Jim Cramer’s Game Plan: 10 Stocks in Focus

4. Delta Air Lines, Inc. (NYSE:DAL)

Number of Hedge Fund Holders: 84

Delta Air Lines, Inc. (NYSE:DAL) is set to report on April 9, and here’s what Mad Money’s host had to say:

“Wednesday, Delta reports. I expect an awful number. They already told us things aren’t so great, but has business stayed weak from their last report or maybe even weaker? I worry that the travel bull market is completely done, especially if we’re gonna go into recession.”

Delta Air Lines (NYSE:DAL) is an airline and the company offers passenger and cargo services on many domestic and international routes. On March 13, Cramer extensively commented on the company as he said:

“Now for those of you who haven’t been paying attention, this week Delta Airlines slashed its first-quarter earnings outlook, citing, ‘the recent reduction in consumer and corporate confidence caused by increased macro uncertainty’, which they say drove ‘softness and domestic demand’ in recent weeks. Now for a long time, Delta was the best of the airlines so you really don’t want to hear that kind of commentary from them. Now these guys cut their guidance ahead of an appearance at the JPMorgan Industrials conference on Tuesday.

But honestly, these names have already come down dramatically over the past few weeks. This makes them very interesting to me. After this week’s blood bath, you got a lot of them are down 35 to 40%. So given all the newfound negativity, why on earth would I stick my neck out and recommend some cheap travel plays? Look, as tough as these airlines, the updates were, the collective news, frankly, it wasn’t that horrible, at least not if you listen closely…

Let’s start with Delta, which kicked things off with this guidance cut. Monday night, Delta CEO Ed Bastian spoke with CNBC’s Phil LeBeau on Closing Bell that night and explained that the domestic, corporate, and consumer spending ‘started to stall’ in February, mostly due to lower consumer confidence. But he also said he believes this weakness is transitory… Bastian is pretty confident we’re not headed for a real recession.

Delta cut the revenue growth forecast from 8% to 4%… It is not great but in a recession, they, they’d be down double digits. Bastian also noted that some of the weakness came after a couple of high-profile air safety instances.”