Do they say, wait a second, this seems to be cheaper? Well, that's obviously what's happening, because, you know, a lot of folks are complaining that the consumer is not showing up. The reality is the consumer is showing up when there's great value. And so they know when they go to Chili's, even if they don't shop the three for menu, three, three menu or the six dollar, you know, mark of the month. They're going to get an amazing value anywhere they shop the menu, whether it's our burgers, our chicken crispers, our chicken sandwiches, our fajitas, our ribs. They're all incredible value. And that's why we're winning. So, you know, the numbers would say we're three to four dollars less than our casual dining competition. But the reality is the consumer knows when they come in, they're going to get an amazing deal at Chili's. One last question. Am I going to see a tick tock explosion of people eating the chicken sandwich? Well, absolutely. You know, when you have value that this good and here's what we're seeing the influence are doing. They're going to fast food joints are getting their chicken sandwich and they're comparing it to our chicken sandwich. And there's no comparison. I mean, it's literally it's way better than any TV ad I could make because it's a before your eyes demo that this chicken sandwich is gigantic. it's the exact opposite of shrinkflation. And so, yeah, you're going to see that all over your feed because people love great value and they share it and they like it. And so that's why you're going to see it on your feed. Well, that's called Cinema Verite. I want to thank Kevin Hockman, President and CEO of Brink International, for an excellent quarter. Kevin, I'm glad to have you back on the show. Hey, thanks so much, Jim. Appreciate it. Of course. Bad Money's back after the break. Coming up, a new player in the nuclear energy space just entered the market. So should you be buying in? Kramer is taking a closer look at X Energy next. The averages, actually, not today, but this month, have been roaring. And that's allowed the IPO market to pick up with real steam. That includes a new way to play the nuclear power space, X Energy. They came public with a bang last week. Even if the nuclear stocks aren't as hot as they were last fall, and boy, were they smoking before. The house of pain. There's still a ton of interest in this business because it's the cleanest way to power all these new data centers that we're putting up. Nuclear is the cleanest way. Some would say the safest way. So let's take a closer look with X-Energy, which is the designer of advanced nuclear reactor technology and a manufacturer to advance nuclear fuels. They've been working on a small modular reactor design for more than a decade. In theory, these are the lower costs, much lower costs than traditional nuclear reactors, and they take much less time to deploy. At the same time, X-Energy has designed a specific type of fuel that allows these reactors to operate safely, even at a very high temperature, which presents advantages for certain industrial use cases. Now, X-Energy will be producing this fuel at its own facility in Oak Ridge, Tennessee, near the Oak Ridge National Laboratory. The first fuel facility should be completed within the next two years or so. I bring this up because X-Energy doesn't really plan to build its own reactors, let alone own and operate them. They're going for more of what we call razor, razor blade business model. The company wants to license this technology to customers and then let them build their own small modular reactors and then sell them the fuel they need to operate at peak efficiency. I really like that because historically building nuclear power plants has been a very tough business where a lot of money has been lost. Selling designs and fuel for nuclear plants sounds a lot more enticing, safer and more lucrative. Of course, X Energy is still in its early stages, but they have three big initial customers already lined up. Amazon, Dow and Centrica. OK, Centrica. Well, listen, the latter is one of the largest gas and electric utilities in the UK and Ireland. According to X Energy, quote, advanced development efforts are already underway on the first Dow project at its Seedrift operations site in Texas and the first Amazon project in connection with Energy Northwest, end quote. Hey, by the way, when Amazon signed on as a major customer in the fall of 2024, it also took a big stake in X Energy and still owns more than 20 percent of the company. I like that. They're believers. Hey, same goes for Aries Management. That's a private equity firm we know very well, as well as Ken Griffin of Citadel, Steve Cohen's Point72, Jane Street, Cathie Wood's Ark Invest, and even the University of Michigan. Go blue! That's a mighty impressive list. But if we're talking about backers, I need to mention that X Energy has a very good relationship with the Department of Energy, dating back to December 2020. That's when the company was awarded $1.2 billion as part of an advanced reactor demonstration program. One of the last things the first Trump administration did was to set up this division. So far, $438 million of cost reimbursements have gone through. So the company's got $762 million with the potential reimbursements for Uncle Sam still in the pipe. With its IPO, X-Energy falls into a group of publicly traded next generation nuclear energy companies focused on small modular reactor designs. Think Oclo, which a lot of you love. Think New Scale. But X-Energy has a very different business model than these guys. And they also went through the normal IPO process rather than sneaking in via a SPAC, which you know I don't like. I like the rigor of the IPO process. So how about the numbers? While the company's still very unprofitable, there are some positives here. First, unlike Oclo and NewScale, X-Energy actually has a decent amount of revenue, with $109 million in sales last year in comparison. Oclo's had zero revenue to date, while NewScale has been bringing in $30 to $40 million a year. X Energy is making this money from service payments coming from its initial customers, as well as grant payments from the Department of Energy. Of course, the company's still burning money in terms of profitability. We're talking about $213 million loss last year. But I honestly wouldn't sweat that too much because X Energy is spending big in order to expand, which is what you want to see at this point in its trajectory. Plus, the company's got a pristine balance sheet. And after the IPO they now have roughly billion in cash equivalents along with nearly million in digital investments Hey that a big cushion for a company that likely to keep losing money for at least a few more years Finally let talk valuation which is very difficult to do The extent that it means anything for a money-losing company like this one. As I mentioned earlier, X Energy came public with a bang. They were originally looking to sell 42.86 million shares at a price between $16-19, but the deal was upsized to 44.25 million shares and eventually priced at $23. That's well above the range. That is one of those things I typically say Don't buy. Don't buy. Don't buy. But I like the company. Last Friday, it then opened for trading at $30.11, and it got as high as $37 and changed at its intraday highs yesterday, though it's since cooled off and come back down to $31 today. Basically flat with where it opened, but that's a 35% gain if you got in on a deal. At this price, X Energy is being valued at around $12 billion, it's hard to say whether that's a good or bad price, given that we're at least a year away from substantial revenues and maybe years away from profits. Understand, this is obviously a very speculative position I'm talking about. You can only buy a stock like this with money that you can afford to lose. It's high risk. But if X Energy does pan out and become a major player in America's nuclear energy renaissance, then it is going to be a high reward stock. It's the kind of stock I recommend in How to Make Money in Any Market, because you know I'm pro-smart speculation. I think everyone should own one speculative stock. Maybe this is for you. For comparison's sake, though, X Energy's market cap now puts it above Oculus $11.3 billion and makes it much larger than New Scale at $3.9 billion. Then again, with more revenue than those two companies and some great initial customers, you could argue it deserves to trade at a substantial premium to both of them. So here's the bottom line. If you feel compelled to speculate on something connected to nuclear power, then I think X Energy is the way to go. Just remember that it's still insanely speculative. And if certain things happen, say interest rate spike or AI data center construction boom slows down, or there's some sort of kind of like a regulation setback about nukes, then this stock will be crushed. But buying those terrible outcomes, I like X Energy as long as you're comfortable with the risk. Again, though, buy it with the money that you're prepared to lose. But by all means, buy it if you're really hung up on nuclear power. All right, let's go to some questions. Let's go to Ian in Florida. Ian. Booyah, Jim. How are you doing? I am doing well, Ian. Booyah to you. What's up? Oh, all good, Jim. Jim, I wanted to ask you about an aerospace stock. Certainly. It's GE. What do you think about it here? I think you should buy it right here. Enough is enough. It's been going down because people are worried about air travel. I think this is a maintenance stock. Now, there's not as much travel, so there's not as much maintenance as needed of the planes. That's when you buy GE aerospace, because otherwise it doesn't come down. This is a good moment to buy GE. Actually, it's a really good quarter, by the way. John in New York. John. Hey, Jim. How are you doing? I am doing well, John. I'm sorry? Good, good, good. I've held AT&T for quite some time now. I'm thinking about selling it. What do you think of this particular stock? Look, I like growth and I like income. It gives you the income, but the growth side is not there. Honestly, I mean, if you wanted to own a stock that had growth and income, I would prefer you own a master limited partnership. Some of those ones that have done really well during the war, that it did really well before the war. I'm thinking about Enterprise product. Wano. Wano come by Wano. Swap out of that and go into Wano, and I'll feel a lot better about it. Now, if you want to speculate on something connected to nuclear power, then I actually think that this X Energy just came public. may be the way to go. Just remember, it's insanely speculative. Much more bad money ahead, including my exclusive with SoFi, sinking today with spooked investors in the digital bank's quarterly report. Let's get the details from the CEO. And restaurants are tough to run, but we're seeing a remarkable turnaround in a chapel trust company that needs to be studied. I'll reveal it and break down the story. And of course, all your calls rapid fire tonight's edition of the Lightning Round. So stay with Cram. What the heck just happened to the stock of SoFi Technologies, the preferred digital bank of the younger generation? Here's a stock that's had an incredible run, going from $8 and change at its post-liberation day lows a year ago to $32 and change the last of ever. As a longtime SoFi bull, and everybody knows that, I felt the move was vindication. But then the stock started rolling over again, selling off part of the broader AI displacement meltdown. I think that's crazy. This is a bank, for heaven's sake. You can't have Claude Vibe code you a bank. As of yesterday, though, SoFi had pulled back to 18 when it reported this morning. The results were mostly in line, but the guidance for the current quarter was disappointing. In response, the stock plunged more than 15% today. Perhaps that's excessive. Don't take it from me, though. Let's check in with Anthony Noto, the CEO of SoFi Technology. You get a better read on the quarter. Mr. Noto, welcome back to Mad Money. Thank you, Jim. Thanks for having me. OK, so I look for your bank for great growth. And from the looks of things, I got plenty of growth just maybe even better than usual, wouldn't you say? Yes, it's quite remarkable. We had 41 percent revenue growth and we had 31 percent margins. And so for the 18th consecutive quarter, we exceeded the golden rule of 40 at 72. We had record new member growth at 35 percent, record product growth at 37 percent. And our cross-buy was also strong at 43 percent. So really operating, hitting on all cylinders. All right. So when I hear that, I think, all right, beat and raise. But you did not raise. So I've got to try to understand, because as someone who felt just at $18 not that long ago, that there could be an exceptional year for earnings, I'm concerned. You know, we did not raise the full year guidance because when we originally gave the full year guidance, we were anticipating at least two Federal Reserve rate cuts. and now we're assuming that there will be no rate cuts because that's what the forward curve is indicating. And so that's a tougher environment to operate in. And we didn't think this was an environment for us to be overly aggressive. We're still growing revenue over 30% for the full year and we're still driving 40% earnings growth over the next three years, which are pretty significant growth expectations. So to raise the bar in an environment that is uncertain on the interest rate front and what's going on with the Middle East, we just didn't see it as a prudent thing to do. We feel great about the trends of the underlying business, but we did not take the outlook up as many other companies also did the same. Well, if that's the case and you don't want to be overly aggressive, your words, then it is disconcerting to me that you're keeping so many loans on your balance sheet. You and I have seen when bankers get too aggressive and they keep loans on their balance sheet, it's often a sign that they can't sell the loans or maybe they want to take on a little more risk than I know I would have thought if I bought the stock of SoFi. You know, we're still leveraging the ability to sell loans. Our loan platform business generated over $2 billion of originations for partners. We have a lot of capital in our balance sheet. Our capital ratios are quite high. We raised money last year, which gives us the flexibility. We did provide a new metric for investors to give them comfort with the quality of our performance in our loans. We announced that we did over $1 billion of cash revenue. $690 million of that cash revenue is revenue that's generated from net interest income, i.e. our members paying us for their loans and the interest on their loans. That's quite significant, and it's performed pretty well and continue to perform consistently because their credit performance has been consistent. So in some ways, we're creating a recurring revenue stream by keeping some of those loans on our balance sheet. We are still selling loans and we're still doing loan platform business, but we have the ability to grow the lending business via both channels. Okay, so I, like many other people, have to deal with, periodically, with people who want a stock lower. Now, I know a lot of people who may not understand. There are people who literally are betting against companies and hoping the stock will go down. There's a particular firm that seems to be thinking that you have a much higher default rate than I think you do have. How do you shadow box against someone who genuinely is able to say what they want about it because it's a free country. Yeah, you just have to compare it versus our actual results. That comparison is inaccurate, our actual results, so that our loss rate is in line with expectations and significantly different than what's been reported by others that think it's higher. So it's just the facts. We point people towards the disclosures, which we're comfortable with and our team's comfortable with. And the performance of the loans have been pretty consistent. Okay, so there are many pages in your deck, which is an excellent deck, which show you're taking a long-term approach, and I love that. And, you know, you've got technology platform segment. These are the things that I'm so excited about. I don't want you to become another bank because I can own Capital One. I don't want to do that. I want to have members. I have some Capital One in my Capital Trust, but I want to have members growth, a long-term approach using a technology platform. and I don't want you to have as much heavy banking. Do you think I'm wrong in thinking that I want, say, nodo light, so to speak? No, we agree with you, Jim. And the other metric that we've released that's on the non-lending side is that we generated $390 million of cash revenue from non-interest income. And this is revenue that's being generated from our technology platform. It's being generated from our brokerage business, which increased 2x year over year. It's from origination fees, debit and credit card interchange of revenue, in addition to our loan platform fees. And so we have a good mix of both lending revenue that's generated that was called $690 million, and then non-lending revenue, i.e. non-interest cash revenue of $390 million. Now, the great thing about the $390 million is that a couple of years ago, that was very small and it couldn't contribute to our profitability and growth the way it can today. And so the $390 million was virtually nonexistent five years ago. And that's all the non-lending benefits that we're generating. Not to mention the fact that we're launching big business banking, SoFiUSD, and cryptocurrency, which are all new and will contribute to that as well. See, I hear these things, and I think I interviewed Vlad Tenev today, Robin Hood, not that great a quarter, candidly. And I was hoping that you would do the Trump accounts, that you would get some of that business. It's a natural habit go to SoFi. Yes, we will likely benefit from the Trump accounts as well. The way the government is using this is doing one trustee to start, but then those individuals and those parents can move the funds where they want to appropriately you know potentially coming to SoFi So the government likely to announce three to four other partners for the Trump accounts And once the money dispersed initially to the Bank of New York accounts, then people can transfer it to three or four of these other trusted entities, one of which we are bidding to be part of. Now, Vlad's putting aside $100 million to set this up. I mean, that's a lot of capital. Do you think that you're ready to do it without that much work? We've already built the account and it didn't cost us anything close to $100 million. Really? Yes. We already have our invest accounts. We build on our technology platform. So we built these accounts well before this time period to make sure we're ready come July when ultimately individuals will be given those initial awards into their accounts and hopefully be able to switch to other accounts like SoFi. We think we do a much better job of educating people to how to invest in the future. spend less than they make and invest the rest. And we do it in a more responsible way, giving people opportunities in SoFi ETFs, as well as SoFi auto investing in our robo accounts. Excellent. OK, I didn't know that. And I'm glad to hear it. I thought you would be a natural. I was saying, wow, I don't know why I didn't go for that business. Well, I was wrong. You went for it and you've got it. That's terrific. Anthony Noto is the CEO of SoFi Technologies, S-O-F-I. Thank you, Anthony. Thank you, Jim. May I'm late. He's back after the break. Coming up, you've got questions. Kramer's got the answers. Get charged up for a fast-fire lightning round next. It is time. It's time for the lightning round. I'm Chris. I'm Chris. I'm Chris. And then the lightning round is over. Are you ready? You're skiing, Derek. Hello, I'm Christopher. Let's start with Todd in California. Todd. Hi, Kramer. How are you doing, buddy? I am doing well, Todd. How about you? I'm doing great, thank you. My family's been vacationing in Reno, Nevada for years. It's close to Lake Tahoe and the ski resorts. Okay. Reno seems to be having a resurgence lately, and the best resort hotel casino in Reno is the family-owned Atlantis. We love their rewards program. They also own Monarch Resort Casino in Black Rock, Colorado. The company ticker is MCRI. You know something, Todd? I do not know that casino. I have cooled on many of the casino stocks. I think I should check out Monarch. I am going to go to Ben Stotto after this, research director, and we're going to figure out why this stock has had just such an amazing run because, boy, I need a new name after Wynn really not working out anymore. Let's go to Dave in Illinois. Dave. Dr. Kramer, or should I call you Mr. Pink? It's Mr. White here. Oh, my. Okay, Reservoir. What's happening? Jim, this $73 billion technology company provides hardware, software, and service solutions for networks worldwide. You mentioned them last week in your segment, 16 Stocks That Got Away. This stock's performance since the middle of last year has been nothing short of spectacular, up 500%. So, Jim, can you, along with Jeff Marks, take a deeper dive into Sienna Corp? No, don't need to. That one, Dave, that one got away. It was Gary. He did an incredible job. If it came back down, I mean, in fairness, it went up to 527, come down to 475. But, Dave, it's up 100%. People talk about this rule of 40 they love. I think up 100% is a little bit too hot for me, so I'm going to have to hold off. Boy, I remember when I bought that thing at the end in 1999. I crushed it. Let's go to Bob in Florida. Bob. Hey, Jim. Thanks for taking my call. Thank you. Real quick, I ran into you in New York about 15 years ago on the street, and you were kind enough to take a selfie with me, and I appreciate that. My son and I love your show. This is to be nice as it is to be mean. Thank you very much. What's going on? Well, I'm knee deep in applied digital right now. And they just signed that big $7.5 billion contract. Yeah, but the problem there is that you've got a stock that is making no money in a market where many people are making money. and people are switching from the losers to the winners. I'm going to say no to Applied Digital. But I do want to go to Lewis in Pennsylvania. Lewis. Hey, Jim, thanks for taking my call. Absolutely. I'd like to get a buy, sell, or hold on Flagstar Bank. I know Flagstar Bank. I'm going to give you a hold. I'll tell you what I'm just going to give you a hold. Don't fight. Don't fight. Don't fight. There's nothing special. It's not making all that much money. It doesn't have that big a dividend. It's just like, eh, I don't like eh. No reason to buy it. Let's take another. Let's go to Kimo in California. Kimo. Kimo? Hello, Jim. It's Kimo from California. Okay, Kimo. Great to have you on the show. Thank you. My fiance, Michelle, gifted me your book in December. I jumped at the club two days ago. And we can't thank you enough for teaching us. Oh, thank you. I mean, it's a service book. I try to explain to people the stuff I do every night because I think they need more help. And same thing with club members. How can I help you? Oh, your teaching is tremendous. Your whole style and your strategies and so forth. Anyway, we've done quite well between December and now. Excellent. And due to your book. Oh, thank you. Thank you. That was the point. I was wondering, what do you think about MP Materials? Oh, I like it very much. It's the only one in that whole area I really blessed because they've got the government's backing. they've got the government's backing, and they have really good solid management, and they're doing just a huge number of good things. So I say yes to that one. Let's go to Doug in Pennsylvania. Doug. Jim, how are you? Thanks for having me. It's a pleasure. Unfortunately, I had to call you. Thank you. No problem. Could you talk to me about Fermi? Now, that is one that I can't bless at all. That seems not even like a science project. It's more like a kind of science drive-by. I don't want you in that stock. But you saw that one tomorrow, and I think you'll feel good. And that, ladies and gentlemen, is the conclusion of the Lightning Round. The Lightning Round is sponsored by Charles Schwab. Coming up, Kramer's steaming over analysts' response to Starbucks quarter. He's ordering a recount next. At the end of every conference call, most companies hold a question-answer session with the analysts. And after listening to a host of restaurant conference calls this quarter, I've got to tell you, often these restaurant analysts, they should try running the restaurant themselves because they seem to be absolutely clueless about how this business works. Last night, the once-bedraggled Starbucks reported and beat the numbers and raised the forecast. The quarter was a home run. But the analysts were surprisingly muted, talking about disappointing margins and guidance boosts It seems too small given the dramatic increase in same store sales. I think they got it all wrong. And the market clearly agrees with me, which is why Starbucks shut up more than 8% today. That's a massive gain. As someone who ran a restaurant for a decade, I can tell you that the key component of earnings is satisfying the customer with the basics. How quickly their food comes, how cordial the servers are, how strong the culture of hospitality is. It's not the taste or the price of what you're serving as much as you might wish it were. Brian Nichol, the unbelievably good CEO, works straight at the turnarounds at Yum! Brands Taco Bell, as well as Chipotle, and now Starbucks, knows this all too well. You fix all the service issues, and then the customer wants to splurge for a Starbucks. The customer who's hard to win over will become a repeat customer. She'll join the loyalty program, which has been pretty stagnant for many years. She'll try the special. She might sign up to have her coffee ready every morning at 8 a.m. That comes this quarter, by the way. And if she's well off, she'll regard her triple-vented cappuccino with skim wet as an affordable luxury. If she isn't, it can be a nice-sized splurge. Nickel's investing in those customers now to see how they've come. That way, he knows they can become regulars later. Brian knows that in order to pull off this kind of turn, you're going to have to initially hurt your gross margins. He took them down to 10%. But they should bounce back to 13% soon, he told me this morning when I spoke to him on Squawk on the Street. And when they do, the naysayers will be forced to upgrade. They'll have to, as there are only a handful of companies in this business with better margins. Once Brian gets these margins in the right place, which he will, this stock will become cheap, cheap, cheap. Right now, a whole group seems to have some pep. You heard from Breaker earlier. Terrific numbers there. Yum! Brands had an amazing quarter. The Yum! Quarter is befitting the disciples of Brian, relies heavily on all of the technical executions I just mentioned earlier for its 8% same-sales growth, including superior speed, improved customer experience, and a superior loyalty program. Hey, by the way, Brinker Sword 18 YumJum 3. Sometimes I wish success in the restaurant business seemed to be all about the mechanics. I don't like it. It's about the mechanics behind the scenes. See, here's what happened to me. When we opened Bar San Miguel, I thought that our low-priced beer and our delicious food would be what brought the seats fill. That's what I thought would do it for us. It turned out it was the service. People loved our waiters and our bartenders. They got talked about. They put the people in the seats. Without them and the precision in the back, which is the kitchen, we would have gone out of business years ago. That's just how it works. It ain't the taste. That and endless attention to detail. That's no fun at all. Has Starbucks gone, the stock gone up too far too fast? Oh, maybe for today. But Nichols, a long may she run character. And that's exactly what I think will happen with the stock of Starbucks. I like to say there's always a bull market somewhere, and I promise you I'll find it just for you right here on Mad Money. I'm Jim Cramer. See you tomorrow. All opinions expressed by Jim Cramer on this podcast are solely Cramer's opinions and do not reflect the opinions of CNBC or its parent company or affiliates and may have been previously disseminated by Cramer on television, radio, Internet, or another medium. You should not treat any opinion expressed by Cramer as a specific inducement to make a particular investment or follow a particular strategy, but only as an expression of his opinion. Kramer's opinions are based upon information he considers reliable, but neither CNBC nor its affiliates and or subsidiaries warrant its completeness or accuracy, and it should not be relied upon as such. To view the full Mad Money Disclaimer, please visit cnbc.com forward slash madmoneydisclaimer.
