We recently published an article titled Jim Cramer’s Lightning Rounds: 9 Stocks in Focus. In this article, we are going to take a look at where Transocean Ltd. (NYSE:RIG) stands against the other stocks.

Jim Cramer, the host of Mad Money, recently expressed his concerns about the uncertain economic outlook for 2025, particularly in relation to corporate earnings and the stock market’s expectations for the upcoming year. He highlighted the important question at the heart of the market’s direction: Will corporate earnings grow as Wall Street is predicting?

According to Cramer, analysts are projecting a 12.2% growth in earnings for the S&P 500 this year, followed by 11.9% growth in 2026 though that is still a long way off. Cramer emphasized that these growth estimates, if realized, would be impressive and one of the main reasons why investors are willing to pay nearly 22 times this year’s earnings for the S&P 500. He added:

“Now, that’s a big premium versus its average forward multiple of 17.7 times earnings over the past decade. Buyers are comfortable paying up because they believe in across-the-board corporate earnings growth of about 12%.”

READ ALSO Jim Cramer Shed Light on These 9 Stocks and 9 Stocks Jim Cramer Talked About

Cramer went on to question if the market could even handle a higher growth rate of 24%, which some investors might find acceptable, but he also acknowledged the uncertainty about whether that is achievable. Cramer hopes that earnings growth can be driven by factors such as a strong consumer base, increased capital spending, deregulation, and a rebound in international markets, particularly China, following the pandemic. He added:

“Perhaps starting in 2026, additional tax cuts could provide another easy tailwind for corporate growth but there are also things that could trip us on that path to 12% earnings growth… like tariffs, higher interest rates, or worse, an erosion of consumer spending.”

As earnings season unfolds, Cramer believes that we’ll get a clearer picture of what to expect for 2025. Over the next few weeks, companies will report their fourth-quarter results and offer initial guidance for the full year.

He explained that if any of them issued disappointing forecasts, it could lead to a downward revision of earnings estimates, which would be a significant negative development for the market. He also added that such an outcome could result in investors paying too high a price for stocks relative to their earnings potential, which would be bad news for the averages.

Our Methodology

For this article, we compiled a list of 9 stocks that were discussed by Jim Cramer during the episodes of Mad Money aired on January 10 and 15. We listed the stocks in ascending order of their hedge fund sentiment as of the third quarter, which was taken from Insider Monkey’s database of 900 hedge funds.

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).

Transocean Ltd. (NYSE:RIG)

Number of Hedge Fund Holders: 30

Cramer was clear that he has no affinity for Transocean Ltd. (NYSE:RIG) as he does not even like SLB presently, which he implied was superior.

“I do not dig RIG. No, no, no. I do not dig RIG and I’ll tell you why, because if I don’t like SLB, there’s no way I can like RIG because they’re not nearly as good as SLB. So I’m gonna take a serious big-time size pass on your stock.”

Transocean (NYSE:RIG) offers offshore drilling services with specialized equipment and crews for both private and government energy companies. While Cramer made his dislike for RIG apparent recently, that was not the case in October 2024 when he commented:

“We hardly ever talk about the smaller offshore operators like Transocean, symbol RIG, I always love that… Transocean has lost money for the past 7 years. Its stock has plunged from $30 a decade ago to just below $4… in 2020 when oil prices collapsed at the beginning of the pandemic. Every major offshore driller except for Transocean went bankrupt but the stock rebounded dramatically from those lows before peaking at eight bucks and changed in the summer of last year. Since then it’s pulled back along with energy prices…

Transocean’s in the news. Last night, Bloomberg reported that the company’s exploring a merger with smaller rival, Seadrill. I don’t really have much of an opinion on the potential deal but it signifies more confidence in the offshore space than I’ve seen in over a decade. By the way, of course, the industry needs consolidation. Honestly, this group has been so bad for so long that it’s tough to recommend them here but if you strongly believe that the price of oil’s headed higher next year or the year after then Transocean is a winner. Personally, though, I don’t want to bet on that.”

Overall RIG ranks 5th on our list of the stocks featured in Jim Cramer’s Lightning Round. While we acknowledge the potential of RIG as an investment, 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 RIG 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.