On Tuesday, April 1 , the host of Mad Money opened the show by focusing on President Trump’s tariffs and the economic risks ahead of ‘Liberation Day’. While Cramer expressed sympathy for the President’s goals, he warned viewers that the consequences could be severe for both consumers and the broader economy:
“Now as someone who’s been a huge critic of unrestrained free trade, I am very sympathetic to what President Trump is trying to accomplish with these tariffs. Every other country on earth tries to protect its own domestic industries except America which has spent decades letting foreign competitors steamroll our guys in exchange for cheaper stuff. President Trump is justifiably furious about this he wants to do something about it but solving the problem is going to hurt. We don’t know how much our prices will go up for just about everything, but we do know those tariffs will be used as an excuse to raise prices across the board. It’s been very hard to get a sense of the overall damage.”
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.
But despite understanding the motivation behind the policy, Cramer was blunt about the scale of economic disruption that a proposed 20% tariff on all imports would cause:
“Speaking as someone who’s not a fan of free trade I have to be honest here, a 20% across the board tariff on almost all imports that would be horrendous for the economy. That’s a 20% increase on everything we buy from overseas and we import a huge amount of foreign goods in America, and those goods are cheap because that’s the deal. There’s plenty of competition from these companies but with the exception of the auto industry and those that contribute to it -mainly steel – it doesn’t matter anymore. The truth is the jobs that are meant to be protected by tariffs were automated out of existence a long time ago.”
Cramer mentioned that even the industries that stand to benefit in theory, like autos and steel, aren’t necessarily helping the average American:
“The tariffs aren’t protecting us from anything because we barely make anything anymore. The horses left the barn ages ago. Ford and GM will be able to make more money by raising prices but who does that help besides their shareholders and union members? What’s good for General Motors is not necessarily good for America anymore. All people know is that cars will be more expensive; they don’t care about who makes them.”
He also criticized the administration’s execution, calling out the lack of clarity and coordination behind the policy rollout and questioning whether any American companies will actually be spared from the impact:
“I wish the White House were more serious about making the tariffs work. Our country’s been crushed by foreign imports that are typically made by cheap labor and often subsidized so they destroy our jobs. But the jobs are gone. We had almost a million seamstresses in this country four decades ago now we have almost none; they aren’t bringing back those jobs. Sure, some companies thought they’d be buying immunity by building new factories here, but there’s nothing on paper that suggests that the president will spare them. Is there really no sanctuary?”
Wrapping up the opening segment, Cramer reminded viewers that while many Americans may support a “tough-on-trade” agenda, their real fear is inflation; and it’s inflation that the tariffs will likely exacerbate:
“Finally, most Americans are worried about inflation; not tariffs. That’s what got Trump elected for heaven’s sake. As much as I rail against the devil’s bargain that gave our country the cheap stuff at the cost of domestic jobs, cheap stuff is what America wanted. […] Here’s the bottom line when the book is written on this moment I think we’ll question what we were liberated from on Liberation Day and again I think Trump is totally justified in cracking down on our trading partners but that doesn’t mean it will be good for the economy.”
Our Methodology
For this article, we compiled a list of 10 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).
10. Best Buy Co., Inc. (NYSE:BBY)
Number of Hedge Fund Holders: 38
Best Buy Co., Inc. (NYSE:BBY) is one of the largest electronics and appliance retailers in the U.S., with a strong footprint in both brick-and-mortar and online sales. Cramer was bullish on the stock when a caller asked him about it last year, pointing to a coming wave of PC upgrades and a reliable dividend as reasons to buy at the time.
“Okay, Best Buy. I like Best Buy because I believe we’re going to see a radical refresh of PCs come this fall, and it’s well, actually, it’s going to start in July, and people aren’t focusing on this. They’re making a big mistake. The PC refresh cycle is going to drive Best Buy higher. Meantime, you’re going to be protected by the yield.”
The stock has since fallen 21.5%, as consumer interest in big-ticket tech items faded and the expected PC boom never really showed up.
However, Jim Cramer recently admitted that his charitable trust has sold its holdings in the stock and explained the reasons behind the price drop. Here are his comments from March 21st:
“Of course, I want to be empirical here. Some industries will be hurt badly because they have a huge concentration of products from overseas. We sold our Best Buy for the Charitable Trust because of the tariffs.”
9. Block Inc. (NYSE:XYZ)
Number of Hedge Fund Holders: 81
Block Inc. (NYSE:XYZ), the fintech firm behind Square and Cash App, was a favorite of Cramer’s last year when he defended the stock against Wall Street’s criticism. He was confident in the company’s leadership and suggested it was a buying opportunity despite recent analyst downgrades at the time.
“I am not thinking that this is the right thing to downgrade the stock. If anything, I’d be upgrading the stock. This company is incredibly run, and I didn’t buy into the negativity that we saw in the downgrade. No, not with this management team. It’s too strong.”
Since then, the stock has dropped 32.2%, as profitability concerns and ongoing macro pressures weighed on investor sentiment.
Despite the recent struggles, Jim Cramer has always been a fan of the company. Here’s what he said on March 27th:
“Okay, Block, you know, we had Amrita Ahuja on when we were out in California last weekend. This is a very quizzical situation because they missed the quarter twice. But you know what? It’s come down so much that I gotta think it’s the right price to buy. I’m going to say buy. Buy half right now, and then if it breaks down below 53 and then you can buy more.”
