We recently published a list of the Jim Cramer Just Discussed These 13 Stocks. In this article, we are going to take a look at where Pfizer Inc. (NYSE:PFE) stands against other stocks that Jim Cramer discussed recently.
As the Federal Reserve exits the year by having continued its interest rate cuts, Wall Street is wondering what 2025 will hold for markets. Inflation is a key concern among investors, and many believe that the Fed might have to update its models that determine the rate cuts. This update will account for any potential uptick in inflation and one which might be spurred by tariffs imposed by the incoming Trump Administration.
In a fresh episode of Squawk on the Street, Cramer commented on what might happen once the interest rate cuts intensify and how these effects might tie in with Trump’s strategies. Cramer doesn’t “understand that people want to be very concerned about the future after the cut, I really am not buying any of this.” According to him if the tariffs go through then the CPI can rise which will lead the Fed to not cut interest rates. But, if the tariffs don’t materialize or if “they’re targetted tariffs, and we get break in housing, I mean we just saw Tol Brothers, I know it’s only one million dollar house and not a hundred and fifty, but it starts somewhere. And we get some more apartments come in and we have big inventories from more than Ford.”
In the event the CPI rises, Cramer believes that “A year we’ll be sitting here and saying well, okay we had this blip up inflation but that’s over.” As a result, he believes that it is important to focus on “what the President-elect is gonna do. Why do we have to focus so much on what’s going to happen next year for the Fed when they actually have to react to what the President does?”
Cramer also believes that the US needs more workers. Commenting on Japanese billionaire Masayoshi Son announcing $100 billion in investments at Trump’s Mar-e-Lago resort, Cramer stated “I think the most important thing is we don’t have the workers for this stuff.” He added “The idea that we get the workers, and we do not have a good birth rate, robust birth rate, we do not have enough workers, we’re gonna have immigration reform. You know you wanna create jobs, what you need are people to fill them and we don’t have it.”
Another matter that’s caught Cramer’s attention when it comes to the President-elect is Trump’s remarks about taking on healthcare benefit managers once he assumes power. During a press conference at Mar-e-Lago, the President-elect shared that Americans were “paying far too much,. . . .much more than other countries” for healthcare. He added “We have a thing called the middle man, you know, the middle man right? The horrible middleman that makes more money frankly than the drug companies. And they don’t do anything except they’re a middleman.”
Trump says that his team will “knock out the middle man [AND HE’S] going to be very unpopular after that.” According to Cramer, “I think that what, if President-elect Trump follows up about knocking out the middleman, he will. He will because these companies will eventually lose their support in Congress,” as “when you have that kind of come together over them, you don’t wanna be in that business.”
Cramer commented on the impact the President-elect’s comments had and can have on the pharma benefits management industry. According to him “these companies are not, uh, without their friends. And by the way, they all resent the middlemen. Cardinal’s had a lot to be able to be a little bit more forward about what can be done. McKesson is considered to be a company that has done a lot to be able to make it so smaller drug stores get product.” Craner added that “the drug will all give you some great data which shows you that they are not the cause of the inflation. But they always are willing to finger, uh, United Health,” and as for the environment surrounding healthcare benefit managers, “right now, I’ve never seen it this bad for them.”
A medical technician wearing protective gloves and a mask mixing a biopharmaceutical solution.
Our Methodology
To make our list of stocks that Jim Cramer is talking about, we listed down stocks he commented on during a fresh episode of CNBC’s Squawk on the Street.
For these stocks, we also mentioned the number of hedge fund investors. Why are we interested in the stocks that hedge funds invest in? 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).
Pfizer Inc. (NYSE:PFE)
Number of Hedge Fund Holders In Q3 2024: 80
Pfizer Inc. (NYSE:PFE) is one of the most well-known drug companies in the world. Its shares haven’t performed well at all in 2024 and are down 8% year-to-date. Pfizer Inc. (NYSE:PFE)’s heft has also led to it accumulating significant debt. As of 2023 end, the firm’s long-term debt was $61.5 billion. Debt impacts the bottom line, and for firms like Pfizer Inc. (NYSE:PFE) this means that dividends suffer. As a result, the firm has spent 2024 spinning off its business to raise cash and retire its debt. It has also faced pressure from activist investor Starboard over costly acquisitions that haven’t yielded profitable drugs. Cramer’s comments surrounded Pfizer Inc. (NYSE:PFE) CEO’s strategy for a turnaround and its 2025 earnings projection as he outlined:
“That’s very impressive.
“And I, you know what I think that Dr. Bourla, he’s done a lot of good worldwide. He’s done many things that I think are very positive for healthcare. I think that the issue has been, what about the numbers? Can he make the numbers?
“You hope that Seagen pays off. They bought Seagen off, the old Seattle Genetics, a lot of people felt they paid way too much. I have felt that if Dr. Bourla is correct about his roadmap of what’s going to come out of Seagen, we will all say that you know what, he got the last
Overall, PFE ranks 6th on our list of stocks that Jim Cramer just discussed. While we acknowledge the potential of PFE 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 PFE 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.