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 Cava Group Inc. (NYSE:CAVA) 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).
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Cava Group Inc. (NYSE:CAVA)
Number of Hedge Fund Holders: 47
Cava Group Inc. (NYSE:CAVA), a fast-casual Mediterranean restaurant chain, was viewed by Cramer as a younger version of Chipotle when he recommended it last year. He praised its growth potential, even if valuation looked steep at the time.
“I like Cava right here, to be honest, I like Cava. I think it’s a terrific situation, it’s come down from a high, it’s got great fundamentals, long-term growth, feels a lot like Chipotle did when Chipotle started. You’re not going to find the stock to be ever really cheap, it’s got too good a bloodline to have that happen.”
Cava shares have jumped 24% since his comment, as the company continued to scale rapidly and impress investors with its unit economics.
The host of Mad Money remains bullish on Cava Group Inc (NYSE:CAVA) and considers the stock a long-term pick, according to his comments from April 2:
“I think it’s an excellent long-term, what we call a regional-to-national story. They had 367 locations at the end of last year, and their stores are doing very well. They’ve got a ton of room to expand from a regional to a national player — that’s right, go all over the country. For the record, Chipotle stock was never cheap either. I don’t see any signs of the concept losing momentum. When Cava reported its latest quarter, it delivered 21% same-store sales growth — for heaven’s sake! Now the stock’s down 55% from its high, you have my blessing to start buying Monday. And if it keeps falling, you know what you should do — buy, buy, buy!”
Overall, CAVA ranks 8th on our list of stocks that Jim Cramer discusses. While we acknowledge the potential of CAVA 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 CAVA 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.
