We recently published a list of Jim Cramer Nailed These 11 Stock Picks. In this article, we are going to take a look at where Royal Caribbean Cruises Ltd. (NYSE:RCL) stands against other stocks that Jim Cramer discusses.
On Thursday, April 3rd, the host of Mad Money opened the most recent show by addressing the growing concerns surrounding the current tariff policies. He questioned the effectiveness of these tariffs as he asked:
“What’s the deal with these heavy-handed tariffs? Look, I’ve never been a dogmatic free trader. I believe in fair trade, a pretty fierce belief just so you know and we can only get that by lowering the boom on our trading partners who rip us off as a matter of policy.”
READ ALSO: Jim Cramer’s Thoughts on Liberation Day, Tariffs, and 17 Stocks to Watch Right Now, and 10 Stocks on Jim Cramer’s Radar Recently
Cramer explained that while he has always supported the idea of tariffs in principle, especially when they are part of a well-thought-out strategy, he expressed frustration over how the new trade regime is being executed. He said he was taken aback by how poorly the administration was rolling out these changes, which he felt lacked a clear and coherent plan. Cramer then pointed out what James Surowiecki, the author of The Wisdom of Crowds, said about how the White House is calculating tariffs.
“The White House simply took our trade deficit with each country and then divided it by that country’s exports to America. Then they cut that number in half to determine the tariff rate we’d be slapping on the country in question.”
Cramer noted that just hours later, an unnamed official from the White House confirmed this and described it as “the sum of all unfair trade practices, the sum of all cheating.” Cramer called it ill-advised. Later in the day, President Trump made a statement suggesting that he might be open to reducing tariffs if presented with “phenomenal” offers. However, Cramer raised an important question: “Who determines what those offers are, and what do they even mean?” He admitted that he had no clear answer to that question.
“Here’s the bottom line: I wish I could get behind this new tariff regime because I’ve never been a free trader ever. But the White House doesn’t seem to understand what it’s trying to do and the not-really-reciprocal tariffs we got yesterday could do tremendous damage to the US economy, of course including the stock market, without changing the bad behavior of our trading partners. To me, this has become a lose-lose, which is very tough to accept because I wanted tariffs to change things, not to wreck things.”
Our Methodology
For this article, we compiled a list of 11 stocks that were discussed by Jim Cramer during Mad Money episodes that aired 1 year ago between April 5 and April 12. We then calculated their performance for the past 12 months, until April 2nd, 2025, market close. We have also included the hedge fund sentiment for the stocks, which we sourced from Insider Monkey’s Q4 2024 database of over 900 hedge funds. The stocks are listed in the order that Cramer mentioned them.
Please note that this article mentions Jim Cramer’s previous opinions and may not account for any changes to his opinions regarding the stocks that are mentioned. It is primarily an examination of how his previously provided opinions have panned out.
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).
An aerial view of a luxurious cruise ship, surrounded by the blue horizon.
Royal Caribbean Cruises Ltd. (NYSE:RCL)
Number of Hedge Fund Holders: 58
Royal Caribbean Cruises Ltd. (NYSE:RCL), one of the world’s largest cruise operators, saw renewed investor interest as travel demand surged post-pandemic. Cramer was quick to highlight its market leadership and stock momentum last year.
“Royal Caribbean has been a real horse; the cruise line has outshined all of its competitors, rallying from below $80 last October to $138 yesterday, but today it was down five points. […] I think people are just looking for an excuse to ring the register on what’s become a very strong stock.”
Since then, Royal Caribbean stock has climbed another 44%, making it one of the standout performers in consumer discretionary.
However, Jim Cramer has recently addressed the slight turbulence that the cruise industry is experiencing and used the company’s CEO bullish outlook as a way to rationalize the recent dip in Royal Caribbean Cruises Ltd (NYSE:RCL)’s stock price. Here’s what he said on March 12:
“When he came on the show last week, first, Liberty confirmed that its… consumers perceive Royal Caribbean cruises as a better value than a land-based vacation, reinforcing my view the cruise lines can still do fine even in a softer economy. Second, he cited its own bookings and on-ship spending data from recent voyages, saying matter-of-factly, ‘that cash register continues to ring and be consistent.’
Finally, looking at longer term, Liberty noted that, this is so important, understand this major, major ratio, the new supply, meaning new cruise ships, should continue to be limited for the next few years, which is positive for the entire industry’s pricing power. At one point you see the pricing power go down when they have a lot of ships coming. Plus, altogether, I feel really okay about the cruise lines, Royal Caribbean in particular. This had a 25% pullback from its recent high, stock now sells for a very… undermining 14 times earnings. I like that.”
Overall, RCL ranks 6th on our list of stocks that Jim Cramer discusses. While we acknowledge the potential of RCL 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 RCL but that trades at less than 5 times its earnings, check out our report about the 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.
