CarMax, Inc. (KMX): “They Missed Bad… Nothing There,” Says Jim Cramer

We recently published a list of Jim Cramer Reacts to the Surprise Market Surge and Highlights 8 Key Stocks In this article, we are going to take a look at where CarMax, Inc. (NYSE:KMX) stands against other key stocks that Jim Cramer highlights.

In his latest appearance on CNBC’s Squawk on the Street, Jim Cramer analyzed the extraordinary market turnaround following President Trump’s unexpected 90-day tariff reprieve. Cramer explained just how abruptly the momentum changed:

“The word that I kept hearing about is failed, that it would be a failed auction. It wasn’t. And therefore, it was a save. Once that save was made, in part because what the president did, you overrun what was the easiest trade of the year, which was the short Mag 7, short technology, short semiconductors, and everything reversed. Now, see, today, if you’re short – and the shorts are more or less the motif – they’re feeling good because it’s down, but they’re going to cover. They’re going to cover because they got hurt so badly yesterday that their bosses are saying, we want your books more. That’s historically what happens in these situations. So you may see all these down, but they’re not going to go back to where they were because we’re building in estimate cuts for everybody. And once they’re all built in, then it’s like 87. They’re all built in, and then you got to start figuring out. He was building too low.”

READ ALSO: Jim Cramer Questions Market Logic and Dissects These 7 Key Stocks and Jim Cramer Says Tariff Pain Isn’t Over Yet And Reviews These 9 Stocks

He also painted the market as a high-stakes showdown between short sellers and bulls, warning that the tide may have turned decisively:

“It’s a great day for the longs, bad day for the shorts. […] What I’m talking about is that it’s a battle between longs and shorts. And the shorts are trying to keep their jobs after being victorious for so long. And the longs are revelling in what happened here because the 10%, except for, of course, what you talked about, which is the embargo.”

Finally, Cramer credited a single Trump tweet with flipping the entire market narrative:

“Yes, we are, given the fact that we should be in a hot seat estate, which is, we’re on a recession territory, ground, so whatever you want to say, until the tweet. Is that not insane? That a tweet came out and we went from being a recession to being up. […] The guy gave you the best call I’ve seen in my career, and yet there are people who are critical of that. I mean, come on. He got the Nasdaq to have the greatest single day ever, and he let you in. How many strategies have that kind of power? […]

We have to acknowledge that it was one of the greatest rallies in history. I should have said that right up front. And you were allowed in it. You got the call.”

Our Methodology

To make our list of the stocks that Jim Cramer talked about, we listed down the stocks he mentioned during CNBC’s Squawk on the Street aired on April 10th.

For these stocks, we also mentioned the number of hedge fund investors. Why are we interested in the stocks that hedge funds pile into? The reason is simple: our research has shown that we can outperform the market by imitating the top stock picks of the best hedge funds. Our quarterly newsletter’s strategy selects 14 small-cap and large-cap stocks every quarter and has returned 373.4% since May 2014, beating its benchmark by 218 percentage points (see more details here).

CarMax, Inc. (KMX): “They Missed Bad… Nothing There,” Says Jim Cramer

A happy customer inspecting a newly purchased used car with the help of a sales assistant.

CarMax, Inc. (NYSE:KMX)

Number of Hedge Fund Holders: 57

In a brief segment on recent earnings results, Jim Cramer called out the disappointing performance of CarMax, Inc. (NYSE:KMX). He criticized the company’s inability to meet expectations and suggested that even the CEO’s commentary failed to inspire confidence:

“This stock is down a lot. Net revenues were $6 billion. They were up 6.7%. They pulled their guidance, and they didn’t do the number. They missed bad. They didn’t have anything. [Talking about the CEO’s commentary] Bill’s usually better than that.”

In recent weeks, Jim Cramer talked about CarMax, Inc. (NYSE:KMX) again, advising his viewers not to invest in autos in case of a recession:

“Now anyway, we just profiled a company called CarMax the other night that reports Thursday and when new cars get tariffed, used cars become a lot cheaper by comparison, which should spur sales for CarMax. The stock’s no longer cheap, selling at 23 times this year’s earnings, but I think this might be a real investment given the fact that the president seems unwilling to back down. Then again, if we get a recession, it doesn’t really matter. You don’t want to own anything connected to autos in a recession.”

Overall, KMX ranks 5th on our list of key stocks that Jim Cramer highlights. While we acknowledge the potential of KMX as an investment, our conviction lies in the belief that some AI stocks hold greater promise for delivering higher returns and doing so within a shorter time frame. There is an AI stock that went up since the beginning of 2025, while popular AI stocks lost around 25%. If you are looking for an AI stock that is more promising than KMX but that trades at less than 5 times its earnings, check out our report about this cheapest AI stock.

READ NEXT: 20 Best AI Stocks To Buy Now and 30 Best Stocks to Buy Now According to Billionaires.

Disclosure: None. This article is originally published at Insider Monkey.