Jim Cramer on Fulton Financial (NASDAQ:FULT): ‘It’s a Good One’

We recently published a list of Jim Cramer Latest Lightning Round: Top 10 Stocks to Watch. Since Fulton Financial Corp (NASDAQ:FULT) ranks 10th on the list, it deserves a deeper look.

Jim Cramer in a latest program on CNBC talked about the latest rebound in the market.

“Never get tired of all-time highs. We are experiencing a time for the market which is what I said would happen when the Fed starts cutting rates when the economy is still solid.”

Cramer said that the key reason the market roared to highs was strong earnings from top banks. He said since the Fed’s interest rate cuts have just started, investors believe maybe the “best is yet to come.”

Jim Cramer wondered whether this strong performance trend would be a “pattern” in this earnings season.

“We will find out soon enough. We will see if the positive action will be sustained.”

Cramer recommended investors to “listen to the calls” this earning season and “ponder a moment, and only then should you pull the trigger.”

“We are at the beginning of one of the year’s four reporting periods. Probably the most exciting. I can’t believe I still get fired up, but man, am I ever.”

For this article, we watched the latest episodes of Jim Cramer’s ‘Lightning Round’ segment on CNBC and picked 10 stocks he was talking about. With each company, we have mentioned its hedge fund sentiment. 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 275% since May 2014, beating its benchmark by 150 percentage points (see more details here).

Fulton Financial Corp (NASDAQ:FULT)

Number of Hedge Fund Investors: 13

Talking about Fulton Financial Corp (NASDAQ:FULT), Cramer highlighted that the company bought a regional bank in Philadelphia.

“I think it’s a good one. I wish it had a 4% yield. I’d feel better about it.”

Fulton Financial Corp (NASDAQ:FULT)’s performance has shown significant growth over the past year. At the end of last year, Fulton Financial Corp (NASDAQ:FULT) had $21.54 billion in deposits, which increased to $25.56 billion by the end of the most recent quarter. The value of loans also rose during this period, going from $21.06 billion to $23.73 billion. The value of securities expanded from $3.67 billion to $4.18 billion. Fulton Financial Corp (NASDAQ:FULT)’s cash and cash equivalents saw a notable increase, rising from $674.1 million to $1.40 billion. On the debt front, Fulton Financial made progress as well, with its total debt decreasing from $2.49 billion at the end of last year to $2.18 billion by the end of the most recent quarter.

In late April of this year, management announced the acquisition of “substantially all” of the assets and the assumption of “substantially all” of the deposits of Republic First Bank, which had been under the control of the FDIC. This acquisition added approximately $3.8 billion to the company’s deposits, with 47% of those deposits being interest-bearing demand deposits.

Overall, Fulton Financial Corp (NASDAQ:FULT) ranks 10th on Insider Monkey’s list titled Jim Cramer Latest Lightning Round: Top 10 Stocks to Watch. While we acknowledge the potential of Fulton Financial Corp (NASDAQ:FULT), our conviction lies in the belief that 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 FULT but that trades at less than 5 times its earnings, check out our report about the cheapest AI stock.

READ NEXT: Analyst Sees a New $25 Billion “Opportunity” for NVIDIA and Jim Cramer is Recommending These Stocks.

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