Jim Cramer on Beacon Roofing Supply, Inc. (BECN) CEO Julian Francis: ‘Game Changer, Mr. Roofer’

We recently compiled a list of the Jim Cramer Discussed These 12 Stocks Amidst The DeepSeek AI Selloff. In this article, we are going to take a look at where Beacon Roofing Supply, Inc. (NASDAQ:BECN) stands against the other stocks.

In the episode of CNBC’s Squawk on the Street aired on the day of the DeepSeek stock market selloff, Jim Cramer mentioned the risks that utility companies had talked to him about when it came to investing in power generation. Energy stocks were among the hardest hit during the selloff due to earlier investor optimism about the high power demand from AI. Cramer shared  “Well look .  . .a bunch of utilities behind the scenes have been telling me, we would like to spend. But what happens if something comes out Carl, that doesn’t burn as hot. Then they would have spent a fortune and they don’t want to go rate payer versus data center. They didn’t want to make that trade-off. And today I think that the AIPs of the world, the American Electric Powers, they may actually catch a nice bid.”

One concern that co-host David Faber raised during the program was DeepSeek having access to large amounts of data, including the entire Gmail account used to sign up for the service. In response, Cramer shared that he had been trying to cancel his service during the break. “But they have everything,” he added. He mentioned the amount of time that he’d spent on TikTok and DeepSeek and wondered if he would be able to remove his DeepSeek account if he said “that I love Mao? Would that help me? I think Mao was a great man and should’ve gotten the Nobel Peace Prize. What would help me at this point? That Tiananmen Square was a great celebration? What do I do? Tell me what to do?”

The primary reason stocks shed billions of dollars on Monday was that investors wondered if companies would have to spend billions of dollars to set up AI platforms. However, Cramer argued that the argument that some firms might see an ROI improvement from lower costs was very important. He listed the beneficiaries of AI and stated “We have so many beneficiaries, now we have a healthcare rotation going on, we have the beneficiaries that have really been hamstrung. We have the notion like the Justice Department said under the previous President, there’s been too much concentration.”

Commenting on the environment as the market fell Cramer shared “Look I do think it’s a moment, Carl, where all of us were talking, like it was when we first discovered ChatGPT, and we were playing Haiku.” Yet, he remained skeptical about the accuracy of the data surrounding DeepSeek and R-1. According to Cramer “The difference here I think is that, if we really think that they are playing by American rules and they’re telling us everything, then maybe that’s why we keep seeing such a great number, a growth number from the Chinese economy.”

On whether the American GPU restrictions against China had failed after DeepSeek, Cramer maintained that “the point of the ban was military.” He also believes that President Trump might ban DeepSeek and added “Why can’t we just shut it down?” Returning to DeepSeek accessing huge amount of data, Cramer said “I’ve been really upset about this. I was playing on it all weekend. And I didn’t realize they were playing me. I mean it is on your PC. They’re like, what are they burrowing through it right now? Are they gonna get like personal things that I’ve said to my wife? Which would be devastating. I mean in a positive way.”

Finally, in his last morning remarks, Cramer shared that he thought that the selloff could have been much worse. According to him:

“Yes, I have to tell you that I thought these things, when I first saw this [NVDA share price graph] I’m not saying that I was in a panic but I said look, this could be, a lot of people are going to say this is the end of Mag 7. And of NASDAQ. But people are discerning winners and losers. We have to hear from Jensen, we haven’t yet, Jensen Huang. But frankly, I thought it would be worse.”

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 January 27th.

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).

A construction site with workers wearing hard hats and safety vests, installing roofing materials.

Beacon Roofing Supply, Inc. (NASDAQ:BECN)

Number of Hedge Fund Holders In Q3 2024: 47

Beacon Roofing Supply, Inc. (NASDAQ:BECN) is a Virginia-based company that provides roofing products for industrial and residential use cases. Due to its exposure to the rate-sensitive real estate industry, it’s unsurprising that the shares posted a modest 15% gain in 2024. Yet, Beacon Roofing Supply, Inc. (NASDAQ:BECN) didn’t close the year in the red as the firm benefitted from destocking among its customers. However, 2025 has been a great year for the stock. Beacon Roofing Supply, Inc. (NASDAQ:BECN)’s shares have gained 19.2% year-to-date on an acquisition offer by QXO. Here’s what Cramer said about the firm:

“I’ve been waiting for you to bring up Beacon Roofing. Sly guy.

“Do you mind the fact that Beacon. . . . they’re demanding a higher price. They’re demanding a higher price and can I just say that they’ve done a remarkable job. And before people just say you know what, I’ll take it and run, the EBITDA, the EBITDA numbers, are so low versus the cohort. I think we have to hear from Julian Francis. I will feel much better when I hear from Julian Francis, the CEO.”

“We hear from him, I think it’s going to change the game. Game changer, Mr. Roofer.”

Overall BECN ranks 9th on our list of the stocks Jim Cramer talked about as DeepSeek wreaked havoc on the stock market. While we acknowledge the potential of BECN 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 timeframe. If you are looking for an AI stock that is more promising than BECN 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 Complete List of 59 AI Companies Under $2 Billion in Market Cap

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