In a recent appearance on CNBC’s Squawk on the Street, Jim Cramer continued to share his thoughts about the massive stock market crash on Monday. The tumble saw the flagship S&P index lose $4 trillion from its February peak to end up lower since President Trump’s election win. Naturally, Cramer was full of thoughts about the President and how he might help markets. He started by outlining that the narrative surrounding tariffs could hurt President Trump, despite the fact that the US might very well need tariffs to balance the scales of global trade in its favor.
Cramer started out by sharing:
“But, look let’s just, we gotta come back to the President. You can’t really watch the stock market when he said that tariffs are going to be the greatest thing we have ever done as a country. I call everyone’s attention to the Washington Post piece this morning. Which says the base doesn’t like tariffs. They’re giving it thirty to thirty five percent people of the base who like tariffs. They have not been explained well.”
In fact, despite the fact that the narrative surrounding tariffs has generated concerns about a recession, Cramer believes that the President is actually being too soft.
“So I’m looking at this and I’m saying, and you know I support these tariffs, I’m much harder on tariffs than he is,” he remarked. “I think he [Trump] is being soft on tariffs. Because these, our partners, so-called partners have been ripping us up for ages. He’s right about that,” Cramer added.
However, while the President might be right about tariffs, Cramer disagrees with him on the messaging. He believes that Trump’s “gotta be a little more like TR [Theodore Roosevelt]. You gotta speak softly and carry a big stick.” On the flip side, the President’s approach, which according to Cramer resembles “speak loud with no stick” is “what the bullies do.”
The CNBC TV host also criticized Canada’s approach in taking on Trump when it came to tariffs. “[Y]ou don’t want to do that. Now I wouldn’t have done what Canada did, which is you know, fight back. You have to do it like Scheinbaum. But I just think that we’re courting with a manufactured recession,” he outlined.
Cramer cited former US Presidents and their approach to tariffs in his comments. President Trump repeatedly stated that he was a fan of President William McKinley, who held office from 1897 to 1901. However, Cramer believes that Trump should also consider Theodore Roosevelt’s approach:
“If the President were to be a little more like Theodore Roosevelt, little less like McKinley, by the way, who was really anti-working man, praising McKinley. . . I like these . But the President has to recognize that, maybe he should read the Washington Post, he probably doesn’t like it. Or Citi [on] the pause in US exceptionalism today which thank you for doing nothing. But [inaudible] manufacturing recession, I guess it’s the right time to do it. I think it’s wrong. And when you come out and say there will be no recession, that’s like 29, 30, when they were talking about don’t worry about the. . .no, get away from that.”
As to why Cramer wants President Trump to amplify his tariff strategy, here are the reasons:
“Beat these so called partners, by talking quietly and saying look, here’s what awaits you if you don’t lower. And then tell us. Like he doesn’t explain why we’re doing this. These countries have horrendous, I tried to buy a Deere tractor in Italy, like the tariff was like 50% on the. . .thing. There are thousands of tariffs against us. Have Peter Navarro, unemotionally, like he was when I was at Harvard, unemotionally, just explain what’s really going on. There’s nothing wrong with that. He wrote Trump Time, that’s a very good book. And it’s very unemotional. I liked it a lot. But it’s time for the President to be TR. A great president. Forget McKinley. Forget McKinley. That was like against William Jennings Brian, and he was like the cross of gold versus silver.”
Our Methodology
To make our list of the stocks that Jim Cramer talked about, we listed down all the stocks he mentioned during CNBC’s Squawk on the Street aired on March 11th.
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).
Costco Wholesale Corporation (COST): “This Is the Age of Costco!” – Jim Cramer Declares COST a Must-Buy
A customer in a warehouse aisles, browsing the wide range of branded and private-label products.
Costco Wholesale Corporation (NASDAQ:COST) is a discount retailer that is a frequent part of Cramer’s morning show. The CNBC host has been nothing but full of praise for the firm. Cramer often laments high prices in America and believes that firms got too greedy to raise them. As a result, as Costco Wholesale Corporation (NASDAQ:COST) has actively provided consumers with lower prices, Cramer believes that the firm is a winner. His latest remarks are also reflective of his optimism in Costco Wholesale Corporation (NASDAQ:COST)’s business and shares:
“I would rather be in tech than I would say, you know except for Walmart and Costco, those are the ones that you buy at this moment.”
Overall, COST ranks 6th on our list of stocks that Jim Cramer discusses. While we acknowledge the potential of COST as an investment, our conviction lies in the belief that some 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 COST but that trades at less than 5 times its earnings, check out our report about the cheapest AI stock.
