We recently published an article titled Jim Cramer Thoughts on 8 Stocks As He Discussed Market Froth. In this article, we are going to take a look at where Vistra Corp. (NYSE:VST) stands against the other stocks.
Jim Cramer, the host of Mad Money, discussed how “froth” is currently affecting the market, explaining that trend-driven stocks need to experience a decline before more stable stocks can begin to recover.
“The fad stocks, they need to go down before non-fad stocks can triumph. That’s what’s happening. It’s just a fact of life in this business.”
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After a rough week marked by a significant downturn in trendy stocks, Cramer pointed out that it is a rare positive sign in an otherwise negative environment that the trend seems to be running its course. Cramer reflected on the market’s performance, mentioning that the Dow managed to inch up by 33 points, while the S&P 500 fell by 0.5%. However, the Nasdaq dropped by 1.21%, turning negative for the year.
He also stressed that the decline primarily occurred toward the end of the trading day, which he found unusual and concerning, though he was not sure about the specific cause of the abrupt drop. “It was pronounced, it was nasty,” Cramer remarked, highlighting the sharpness of the downturn.
“Now, nobody wants anybody to lose money, including me, but there’s a thing called froth, and we gotta talk about it as froth is the enemy of prudence. Smart investing requires a degree of prudence, something that’s highly incompatible with froth.”
He explained that smart investment strategies require a certain degree of caution, which frothy market conditions cannot support. He pointed out that for a period, the market had been filled with froth but lacked prudence, especially evident during the turbulent trading seen late last week. However, Cramer noted that as the froth subsides, investors are turning to assets with more durability and longevity. He specifically mentioned that drug stocks have been performing well recently.
“So here’s the bottom line: Once these frothy momentum stocks come in enough, then we will finally be in a much more straightforward world, a world where what tends to rally is not the sizzle, but the steak.”
Our Methodology
For this article, we compiled a list of 8 stocks that were discussed by Jim Cramer during the episode of Mad Money aired on February 24. We listed the stocks in the order that Cramer mentioned them. We also provided hedge fund sentiment for each stock as of the fourth quarter of 2024, which was taken from Insider Monkey’s database of over 1,000 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 373.4% since May 2014, beating its benchmark by 218 percentage points (see more details here).
Solar panel workers installing a new farm for clean energy generation.
Vistra Corp. (NYSE:VST)
Number of Hedge Fund Holders: 120
Mentioning Vistra Corp. (NYSE:VST) during the episode, Cramer commented:
“How about the walloping in the nuclear power utilities like Vistra and Constellation Energy? These stocks are on a rollercoaster and right now they’re on the downside. They, they trade like they weren’t even wearing their seat belts. When you’re going down, which is what you know what happens, you fly up and then you land on your head. Microsoft had a hand in the froth here too, except this time at least it was negative. See these momentum utility stocks, all data center plays won’t be as important if Microsoft’s actually cutting capital expenditures for data centers, which is also what we heard on Friday. Why the heck do we need to bid up the stocks of tangential utilities when maybe we don’t even need to worry about the regular utilities? Maybe they got enough power, of, of course, we don’t need Constellation or Vistra.”
Vistra Corp. (NYSE:VST) is a company focused on power generation and electricity supply, serving a wide range of customers across residential, commercial, and industrial sectors. Meridian Hedged Equity Fund stated the following regarding the company in its Q3 2024 investor letter:
“Vistra Corp. (NYSE:VST) is an integrated retail electricity and power generation company, primarily serving Texas and the Midwest. We own Vistra because we expect power markets to continue tightening as baseload supply declines, coupled with rising demand from data centers, electric vehicles, and manufacturing reshoring. These factors create a favorable pricing environment for Vistra’s generation fleet, especially its nuclear and gas assets. The stock performed well during the period for three key reasons: tightening energy markets and strengthened pricing in forward-year energy contracts, the continuation of Vistra’s aggressive share repurchase program, and the company’s announced plan to acquire the remaining interest in Vistra Vision at an attractive valuation. Additionally, the company reaffirmed its 2024 guidance, indicating that results are trending toward the upper end of the previously projected range. We took advantage of the stock’s strength this quarter to trim our position.”
Overall VST ranks 3rd on our list of the stocks Jim Cramer recently discussed. While we acknowledge the potential of VST 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 time frame. If you are looking for an AI stock that is more promising than VST but that trades at less than 5 times its earnings, check out our report about the cheapest AI stock.
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Disclosure: None. This article is originally published at Insider Monkey.