Mad Money w/ Jim Cramer

'Mad Money w/ Jim Cramer 4/7/26

44 min
Apr 7, 202611 days ago
Listen to Episode
Summary

Jim Cramer analyzes a market showing signs of weakness across consumer, retail, and housing sectors despite a late-day rally, while highlighting Casey's General Store's addition to the S&P 500 and McCormick's transformational Unilever Foods acquisition as bright spots in otherwise challenged industries.

Insights
  • Stock price movements are more reliable indicators of economic health than macro data; widespread declines across retail, consumer discretionary, and housing suggest deeper economic slowdown despite positive headline rallies
  • Consumer trading down to dollar stores and off-price retailers indicates financial stress among middle and lower-income Americans, signaling potential stagflation risk if combined with rising oil prices
  • Market breadth remains fragile with only 34% of stocks above 13-week moving averages; sustained recovery requires breadth expansion above 50% to confirm a genuine bottom
  • Scale and consolidation are becoming survival strategies in packaged food; McCormick's acquisition of Unilever Foods brands creates shelf power and cost synergies that smaller competitors cannot achieve
  • Tech stocks remain best positioned for opportunity despite persistent negative rumors; companies like Apple, Google, and Broadcom continue winning deals while pessimists spread unverified claims
Trends
Consumer financial stress spreading across income levels as Walmart, dollar stores, and off-price retailers all decline simultaneouslyOil price volatility tied to geopolitical uncertainty (Iran tensions) creating unpredictable cost pressures for convenience stores and transportationConsolidation acceleration in packaged food as scale becomes essential for retail shelf space and margin defenseMarket structure improvement in equal-weight S&P 500 suggesting potential broadening of rally beyond mega-cap concentrationTech sector resilience despite negative sentiment; AI partnerships and deals continuing despite bearish whispersConvenience store expansion potential in underserved rural markets with 31 states still untapped by major operatorsGLP-1 drug adoption creating new demand for flavor-enhanced foods as consumers eat less but want better tasteGeopolitical risk (Iran conflict) becoming primary market driver, overshadowing traditional economic indicatorsValuation compression in previously high-flying stocks creating entry opportunities for long-term investorsRetail consolidation creating winners (Walmart, Costco, Casey's) while mid-tier retailers struggle
Companies
Walmart
Largest retailer showing 3.4% decline; stock suggests consumers finding prices too expensive despite value positioning
Casey's General Store
Iowa-based convenience store chain added to S&P 500; up 166% since Sept 2023 recommendation with strong earnings beats
Dollar General
Dollar store chain down 2.6%; decline indicates consumer stress deeper than expected as trade-down accelerates
Dollar Tree
Dollar store competitor down 4.2%; weakness suggests even budget consumers are cutting spending
TJX Companies
Off-price retailer down 2.6%; decline signals consumer pressure across all income segments
Ross Stores
Off-price apparel retailer down 2.2%; weakness in discount retail indicates broad consumer weakness
Burlington Coat Factory
Off-price retailer down 3%; struggles alongside other discount retailers
Royal Caribbean
Cruise line down 2.9%; decline suggests consumers pulling back on discretionary travel spending
Norwegian Cruise Line
Cruise operator down 3.3%; weakness indicates vacation spending slowdown
Carnival Corporation
Cruise line down 3%; sector-wide weakness in leisure travel
Viking Holdings
Upscale cruise operator down 2.7%; even premium leisure consumers cutting back
Home Depot
Home improvement retailer down 2.4%; weakness signals housing market slowdown and consumer pullback
Lowe's
Home improvement retailer down 1.5%; sector weakness indicates reduced home renovation spending
Toll Brothers
Homebuilder down 3.4%; weakness reflects housing market slowdown
D.R. Horton
Homebuilder down 3.3%; sector-wide decline following group downgrade
Capital One
Credit card issuer down 1.66% but down 80% from highs; indicates credit stress and consumer financial pressure
Merck
Pharmaceutical company down 1.3%; drug stocks declining as inflation concerns rise
Pfizer
Pharma company down 2.6%; sector weakness amid inflation concerns
Conagra Brands
Food company down; packaged food weakness reflects inflation and consumer pressure
Campbell Soup Company
Food company declining; packaged food sector weakness
General Mills
Food company down; packaged food sector under pressure
Kraft Heinz
Food company declining; packaged food weakness
Darden Restaurants
Restaurant parent company down 3%; consumer spending slowdown affecting dining
Costco
Warehouse retailer; discussed as inflation hedge with cheap gas and membership loyalty
McCormick
Spice and seasonings company acquiring Unilever Foods brands; transformational deal creating $20B+ platform
Unilever
Consumer goods company selling food business to McCormick; divesting non-core packaged food assets
Qualcomm
Semiconductor company; caller asked about valuation; Cramer recommends ARM instead
ARM Holdings
Semiconductor company; Cramer recommends over Qualcomm due to better execution
Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company
Chip manufacturer; caller asked about; Cramer directs to NVIDIA as better opportunity
NVIDIA
AI chip company down significantly; Cramer recommends as disliked stock becoming attractive
Broadcom
Custom chip maker; won deals with Google and Anthropic; up 6% on positive news
Apple
Tech company; stock fell on unverified foldable phone delay rumor; recovered when Bloomberg confirmed on-time
Alphabet/Google
Tech company; negative rumors about Gemini growth unfounded; stock recovering
Amazon
E-commerce company; pessimists warned of consumer slowdown impact; Cramer defends tight operations
CrowdStrike
Cybersecurity company; rumors of Anthropic competition unfounded; partnering instead; up 24 points
Palo Alto Networks
Cybersecurity company; partnering with Anthropic on Project Glasswing
Anthropic
AI company; announced partnerships with CrowdStrike and Palo Alto Networks
Caterpillar
Heavy equipment manufacturer; caller reports stock up 100%+ in 23 months; CEO Joe Creed driving growth
Lockheed Martin
Defense contractor; caller owns shares; Cramer recommends buying more due to war demand
CVS Health
Pharmacy retailer; caller asked about; Cramer recommends holding for David Joyner's drug store strategy
GE Healthcare
Medical equipment company; caller held for year with poor results before switching to CVS
People
Jim Cramer
Host analyzing market weakness, consumer stress, and stock opportunities across sectors
Jessica Inskip
Technical analyst providing S&P 500 and equal-weight index analysis with moving average levels
Darren Rebelez
CEO discussed expansion potential with thousands of possible locations across untapped states
Brendan Foley
CEO leading transformational Unilever Foods acquisition to create $20B+ global platform
Joe Creed
CEO driving strong performance in heavy equipment; caller reports 100%+ stock gains
David Joyner
Creating national drug store chain strategy; Cramer recommends CVS based on his leadership
Michael Semblis
Research showing historical correlation between oil doubling and S&P 500 declines exceeding 20%
Julia Boorstin
Hosts CNBC Changemakers and Power Players podcast series
Quotes
"Stocks do not lie, okay? And right now they are telling a pretty troubling story about where the economy might be headed"
Jim CramerEarly market analysis segment
"I have no fear of failure. Trailblazing women changing the game."
Julia BoorstinCNBC Changemakers promo
"Much like hip stocks don't lie, of course, the stagflation scenario that looks like it might be coming, it can easily be reversed"
Jim CramerMarket analysis conclusion
"In a market where the packaged food has been an absolute graveyard, the only real way out is to try to get bigger, get more global, own more of the flavor aisle"
Jim CramerMcCormick analysis
"Tech remains the best source of opportunity out there. Just understand that right now it's fodder for those who want to move stocks down"
Jim CramerTech sector defense segment
Full Transcript
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Life is short and you just gotta think big to accomplish big things. Julia Boorston hosts CNBC Changemakers and Power Players. New episodes every Tuesday wherever you get your podcasts. My job is not just to entertain you but to educate, to teach. So call me at 1-800-743-SIMY-SWEET or tweet me at Jim Kramer. Today, we got obliterated early on. But as the afternoon proceeded, the averages rallied hard. As the oil fell, because the Iranians seemed to be inclined to back a two-week truce broker by Pakistan. Which is why the Dow ultimately finished down just 85 points as to be inched up 0.08% and then as that advanced 0.10%. It was an astounding comeback. But not broad. That was easy. Exciting. The blasting. That I'm not sure about. It's, well let's just say, is a real deal would have sent us much higher. But all I can tell you is some stocks are no longer in trouble, but many are. How do I know this? Because I speak the language of stocks and I gotta tell you, I don't like what I've been hearing. The President of the United States shouldn't like either. Of course, you could say that he has his hands full trying to figure out if he should destroy civilization. His words not mine. I hope the situation cools down personally. Because if the President does go all medieval in Iran, well that would do incredible damage to the world, our economy. That's what the stock market's been saying, right? We the media focus on all sorts of data, don't we? For example, this morning the Atlanta Fed repository of all things GDP cut through growth forecast For the economy, from 1.6% to 1.3%. That's a pretty big slice. Frankly to me, though, that is an abstraction. In more concrete terms, we can see the West Texas Intermediate crewed $112 a barrel up 93% for the year. That's not good. Of course, it's worth noting that the S&P 500 is only down about 3% for the year. We know from Michael Semblis' excellent work as Chief Strategist over JPMorgan that historically when oil doubles, the S&P has always gone down more than 20%. By that count, if oil blips up here, we still have a lot more downside. I don't know whether it'll happen. To some degree, this gigantic move is predicated on one man's desire or whim or intense thought process, and it can be undone. But we have no idea what he'll do next or what he'll undo. I'm hoping the Pakistanis can pull off this two week truce. Still, whether it's the Fed's GDP forecast or the price of oil, that's all too big picture for me. That's why I prefer to make my analysis from the ground up listening to what the stocks are saying. I want to start with the real screamers, and that's retail. Walmart's the biggest. Here's the stock that truly defines the term juggernaut. It's a value-oriented retailer that I don't know or is beginning to attract wealth to your customers who make over $100,000 a year. But no matter, it's where the less well-off by a lot of their food and clothing. Walmart's been a total runaway train. But that has left many other retailers behind. Today, though, it's saying something different. It went down 3.4%. It's a big decline. This move says that Walmart's gotten too expensive for many people to shop at. Now, that's not encouraging. Normally, you want to hear Walmart's stock whisper sweet negatives. I have to figure out whether the problem revolves around the stock of Walmart itself. Now, it's going up huge trading at 42 times its fiscal 2027 or recesses. Close to the highest it's ever been. That's rich. The multiple's rich, and maybe the store's too rich. I don't know. Why don't we do this? Let's step down a level. How are the dollar stores doing? Dollar general and dollar tree. When the economy slows down to the point where people need to trade down to save money, they go to those two. But the stocks show that the consumer may be hurting even more than you think. Dollar general stock today down 2.6%. Dollar tree plunging 4.2%. At least one of these should have tilled it more positive. That's just plain trouble, and it bodes badly for tens of millions of people in this country. Before you're out of the consumer, you have to listen to one other place, the off-price stores for apparels. Big in the CPI coming up, namely TJX, Ross and Burlington. These have been phenomenal performers leaving their full-price competitors in the dust. Not today, though. TJX the best of them fell 2.6%. Ross, somewhat of a rival, said 2.2%. Burlington meant for the most challenge, dropped 3%. I would say they paint a pretty nasty picture of the consumer, too. Now, we know ever since COVID, many have adopted this mantra, long on money, short on time. That means they've been taking vacations and record numbers. Is that still the case? Well, the best way to look at that is to look at the cruise lines for answers, because they represent bargains, and they demonstrate incredible success coming out of the pandemic. Not one is holding up your Royal Caribbean, shed 2.9%. Norwegian just sinks and sinks, this time losing 3.3%. Carnival loss 3%. Even Viking holdings has prided itself on a more upscale clientele drop 2.7%. There's one other place we've got to listen to, and that's homes and home repairs. That means Home Depot and Lowe's. Sure enough, their stocks tell a clear disappointing story. With Lowe's falling 1.5% and Home Depot, Chapel Trust, hitting the new Lowe's, and doing so in spectacular fashion, dropping 2.4%. What an awful stock that is. That and Nike are my two worst, and I have to wear them every time, like steamer trunk on my back. Anyway, there are so many brands affiliated with these two, that the screaming from the corner of the market is enough to make your ears bleed. It makes me want to listen to the home building stocks, except because of the downgrade of the whole group, they'll shriek seem artificial. Tolled down 3.4% in the high end. DR Horton on the lower end losing 3.3%. Call me, worry. Finally, how about credit? I like to look at Capital One, one of my favorites, because it has lots of people paying very high rates. It only declined 1.66% today, but it's now almost 80% from its high. So the picture is one of weakness, real weakness. Getting worse, not better, obscured by the rally. Now, market historians can say that this gaggle of negative voices is setting us up well for incoming Fed chief Kevin Warsh. Stock prices are predictors. They say that things could really break down, and if the market breaks down, it's easier for the Fed to cut interest rates. Except there are other voices to be heard from, the ones that tell you not only are things slowing down, but they're also inflationary. When you know that inflation could rage, the group that acts the worst, the drug stocks. Sure enough, Merck, which has been a real stroller here, dropped 1.3% today. Pfizer, which has begun to show a head of scene, uh-oh, not today, down 2.6%. Abbey's down, the Vartus going the wrong way. Hey, how about the foods? Another indicator of inflation. Conagra, Campbell's, General Mills, Kraft Heinz, all considerably lower. Oh, and let's not forget, what Darden, parent of a health gardener, is screaming at the top of her lungs because it's down a miserable 3% today. So I'm hearing a heck of a lot of bad news obscured by the averageers. We consume a couple with inflation. Well, that would mean Jimmy Carter-style stagflation if the president isn't careful. I don't want to mention, I'm sure he'd be very, very mad if he knew that at the same time I mentioned his name, I mentioned Jimmy Carter. So I only used the term president. But it's not fake news. Here's the bottom line. Much like hip stocks don't lie, of course, the stagflation scenario that looks like it might be coming, it can easily be reversed. At the same time, you can see how things might spin out of control if the voices keep screaming for help with my head. I wish these stocks would just shut the heck up. But that's not how the conversation works. Hey, why don't we go to Lou in Arizona? Lou! Hey, Boo-Yah, Jim, how's it going? I am doing very well. How about you? I'm doing good. I'm glad to hear that. Hey, I got a question. What do you think about QQualcomm? Is it a buy at these levels? No. No, we don't want to buy. Why don't you just go buy ARM? I mean, I think ARM is much better than QQualcomm. QQualcomm, I think, is making a series of missteps. ARM is making a series of good steps. Let's go to Ian in Florida. Ian! Hey, Boo-Yah, Jim, how you doing? I am doing well. How about you, Ian? I'm doing incredible. Thanks, Jim. Excellent. Excellent. You might have a question on a semiconductor company. Actually, they're the main one. I want to know what you think about it, and it's a good time to get into it now. What do you think about Taiwan Semiconductor? Look, I like Taiwan Semic very much, but I have to tell you, I am going to send you to NVIDIA. NVIDIA is down a great deal. It's suddenly become a disliked stock, and that's when you want to own it. Why don't we go to Ann in Indiana? Ann! Jim, thanks for taking my call. My pleasure, Ann. What's happening? I just want to remember that the charm... Costco is getting on my nerves. What's the catalyst? I trimmed when you did, but I don't know. Okay, the catalyst... there's two catalysts. One is that they have the cheapest gasoline in the country. They tend to, and people sign up for gasoline, and then they sign up for the cart, and the cart is where the money is made. And two, they are the inflation fighter, and I don't think a soul thinks that inflation isn't coming back. So I like Costco for those two reasons, and it is also a lot of fun to shop at. All right, look, stocks do not fly, okay? And right now they are telling a pretty troubling story about where the economy might be headed, and that's what we care about. Remember last night's interest rates? Remember everybody tonight, Casey's General Store is joining the SB500 later this week. But does it deserve a spot in your portfolio after it's months to run over the past year? I'm going to share where I come down on it. Then I'm tackling the technicals to see if the market's ready to resume its march higher, or if investors should prepare for more downside in the days to come. And speaking of downside, here's a McCormick I've been cooking through a crisp so far in 2026. So maybe now's the time to do some buying? I'm going to use the latest. It's a little contrary, so stay with Free Perf. 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. At Uber, every single driver is required to pass a thorough background check before they can start driving. That means any prospective driver goes through a multi-step screening process, checking for any impaired driving or criminal offenses. But the checks don't stop there. Every year, every Uber driver is background checked again, so the person picking you up today meets the same standards as the day they started. Hey, how's it going? Yeah, good. Thank you. Annual driver screenings from Uber. One more way Uber is putting safety at every turn. Learn more at uber.com slash safety. What made you confident that you could do something that hadn't been done before? I have no fear of failure. Trailblazing women changing the game. One of my favorite pieces of advice, think about what your boss's boss needs. Leadership can look in many, many different forms. It really does come down to just trusting yourself. Life is short and you just got to think big to accomplish big things. Julia Borsden hosts CNBC Changemakers and Power Players. New episodes every Tuesday wherever you get your podcasts. Last night we learned that Kramer faved Casey's General Stores. The Iowa-based gas station convenience store chain is getting called up to the big leagues, joining the SB 500 on Thursday morning, taking the place of a diagnosis company that's just got taken private. I love Casey's, not just because it's made our viewers big money. Although that certainly helps. This is a terrific company that tends to fly under the radar because it operates in places where few from Wall Street would ever go. Casey's has about 2,900 locations across 19 states, mostly in very, very small towns, where their famous breakfast pizza is the height of local cuisine. I started recommending the stock consistently about 2 1 1 2 years ago in September of 2023. Casey's was trading at $278. At the time I was a little worried that I'd come in too late, but the numbers were incredible. The concept is so terrific. And I felt like the estimates were just too low, precisely because most people in this business are snobs. The closest they've ever come to a Casey's General is flying over it. Plus the money management industry is concentrated around New York City, and most New Yorkers, well, Casey's breakfast pizza is borderline criminal. In this town, bacon, egg, and cheese belong on a darn sandwich. Casey's puts it on a pizza. It's delicious, but if you're a coastal lead, eating it does require a bit of leap of faith, a leap of taste. Sure enough, since I recommended this stock in late 2023, this stock's up really 166%, trance in the S&P 500, which is up 53% of the same period. Since then, I just keep pounding the table on Casey's, and it steadily cruise higher. It's up a quick 37% since I last pushed it. That was seven months ago. Now it's worth noting that in the seven months or so since I last covered Casey's, the company delivered two more fantastic earnings reports. In December, Casey's reported a healthy revenue beat with inline same store sales and a monster earnings beat making $5.53 per share. Wall Street was only looking for $5.19. Stock action fell 5% in response, but that turned out to be a terrific time to... Five on five! ...as it's now up nearly 40% from those levels. Finally, just last month, Casey's posted another great quarter. Technically, it had mixed revenue results with inside same store sales beating expectations while total revenues missed expectations. That was because lower than expected gasoline sales. But Casey's also gave us a monster earnings beat making $3.49 per share. Wall Street was only expecting $3.00. The stock jumped nearly 4% in response, and it's up nearly 12% since that report less than a month ago. Terrific action considering this was not a good month for the market. So in terms of the fundamentals, Casey's looks just as good as ever. For the company's fiscal 2026, the 12-month period that ends this month, management's guiding for inside same store sales growth of 3.5 to 4.5 with their earnings for interest, taxes, depreciation, and amortization expected to grow by an astounding 18 to 20%. And for what it's worth, Wall Street finally seems to have gotten up to speed on the strength of the story. The consensus analysts estimates call for more than 7% revenue growth, roughly 24% earnings growth in fiscal 2026, along with 5% plus revenue growth and 10% plus earnings growth in 2027 fiscal years. That kicks off in May. That said, there are two things that can be paused about telling you to put new money in this stock right now. Hey, the first is the surging price of gasoline. Obviously the company can and won't do, they'll pass it on to customers. But this is a convenience store. When the price of the bump is too high, people tend to spend less money inside the store. Given the uncertain nature of the war with Iran, it's hard to know when the cost of gasoline will come back down. The second thing is simply valuation of the stock. After huge gains in recent years, cases now sell roughly at 37 times the next year's earnings estimates, which is quite a rich multiple for what it is, ultimately still a gas station slash convenience store. At this point, cases price turning small is not far below some of the best retailers around. One more trade is 42 times 27 earnings estimates, Costco 45 times. Though I still doubt that New York based research firm analysts and hedge funds have spent much time visiting Casey stores, it does seem like Wall Street's finally getting the company that it respected deserves. It's no longer the Rodney Dangerfield stock that so many people thought it was. But if you have a longer term time horizon, you know what, I'm not going to worry about this valuation. I still think there's plenty of money remaining in Casey's. In the near term, if the war wraps up and high gas prices don't stick, I wouldn't be surprised if the earnings estimates proved to be too low here. Remember Casey's has beaten the earnings expectations for 11 straight quarters by an average of 18%. Longer term, this is simply a great regional national quote story, which continues to delight customers as it spreads into new areas, sometimes with acquisitions of small gas stations, convenience stores change, but mostly with steady organic growth. Casey's is already the third largest convenience store in the United States, and the fourth largest retailer in terms of the number of liquor licenses. It's even the fifth largest pizza chain in America, but for the moment they're highly concentrated in just the Midwest and parts of the Sunbelt. So I think there's still plenty of room to grow. The concept works in just about any rural area. When I last spoke to CEO Darren Rebel last June, he told us that there was potential for thousands of Casey's locations across the country. I have no reason to doubt this man. The company's got a great strategy of targeting small and mid-sized towns with two-thirds of the locations in towns of 20,000 people or fewer. And there are a lot of those towns that target in the 31st states that Casey's hasn't even entered yet. Believe me when I say this, I wish that Starbucks would not have so many stores in big cities in the east and west and would put stores in these kinds of places, because that's where the money is. Here's the bottom line. I'm proud to see Casey's general stores get the call up to the SB 500, and I am happy that we'll be able to track the company's progress more closely now that it's in the Big Benchmark Index. Congratulations to Casey's on the honor. And even though higher gas prices and a higher price range model will make the stock harder to recommend up here, I'm confident that it can keep chugging its way higher long term. Yay. They have money back yet for the price. Coming up, are the bears officially out of hibernation in the S&P 500? Cramer's going off the charts to assess the situation and see what it'll take to bounce back next. At Uber, every single driver is required to pass a thorough background check before they can start driving. That means any prospective driver goes through a multi-step screening process, checking for any impaired driving or criminal offenses. But the checks don't stop there. Every year, every Uber driver is background checked again, so the person picking you up today meets the same standards as the day they started. Hey, how's it going? Yeah, good. Thank you. Annual driver screenings from Uber. One more way Uber is putting safety at every turn. Learn more at uber.com slash safety. What made you confident that you could do something that hadn't been done before? I have no fear of failure. Trailblazing women changing the game. One of my favorite pieces of advice. Think about what your boss's boss needs. Leadership can look in many, many different forms. It really does come down to just trusting yourself. Life is short and you just got to think big to accomplish big things. Julia Boorstin hosts CNBC Changemakers and Power Players. New episodes every Tuesday wherever you get your podcasts. Last week, the market finally seemed to find its footing when the price of oil surged, but long-term interest rates actually crept lower. And they had Wall Street's much more afraid of high interest rates than it is of high oil prices, as I said last night. So if you ran a oil shock, you can't push rates higher. It might mean they were in better shape than we thought. So even with last week's rebound from the lows, there's a ton of uncertainty out there, as you know, especially with President Trump now taking a much more hard line stance than Iran, hinting that he might wipe out their entire civilization. That's the kind of thing that makes markets nervous. When there's so much uncertainty about the macro environment, you know what I like to do? I like to take my gut feelings out of the equation, fall back on something that's far more quantitative, because the action can tell you a great deal. That's why tonight we're going off the charts with help of Jessica Inskips. She's the first woman on the active trader desk in Fidelity. She's now the director of Investor Research at Stockbrokers.com. She's also the co-host of her own podcast. It's called Market Make Her, M-A-K-E-H-E-R podcast. As she sees it, this markets at a crossroads. After being stuck in bear mode for over a month, Inskips seems some signs of improvement. In particular, this market's got better breath, a wider selection of winners, which could be a sign of a turn, though it's still early in the average. Let's take a look at the weekly chart of the S&P 500. Now make no mistake, according to Inskips, the S&P remains in a bearish trading cycle, and you can see that. That's nothing possible there. She likes to watch the 13-week, keep these in mind, 26-week and 40-week moving averages, because 13 weeks represents one quarter, and the quarter is the most basic unit of house. That's the timekeeping in the business world. These three key moving averages have flattened out, and they're now above the S&P, acting as ceilings of resistance. Here you can see all three right here. Inskips has the 40-week as the key inflection point here, so we're going to look. That's this one and this one. It's at 6,672, up about 55 points where the index is currently trading. If we clear that hurdle, clear the 6,672, and you can see that's the candlestick pattern. If we can clear that one, she thinks that can shift the market to a more neutral range-bound environment, but until the S&P rebounds above the 40-week, she thinks that rallies are likely to continue facing overhead pressure, much like the pressure we saw for most of the day today before we rallied into the close. I could not agree with her more. How about the floor of support underneath this market? Right now, we've got a floor at 6,550. That's black, okay? This represents the low from the week of October 6th of last year. Now, the last time we spoke to Inskips, she warned us that if this level failed to hold, we get a drastic sell, which is exactly what happened last month, and you can see there failed to hold and it went down pretty quickly. Now we're above that level again thanks to last week's rally, and it needs to be maintained. Again, if we break down below 6,550, about 30 points below where the S&P currently is trading, then she thinks we're in real trouble. What about the upside? Okay, if the S&P can clear the 40-week moving average at 6,672, there, we've got another hurdle, the 13-week moving average. There's a lot going on here, okay? That's there, okay? That stands at 6,753 with a third hurdle at the 26-week moving average, 6,780. So there's so much overhead resistance. Finally, Inskip says we need to reclaim the trend high from the week of October 27th of that 6,920, which is all the way up here. I know, it seems like we've got to do a lot of work. For now, though, the most important level is the 40-week moving average. As long as it remains as a ceiling of resistance, Inskip says you've got to stay somewhat guarded because the S&P is in a bearish trading cycle. Let's not forget that, but you see that great close, still in a bearish trading cycle. Next, I want you to take a look at the weekly chart, the S&P 500. This is the equal weight index, which contains all the same stocks as the regular S&P 500, except each one is weighted the same, and the normal S&P, they're all weighted by market cap. We love to watch the S&P equal weight because it filters out those gigantic mega cap heavy hitters. It gives you a better sense of how the rest of the indexes really do it. Right now, Inskip says the S&P equal weight is in a neutral trading range, as opposed to a bearish trading range, a neutral trading range. With the 13-week and 26-week moving averages acting as ceilings of resistance, but the 40-week moving average providing a floor of support. So that's a break there, right? As she sees it, this reflects a market intransition. Now, this will shift if there's a breakout above the 26-moving average at 7, 8, 6, 1. So there's the level that we have to take out, okay? We are not that close to it. Just a point above, but you're going to see there. We're not that close to taking it out, but it's not that close to where we are. That would create a bullish signal or a breakdown below the 40-week moving average, which we bearish. So just again, I know these are complicated, but we're basically here or here. Either one, we don't know which. Right now, the S&P equal weight has a floor of support at 7, 7, 9, 4, getting very tight, which corresponds to the high made during the week of September 29. The last time we spoke to Inskip, this level was the lower floor of support. Now it's the first level support because we've been hammered. That's again why the negative bias. Now, the equal weight needs to maintain the lower level and reclaim the previous higher level of 7, 8, 9, 6. So just go all the way up here. It's going to be very difficult. This marks the higher high from the week of December 8th. A former resistance level now turns support. And then it turns out support that is now resistance again. It's up about 36 points from where the S&P equal weight is currently trading. As Inskip sees it, reclaiming the 7, 8, 9, 6 level is critical to reestablishing a bullish trading cycle. So what I am nervous about just to you know, this is really far from us. And I do think that we can claim it if we have multiple days of good. Of course, the S&P equal weight is already edging higher. Having broken out above its previous resistance of 7, 7, 9, 4, turning its back into 4 of support. The shift signal is improving market structure and it tells us the rally is beginning to broaden adding strength to the overall market. This is still better than the mega caps. Now speaking of breadth, check out this chart that Inskip put together using Claude. This is the one that really made me negative. Yeah, Claude. You know, Anthropic, she likes to look at the percentage of stocks trading above the 13 week, 26 week and 40 week movie averages. By watching how that percentage changes, she can tell when we might be approaching a meaningful top or bottom. And right now, she's starting to like what she sees. After a sharp deterioration from late February through March, okay, where the percentage of stocks above the 13 week movie average plunged from 63% to 23.9% over the three consecutive weeks, she says the market's breadth is now stabilizing and turning higher. Currently, about 34% of stocks are above the moving average, the 13 week movie average, reflecting constructive shift, but still well below pre-sell off levels. Inskip ceases as an early sign of recovery, but the breadth needs to keep expanding for it to mean anything. For confirmation of a durable reversal, Inskip says the percentage of stocks above the 13 week movie average needs to push back above 50. We're nowhere near that. Until then, the improvement remains encouraging, but she says this is all very fragile and I agree with that. Here's the bottom line. The charts interpreted by Inskip suggest that it's still treacherous out there, but the situation is improving and it's possible that we actually put it in a genuine bottom last week. That's why she thinks the market is at a crossroads here and now you know what to watch to figure out which direction we might be headed. I myself think it's not that these demonstrate not a crossroads, but a little bit lower than a crossroads. We need to jump over that before I feel safer because look at this. We don't want that. We want all the way up here. Okay. Let's start with Jim and Delaware. Jim. Hi, Jim. Thanks so much for the great financial education from your books and bad money. Oh, thank you. You know, I'm just going to go. Oh, okay. Thank you. I'm a long time viewer and a first time caller. All right. Caterpillar. Caterpillar. More than doubling since I bought it 23 months ago at 332 is in my best of breed taxable portfolio. What could cause a long-term problem for cats? Well, you'd have to see metals and mining really get crushed. You'd have to see the Permian give out. You'd have to see no more construction on roads. None of that's going to happen. Joe Creed has got this thing going. He's the CEO. I think cat is one of the most viable stocks. I think this stock could be up gigantically if we get the end of the war. Gigantically. It's a great call by you. Thank you for the time, words. The charges interpreted by Jessica and Skip Paint, a pretty treacherous picture still for the market. But she thinks the situation could be getting better. Now, I agree with that, but remember, I'm still going for the treacherous. Much more money at shares than before. We just had the worst month of 46 years. Whoa. But is the market miscalculating the company's deal with Unilever? Like maybe the way Cisco is miscalculated when they bought Jet Row? I'm sharing where I come down. Then the long dive seems to be out for tech on a daily basis, don't they? But tonight I'm doubling down on why I think this sector remains the best area of opportunity for investors. And all your calls rapid fire tonight's just a lightning round. So stay with Kramer. It's been a rough few years for McQuarrie, the spices, seasonings, and sauces company, with a stock that's down more than 42% over the past half decade. But at this point, the stock's down so much that, you know what, it's starting to get real interesting to me. In general, the packaged food group has been one of the worst in the market. Nobody wants these slow growth names besieged by weight loss drugs, regulation, macroeconomic worries, which brings me back to McCormick. Now this stock was already struggling, then a little over a week ago it announced its deal, a transformational deal to merge with Unilever's food business, and the stock got hit again, down more than 6% on the news. In fact, in March alone, it lost 29% of its fair marketing worst month in 46 years. This is not a beloved stock getting a minor haircut. This is a hated stock and a hated group that's trying to change the narrative, but for the moment Wall Street just doesn't care. I think that's a big mistake. McCormick's buying a bunch of fantastic brands, Hellman's mayonnaise, Nord dried soups, Coleman's mustard, they never got enough love at Unilever. These are real properties. They have scale, history, shell space, and consumer recognition that most packaged food companies would kill for. In a dead group like this, if you're a major operator and you want to matter again, you gotta swing for the darn fences when something like this becomes available. But McCormick's not making a deal for some random collection of weak brands. It's buying a set of premium assets that can transform its position in the category. And that is why I think the market's missing the whole real story here. Everyone's focused on the structure and I get it. McCormick is indeed paying a lot, $15.7 million in cash, issuing an amount in the stock in what's known as a reverse Morris Trust transaction. We're basically a smaller company, a large one. Existing McCormick shareholders will end up with only 35% of the combined company. Unilever shareholders get 55.1% of the combined business, and Unilever itself gets to keep 9.9%. I know, sounds real ugly, right? Pollution is real. Debt is real. But McCormick keeps the name, keeps the New York Stock Exchange listings, and CEO Brendan Foley's team will run the company going for nine like that, because he's a good manager. Honestly, the question is not whether the structure is messy. It is messy. The question is whether McCormick can create more value with these assets than Unilever could, and I think the answer to that is absolutely yes. Unilever is basically the British proctor and gamble. It's been moving away from packaged food business for years, and sold its tea business to a private equity bar in 2021. It spun off its ice cream business as the Magnum Ice Cream Company last year. They've made it very clear that they want to be more focused on household and personal care company. Food no longer fits strategically. They're not doing anything with it. They're starving it. From McCormick, though, these food brands are right in the wheelhouse. Who better to own Hellman's mayonnaise and Coleman's mustard than a Spice's and Seasonings and Hot Sauce play? Just as important, the deal will improve McCormick's international exposure. This company's got a strong position in North America, but Unilever Foods gives it a ton of exposure to Europe, the Middle East, Africa, as well as Brazil and China. One of the knocks on McCormick was that it was too domestically focused, and this is the most aggressive way for them to gain share overseas, where there's still a lot of growth besides the deal's enormous. McCormick generated 6.8 billion in sales in fiscal 2025. Unilever Foods generated 12.9 billion in euros over the same period. McCormick's going from being a very good $7 billion business to being a much bigger, much broader, more global platform with over $20 billion in annual revenue. In a group where scale is the best way to contain costs, defend margins, and get retailers to take you seriously, that matters a lot. At the same time, I do not think the sellers appreciate what the acquisition could mean in the supermarket. McCormick already has Spice's, Seasonings, Frank's, Red Hot, Cholula, French's, Mustard and Old Bay. Then you add Helmins, Noor, Coleman's, and my, M-A-I-L-L-E, often mispronounced, mail, which is a boutique high-end Dijon mustard. I use it, maybe it's in your refrigerator. At that point, you're not just selling a few brands into the supermarket. You're owning huge chunks of multiple aisles, condiments, seasonings, sauces, real shelf power. In this environment, that may be one of the only ways a packaged food company can start to feel important again. Then there's the cost side. Okay, McCormick says the deal should generate about $600 million of annual run rate cost synergies by year three, and another $100 million of incremental cost and revenue synergies will be reinvested into bolster growth. More importantly, management has said the transaction should be meaningfully added, meaningfully, to growth, operating margin, and adjusted earnings in the first four years of earnings, of closing, no one's paying attention to that. And look, it's not like McCormick was a broken company before the announcement. It's really a broken stock. The core business is solid. McCormick's most recent quarter was strong. Positive organic growth. Management reaffirming their full-year forecast. This is not some distressed company trying to save itself with a desperate merger. It's a good company and a terrible group trying to create the kind of scale that's needed to get Wall Street excited again. I also think that the GOP-1 angle and give you a quietly makes McCormick better than the average food story. These guys are not fighting to sell more calories. They're selling taste. They're selling flavor. If people are eating less, eating healthier, adding more protein and produce and making smaller meals at home, they still want those meals to taste good. They want the flavor. In fact, people taking GOP-1's probably need their food to taste better than before or else it won't be appetizing. And McCormick can give that to them. That puts the company in a much better position than most of the packaged food companies, which rely on selling people junk food. The younger consumer trends line up, too. According to Sir Kana, 34% of Americans consider themselves, quote, hot sauce connoisseurs, meaning they use hot sauce at least once per week. But over half of Gen Zers classify themselves that way. Clearly they like it hot. It doesn't put weight on it. So much better than adding butter. Now none of this means that the risks are fake. The Unilever Food Deal, it is so huge. McCormick's balance sheet gets uglier and the structure is unusual. Very risky thing for a conservative company. Plus it's not expected to close until mid-2027. And regulators can take a hard look. I'm not worried about Trump's standing trust guys. I don't know about the British. So the market's not wrong to worry about that. But after this kind of stock collapse, I think the worries of price didn't. McCormick's finally fallen enough to get interesting. Not safe or easy, but I like the deal. You gotta look at this one. Look at what they own. I mean, look, you go buy all that stuff. I have half the stuff in my... You know, this is the stuff. See this thing? That's pronounced my. Okay? It looks like male or male. It's my. Here's the bottom line. In a market where the packaged food has been an absolute graveyard. Right? I mean, the worst. The only real way out of what you can possibly do is to try to get bigger, get more global, own more of the flavor aisle, cut costs, make yourself matter. Make yourself relevant. These kinds of brands do not become available very often. McCormick took the shot. If Brandon Foley couldn't run this business the way I think he can, this will eventually look a lot less like a food company overreaching and a lot more like the moment when McCormick decided to get big or go home because they're done being at the mercy of the market. We have money just back here for the better. Coming up, you've got questions. Cramer's got the answers. Charged up for a fast fire lightning round. Next. It is time for the Lightning Round Quiz. We're going to see if we can stop talking about my Bysel Cerberus and close out at the most definitely in Blaine itself. And then the Lightning Round is over. Are you ready to skip that? The Lightning Round Quiz is about to start with Cameron in Pennsylvania. Cameron. Hey Jim Buya from Montgomery County, Pennsylvania. Yes, right where I'm from. Thank you. What's going on? Hey, so first of all, I love the show. Love the book. I thought it was an awesome job of making a lot of information. Thank you. Really easy to understand. Thank you. Try any of people understand what a P-mol... No one teaches that stuff that's in that book. Thank you. What's up? So the company I'm calling about, it's down about 40% year to date. I don't know if this one is a casualty of AI or if it's got some potential for rebound long term. That's the company's service tightening, ticker T-T-A-M. You know what? That thing is, I thought that was a good... When it came out of the shoot, a golden deal I believe. It was looking really good. It's just been kind of been cut in half. I don't understand it. You know what? I'm going to have to huddle with Ben Stotto. I'm not kidding. I'm going to huddle with Ben Stotto. We're going to find out what the heck happened. We're going to find out what the heck happened to service tighten. That's what we're going to do. All right. Let's go on. Let's go to Carl in Virginia. Carl. CEO Paul Jacobs said his company holds the critical jigsaw pieces that complete the broader D2D puzzle. Jim, how valuable is GlobalStar? Ticker T-T-A-M. I got a K and people told me for years to own that stock. Did I listen? No. I had cotton in my ears. I had wax in my ears. I had holes in my ears. And those I still have. And I'm going to have to say, uh-uh, it's right and I got it wrong. Let's go to YouGo in Ohio. YouGo. Jim Bowell. Pleasure to meet you. Jim Bowell. Pleasure to be back speaking with you again. So tell me, old sage of the street, I'm thinking of starting a position. I got two questions about it. Is this a good time to start a position? And two, is the dividend sustainable? I'm talking about cam bolts. All right. I never buy a stock for dividend for a high yield because too many times that yield turned out to be chimerical. Now, I absolutely like the company. I like the brands, but when I see 70% yield, I just say, you know what? It's not worth it. It's just not worth it. And I'm going to say that you shouldn't own cam bolts. I'd rather have you own McCormick, frankly. There you go. I'm out of the closet with the McCormick. I'm there. Boom. Boom. Boom. Let's go to Adam in Illinois, please. Adam. Hi, Jim. I'm a club member. You've heard this before, but thanks for everything, man. You're in national treasure. Oh, thank you, man. Don't forget Jeff. You're in national treasure. Jeff. Thank you very much. I'm not just trying to like that. I wish my mom were alive. But anyway, gosh, you say maybe you're a good Jimmy. I'm sorry. A certain guy that I trust told me it was how important it is to be diversified. So I bought some shares of GE Healthcare and when that failed me for a year, I moved those funds into CVS. And until today, the result was no better. So do I sell holder by more CVS? No, no, no. Listen to me. Listen to me. Good. David joiners the real deal. He is creating the national drug store chain. Now CVS is real. I'm not done. I'm going to Jeff and Wisconsin with Jeff. Yeah, Mr. Braemer, I purchased 47 shares of Lockheed Martin on March 2nd at $604 per share. It's now down to $608 per share. And it seems like it's plateaued. I'm not sure if I could be surprised with the war going on. No, no. Here, listen to me. Jim Takelet is bankable. I want you to buy more. I think it will be terrific. And that ladies and gentlemen, put it out of the lightning round. The lightning round is sponsored by Charles Schwab. Coming up Kramer is sick of the pessimists tormenting tech stocks and he's sounding off on why you should still own, not trade them. Next. Good evening, Mr. Kramer. Thank you. Thank you for everything you do. You've been such a wonderful source of information with your teachings. I have to say thanks. Thank you for all your advice and saving us from our health. Your advice? Let me quit a job that I hate it. I love you to death. Thank you for everything you do. Thanks for making this money. More importantly, thanks for keeping us from losing money. It happens every day. Someone whispers something bad about tech to me. The story is always hard to track down. Let me show you what I mean. This morning I tried frankly to find out what the heck was the matter with the stock of Apple. The stock was falling like a safe thrown out of the Empire State Building. Slays into it. One, two, three, four, five, six, then right down to the 13 points. 13 points. I'd seen a story earlier in the morning from Nikai Asia that Apple's foldable phone expected for this fall has been delayed. I dismissed it and didn't get mad at anything. The first lesson I got was a record. But after chasing and chasing to find the real story, I had to settle on the fact that the Nikai story about the foldable phone being late was probably the reason for the decline. I told people to start buying the stock when it was down 10. Just didn't make sense to me that people would sell based on the one outlet somewhat dubious claims. I turned off at 1 p.m. Bloomberg ran an officially sanctioned story saying the foldable phone was on time. Turns out Apple was framed. You caught a quick 5 point gate when I told you to. Even better if you owned it and didn't bother to trade it. And I gotta tell you, if we think that there's no war tomorrow, this one's gonna keep flying higher. Yesterday was alphabet. I kept hearing that Google was doing badly, which would slow down the growth of Gemini with Anthropa coming on strong. I'll be there for business, chat, chit-chit-chit-t-maintaining, and success. You might have to ban and ship alphabet. I just started buying it for the Chabaltrust. I thought it made no sense whatsoever to get YouTube, Waymo, Search, Chrome, Gemini. So I didn't dump it. I stayed in. It was a pretty bold thing to do. Now it ramped up again nearly 2%. When Marvel Tech won some big business recently, it came at the expense of Broadcom. They both make custom accelerator chips. We didn't take debate and stuck with Broadcom for the Chabaltrust. Today we discovered that Broadcom got not one, but two deals. One with Google and the other with Anthropic. Stocks were more than 6%. Response. Thank heavens we chose not to listen. Last week the negative whispers were about Amazon. Get out now. The consumer is slowing down. Going to hurt their main business, Amazon Prime. I said there's one thing I know for a fact that the pessimists don't seem to understand. I know Amazon. They're tight as a drum. No way anyone can get a read on retail sales from them. No one gets information because they don't leak. Now it's possible that the naysayers just wanted to get on my nerves, but it doesn't matter. It sounded so good I had to bear down and find out what could be found out. Not much and then hold on. And for weeks I've been hearing the drum beat that CrowdStrike would be destroyed by Anthropic. But today Anthropic announced a partnership with CrowdStrike as well as Palo Alto Networks and some others called Project Glasswing to protect Anthropic users. Anthropic needs CrowdStrike. It doesn't seek to wipe it out. Hence why CrowdStrike rallied 24 points and I think there's a lot more ahead there too. Why does this stuff keep happening? First because it's easy to rumor down the tech stocks. People can say anything they want about these companies and they usually do. Especially the press by the way. There's no journalism jail. Second the companies in this industry they're unique in that they rarely acknowledge anything or deny anything. It's like they know that the stuff occurs all the time and they're just not going to play. They're not going to bother. And now if they did bother they could shut the pessimists down but they won't. These companies are hard to understand. It's not like they're making tissue paper hammers. So it's hard to figure out what part of the story might be a ride. I think tech remains the best source of opportunity out there. Just understand that right now it's fodder for those who want to move stocks down in the worst way. By law I like to say this is a voiceable market somewhere. I promise I'll find it just for you when you're on made money. I'm Jim Cramer. I'll see you tomorrow. 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