Jim Cramer kicked off his latest episode of Mad Money by highlighting the wild swings in the market, the ongoing trade war with Canada, and the growing concerns about tariffs and inflation. Although tech stocks attempted a rally, it fizzled out by the close. Cramer described the volatile trading session by saying:
“We got a good sign. The beat-down tech stocks rallied and rallied hard at one point after a lot of time lost in the wilderness while the recession proof stocks, well, they finally got clubbed.”
Jim Cramer then explained that the reason behind this volatility is the escalating trade war with Canada. Here’s how he explained the situation:
“We got a trade war going with Canada. Here’s what happened, they announced a 25% tariff on electricity in our country earlier today. Immediately president Trump announced some hard retaliation doubling the tariffs on aluminum and steel. The steel side can be dealt with. Aluminum, I don’t know but it’s bad news. Canadians produce a huge percentage of that stuff for our airline makers, for trucks, for cars. A 50% tariff would be very inflationary and could destroy the profits of the automakers.”
Cramer then shifted his focus to the broader implications of the White House’s stance on the stock market. Here’s what he said:
“So, let’s talk about stock prices in the White House. Now this weekend, the President said he’s not focused on the stock market. Maybe if you’re in power and you’re not up for re-election, the stock market could be ignored. That’s just one problem. This is what the President’s forgetting: the stock market serves a dual role. Yes, it makes rich people richer, no doubt—at least when it’s going up. But when it goes down, it can also be a signal; a signal that things aren’t well in the economy, that business could be getting tougher, and that layoffs could be on the table.”
While Cramer agreed with the broader goal of addressing trade imbalances, he criticized the way the administration is handling it, which is causing widespread uncertainty. Here’s how he put it:
“Because of the President’s tumultuous approach to trade, these tariffs are beginning to scare people—regular people, you, me—and that’s what the stock market has been saying before the Canadians blinked and we momentarily avoid a real trade war. But we’re still seeing a pronounced decline in small business optimism. It’s a cliché. Small businesses are the backbone of the economy. Big businesses are always trying to trim costs, small businesses hire. We’re starting to see large shortfalls in many different industries.”
Finally, Cramer’s opinion is that the U.S. is no longer a manufacturing-driven economy, but a service-driven one, where businesses thrive on stability and consumer confidence. Here’s how he explained it:
“Now we’re not a manufacturing economy, we’re a service economy. That’s why it stings when you see these retailers, telecoms, and airlines linking the negativity of their customers to political actions. […] The issue is that, again, we’re service. Most of our business is service, and that economy is starting to roll over because consumer confidence is declining as people worry about the impact of these tariffs. They don’t understand them. Sure, we have plenty of room for layoffs, so to speak, because we have very low unemployment. But the stock market is saying the tariffs will be inflationary, and the White House hasn’t explained to the American people why it’s worth it.”
Our Methodology
For this article, we compiled a list of 19 stocks that were discussed by Jim Cramer during the episode of Mad Money aired on March 11th. We listed the stocks in the order that Cramer mentioned them. We also provided hedge fund sentiment for each stock as of the fourth quarter of 2024, which was taken from Insider Monkey’s database of over 1,000 hedge funds.
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).
Jim Cramer Discussed These 19 Stocks
19. Broadcom Inc. (NASDAQ:AVGO)
Number of Hedge Fund Holders: 161
Jim Cramer sounded a bit worried about Broadcom (NASDAQ:AVGO) in the most recent episode, reflecting on the price reaction of the stock following its most recent earnings, saying:
“This is almost a trillion-dollar company, Broadcom, the semiconductor company, it’s on the verge of being right there, like you know, Mag 8 or whatever you want to call it. It reported an amazing quarter just last Thursday. Yet its stock had barely gotten any credit, it came back hard today, rallied as much as ten points and then giving back five. But that’s still a very good sign.”
Aristotle Atlantic Core Equity Strategy stated the following regarding Broadcom Inc. (NASDAQ:AVGO) in its Q4 2024 investor letter:
Broadcom Inc. (NASDAQ:AVGO) contributed to performance in the fourth quarter as the company’s third quarter results demonstrated continuing strength for its AI networking and custom accelerator semiconductor business. The company also gave long-term guidance for the service addressable market (SAM) opportunity for its AI-related business, indicating a market opportunity of $60 billion to $90 billion, which only includes contributions from its current three customers. This long-term outlook for AI semiconductor content exceeded investor expectations. Broadcom’s quarterly results also showed the company is ahead on its VMware integration timeline to achieve $8.5 billion in EBITDA, which will support long-term gross and operating margin expansion for the company.