We recently published a list of Jim Cramer Got These 10 Stocks All Wrong. In this article, we are going to take a look at where AT&T Inc. (NYSE:T) stands against other stocks that Jim Cramer discussed 1 year ago.
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).
AT&T Inc. (NYSE:T)
Number of Hedge Fund Holders: 80
AT&T Inc. (NYSE:T), one of America’s largest telecom and media conglomerates, has long struggled with its debt-heavy balance sheet and underwhelming stock performance. When a caller told Cramer they had inherited shares in 2016 and asked for his honest take on the management and future prospects of the stock, here’s what Cramer replied with:
“T&T? Yeah, my nanny Mary always said if you don’t have anything good to say don’t say it, so that’s it.”
Although Cramer was never a fan of the stock until then, AT&T Inc. (NYSE:T) has surged by 62.4% since that comment, defying Cramer’s low expectations.
Although Cramer was never a fan of the stock, he finally came around and praised the company’s impressive run and explained the reasons behind it during an episode that aired on the 28th of March:
“Suddenly AT&T has been making a name for itself as a safe haven in a tough market and we don’t have many of those. When investors feel like the environment’s gotten really treacherous, they like to throw their money into something deemed safe. Telecom fits the safety criteria because it’s more insulated from the cyclical nature of the economy. Things have to get pretty darn bad before you stop paying your cell phone bill, don’t they? And also, because these companies tend to pay pretty good dividends.”
So, what’s changed then to allow AT&T to become a winner this year? Well for starters this is no longer the old AT&T that we think about after spending years trying to diversify away from the phone business, which was ill-fated by the way, they finally decided to stick with what they knew best: phone business. Back in September AT&T told us they’re selling the rest of their stake in Direct TV – what a disaster that was – and that comes on top of the Warner Brothers spin-off a few years ago doesn’t hurt that the whole wireless business has gotten less competitive, and that’s allowing all three of the major carriers to steadily raise prices.
But the main reason AT&T stock got its mojo back is that management held an investor day in December and they laid out a very clear road map with healthy growth expectations. It was a breath of fresh air for investors who might have bought this stock for years for the dividend but have seen those quarterly payouts cut.
“At the end of January, they put up an excellent quarter, good subscription numbers, strong free cash flow growth, and management raised their previous guidance that might seem like a low bar but in a negative market like this one, I think a little consistency goes a long way. But the most recent results indicate that AT&T has really turned the corner here.”
So, here’s the bottom line here AT&T’s mainly roared this year as a higher yielding flight to safety trade, but there are also some company specific positives as the company’s gone a long way to turn itself around. At the very least, the stock’s no longer a value trap, which is why it’s been working this year and why I expect it to keep working as long as people are worried about the state of the economy.”
Overall, T ranks 1st on our list of stocks that Jim Cramer discussed 1 year ago. While we acknowledge the potential of T 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 time frame. There is an AI stock that went up since the beginning of 2025, while popular AI stocks lost around 25%. If you are looking for an AI stock that is more promising than T but that trades at less than 5 times its earnings, check out our report about this cheapest AI stock.
READ NEXT: 20 Best AI Stocks To Buy Now and 30 Best Stocks to Buy Now According to Billionaires.
Disclosure: None. This article is originally published at Insider Monkey.
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