We recently published a list of Was Jim Cramer Right About These 13 Stocks? In this article, we are going to take a look at where Paychex, Inc. (NASDAQ:PAYX) stands against other stocks that Jim Cramer discussed.
In the most recent episode of Mad Money, Jim Cramer shared his thoughts on how the government’s approach to tariffs could play a crucial role in sustaining the stock market rally. Cramer expressed satisfaction with the current direction of policy.
“There’s what happened two weeks ago, two Thursdays ago, more accurately when the stock market official went into correction mode. Until the market broke down like that, I think the president was perfectly willing to hammer anybody just to get his way.”
“I don’t think he (President Donald Trump) wants to punish good American companies that make things here.”
READ ALSO: Did Jim Cramer Nail or Miss These 14 Stocks?
Cramer explained that he no longer thinks the president wants to harm American companies that manufacture goods domestically. He suggested that the shift in attitude is a relatively new development, and it may signal a more nuanced approach going forward. He noted that with the market’s recovery, it is possible that the conversation around protectionist tariffs will surface once again, but the context might have changed.
Cramer speculated that when the market entered correction mode, President Trump may have been influenced by the pleas from various observers about the damaging effects on stocks of good American companies.
“Here’s the bottom line: At the end of the day, America’s the only country on earth that’s played fair on trade. Everybody else breaks the rules to protect their domestic businesses. That’s hollowed out our industrial heartland. And that dynamic can only change if our government takes a more carrot-and-stick approach. Assuming Trump doesn’t go overboard, that might just be what we’ve got and it means stocks can finally stage a real rally again.”
Methodology
For this article, we compiled a list of 13 stocks that were discussed by Jim Cramer during the episode of Mad Money on April 2, 2024. We then calculated their performance from April 2nd, 2024, market close to March 24th, 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).
Paychex Inc. (NASDAQ:PAYX)
Number of Hedge Fund Holders: 36
Paychex, Inc. (NASDAQ:PAYX) is a payroll and HR solutions provider for small and medium-sized businesses. Despite initial concerns about revenue, Cramer defended the quarter following the earnings call at the time:
“This was actually a very fine quarter and the only hair I saw on it was the difficulty of companies to get the right people […] At the end of the day, the stock was up nicely, which is pretty good for Paychex.”
Paychex Inc. (NASDAQ:PAYX) has risen 18.06% since that episode, validating Cramer’s defense of the quarterly numbers.
Jim Cramer has not changed his stance on the stock over the past year. Here’s what he said on the 21st of March:
“We got a pair of small business-oriented companies that will report Wednesday, Cintas and Paychex… As for Paychex, this payroll processor has a lot of bearish analysts covering it and I gotta tell you something, they got smoked in that last quarter, just smoked by the great numbers. Paychex, I think it’s going to continue to do well.”
Overall, PAYX ranks 13th on our list of stocks that Jim Cramer discussed. While we acknowledge the potential of PAYX 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 PAYX 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.
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