In this piece, we will look at the stocks Jim Cramer talked about after January’s biggest AI event.
After the Consumer Electronics Show (CES) in Las Vegas, Jim Cramer had a lot to talk about NVIDIA and other stocks. While you can take a look at what he had to say about Wall Street’s favorite AI GPU stock by opening our full list, Cramer emphasized that there is a clear division in the stock market. He pointed out “Well again I think that there’s two markets. There’s the healthcare market, the materials market, uh, the food and beverage market. David, that area is just wasteland.” He shared that safety isn’t on investors’ minds when understanding the current stock market. I learned from my friend Michael Haley who is a demolition man that safety never takes a vacation,” Cramer shared and added “He was not speaking about snacks. Because safety’s last!”
The CNBC host also commented on a recent report which shared that consumers might be able to save money by using GLP-1 weight loss drugs. According to him, “If you want to save some money, well, look it’s four hundred dollars. That they’re saving. And by the way, you know, the average person in this country, four hundred dollars, nice saving.”
Another segment that’s caught his attention recently is the alcoholic beverages market. The Surgeon General’s recent opinion of placing a cancer warning on these beverage bottles hasn’t escaped Cramer’s attention. However, he doesn’t think a warning label will deter consumers. Cramer commented that in the aftermath of the Surgeon General’s remarks, “liquor’s just being crushed.” He recalled the Prohibition and shared “All I can tell you is that, we did this thing in prohibition, we had this thing called prohibition, it didn’t work. That was a real way to wipe it out.” Yet, even though the stocks are down, they might not have seen different performance had the warning not been issued. According to Cramer “People don’t wanna own these stocks anyways because of interest rates. It’s just a double whammy.”
Following a comprehensive press conference by President-elect Trump, bond yields soared as investors fretted about political stability. Cramer believes technology stocks are more resilient to rising bond yields but other sectors like healthcare suffer. Yet, according to him “If you were in healthcare right now you’d be saying, what, if you’re Rob Davis at Merck, you say like listen, things aren’t that bad. But it doesn’t matter because it’s all caught up with bonds.”
One government official in Cramer’s crosshairs was FTC chair Lina Khan. Cramer commented on the increased frequency of mergers and acquisitions in the US this year. “I love these deals, David. They take out a competitor,” he shared. “You can raise numbers. It’s rationalizing the American industry. It’s everything that a previous guest [Lina Khan] on this network, hated,” according to Cramer. He also shared thoughts about Khan’s actions against Jeff Bezos’ eCommerce company. The case “is about hurting small businesses,” believes Cramer. However, he believes that it should have been about inflation instead. “Never did she [Khan] ever say that it was about keeping prices down for the consumer. But inflation is the single biggest problem that we have in this country economically. And so she completely missed that boat. And then she injected Reagan into that,” he opined.
Finally, while materials, industrial, healthcare, and alcoholic beverage stocks are struggling, the “Magnificent 7 is what moves things,” said Cramer. He also believes that “if Biden’s legacy is that the Magnificent 7 did really well, well I mean given that I’m a dollar sign represented by a man, I’m thrilled.”
Our Methodology
To make our list of the stocks that Jim Cramer talked about, we listed down all the stocks he mentioned during CNBC’s Squawk on the Street aired on Tuesday.
For these stocks, we also mentioned the number of hedge fund investors. Why are we interested in the stocks that hedge funds invest in? 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 275% since May 2014, beating its benchmark by 150 percentage points. (see more details here).
18. Cerence Inc. (NASDAQ:CRNC)
Number of Hedge Fund Holders In Q3 2024: 10
Cerence Inc. (NASDAQ:CRNC) is an AI virtual assistant company that caters to the needs of the automotive industry. Its shares are up by 90.5% year-to-date despite less than a month having passed since the year’s start. The strong performance of Cerence Inc. (NASDAQ:CRNC)’s stock is due to NVIDIA having extended a partnership with the firm. Through this deal, the company’s AI models will be powered by NVIDIA’s cloud software platform and improve the time that it takes for Cerence Inc. (NASDAQ:CRNC)’s products to be deployed into vehicles. Here’s what Cramer said:
“The other day it was Cerence, Cerence is another company that’s run by Brian Krzanich, who used to run Intel and CDK which has got technology for autos. And they’re the one, you’d speak to, I think some people think it’s better than Siri in a car. Well you know open my car door, turn my heater on.”
17. Paychex Inc. (NASDAQ:PAYX)
Number of Hedge Fund Holders In Q3 2024: 20
Paychex Inc. (NASDAQ:PAYX) is one of the largest providers of payroll and human resource management software to small businesses in America. Its shares are down by 1.5% year-to-date as they have responded to data suggesting that the Federal Reserve might cut interest rates just once in 2025. Paychex Inc. (NASDAQ:PAYX), due to its business model, is dependent on the health of the labor market for its prosperity. The dependence means that when rates are high and business spending is low, investors expect Paychex Inc. (NASDAQ:PAYX)’s revenue and recurring income to be constrained. Cramer’s comments surrounded the firm’s intent to acquire Paycor:
“Paycor’s got really good product. I wanted the human capital to be dominated by Paychex. It’s been a dog fight. This is terrific. This is a terrific deal! And Paychex is up because it’s sensational. Because I thought that Paycor might have a really good product, but no, now I don’t have to worry about that.”
“I think that Paychex has been keeping prices down for a very long time and this is a good thing to happen to their suite if you can keep the price down.”