In his latest appearance on CNBC’s Squawk on the Street, Jim Cramer reacted to the partial tariff exemptions announced by the White House, interpreting them not as a full retreat, but as a strategic pause designed to avoid punishing American companies. He suggested the administration was being careful not to hand over competitive advantages to Southeast Asian rivals, particularly Samsung:
“So what I saw today, and not to be facetious, but what I see is people saying, you know what, we’ve seen the downside. Maybe we can test it again. But the president has, I don’t want to say blink, because that’s nonsense. What the president did was say, OK, look, we’re not going to continue to punish American companies and give the green light to Korea. I don’t know if you heard Lutnick’s words. He was very specific. Southeast Asia. That’s Samsung. They didn’t want to give the ball to Samsung.”
READ ALSO: Jim Cramer Hints at a Bigger Agenda Behind Tariffs and Breaks Down These 7 Stocks and Jim Cramer Reacts to the Surprise Market Surge and Highlights 8 Key Stocks.
Turning to currency dynamics, Cramer pushed back on what he sees as misplaced panic over a weakening U.S. dollar. Instead, he argued that a softer dollar actually benefits American multinationals and gives long-needed relief to CFOs who’ve spent years blaming currency strength for lost market share:
“Well, look, I’m not so certain I’m going to do a little contrary stuff on the dollar here. When we listen to conference calls, for the last four years, all we hear about is it would have been so much better if the dollar weren’t so strong. We keep losing share, the dollar’s too strong. Suddenly the dollar’s weaker, and now we start hearing all the downside, what, the bonds? I mean, I’m almost thinking that, I’m gonna put this out there, the people who are saying that it’s the end of the world, that the dollar is weaker, I think they have to go do some work boots on the ground. […] So suddenly the dollar’s weaker and we are petrified? These are people who have an agenda. And their agenda is to say, you know what matters more than anything else? Our hegemony from a strong dollar. And I don’t get it. If you’re in our business of picking stocks, you’re sick and tired of hearing CFOs say, we are done. We’ve got to stop this dollar rise.”
Cramer also gave his opinion about the rhetoric coming from Beijing, likening it to the Cold War-era paranoia of the 1960s and ’70s. He questioned whether a diplomatic breakthrough similar to Nixon’s historic visit to China is even possible under the current tone of U.S.-China relations:
“But when I listen to the rhetoric from China, this is the 1968-72 rhetoric. It’s the kind of rhetoric that just says there’s never going to be a meeting. Is there a way to have a Nixon to China moment? Because as far as I’m concerned, this is just right now you’re on the verge of when I was a little boy and we kept thinking, when are they going to bomb us? I mean, that was the same rhetoric. When are they going to launch their nuclear weapons? I mean, that’s why we used to live in fear. That’s why we had cubbyholes. That’s why we used to put our heads in a cubbyhole, because the Chinese were going to bomb us if the Russians didn’t bomb us. This is the same sound.”
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 April 14th.
For these stocks, we also mentioned the number of hedge fund investors. 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).
11. Johnson & Johnson (NYSE:JNJ)
Number of Hedge Fund holders: 98
During a discussion about the recent weakness in the U.S. dollar, Jim Cramer pointed out how multinational companies often cite currency strength as a barrier to growth. He specifically referenced Johnson & Johnson (NYSE:JNJ) as one of the companies that could benefit from a weaker dollar and did not hesitate to point out what he likes about the company. Here is what he said:
“Because when you hear Johnson & Johnson tomorrow morning, Great American company, AAA balance sheet, always been good. All you ever hear from them, from Joe Wolk, who’s the excellent CFO he is, if it weren’t for the dollar, if it weren’t for the dollar …”