On Friday, the host of Mad Money opened the show highlighting a new AI company’s IPO. During the discussion, Cramer shared his thoughts on what seemed like an underwhelming IPO and what this indicates about data center demand, as well as additional macro factors that are pushing the stock market lower in recent weeks:
“[Talking about decreased data center demand] When you couple that with the tariffs orchestrated by the president of the United States, you got a stock market that feels like a nuclear winter. In this kind of environment, you don’t need a weatherman to know which way the wind blows. Today the wind blew the radio activity from the Coreweave deal and the auto tariffs and sent it right in your face. Can the fall be wiped off before your portfolio is totally irradiated? You know what? I think we’ll find out next week once the radiation clears. But don’t get too excited. I’m not going to give you a real upbeat thing going here even though it’s supposed to be a nice day tomorrow in the east. You’re not going to feel pretty good after I read this, I’m just trying to tell you straight stuff.”
Cramer then pointed to the sudden turn in sentiment against AI and tech, the once market darlings, as another troubling sign:
“For weeks I’ve been telling members of the CNBC investing club that tech’s suspect. We haven’t bought anything until today and nothing at all in tech because we see that the market’s turned against artificial intelligence, robots, autonomous driving, we have eyes. It’s even turned against the chat bots and it’s like nothing’s going to come back.”
The host of Mad Money did not sugarcoat the current environment, and he believes that investors should brace for more pain ahead. Here’s his analysis:
“If you’re a bull you want people to be prepared for everything the president can throw at the worldwide system of free trade, you have to believe that there will be no one left who thinks the tariffs won’t be worse than smooth hauling. That was a horrendous set of tariffs that helped usher in the Great Depression. […] The market’s beginning to believe that the president will stop at nothing to make his points on trade, and he won’t change his mind until all our trading partners are brought to heel. I believe that. And then maybe we bounce. I think some people might say that’s too dire though. As I see it we’re getting closer to the moment where President Trump recognizes the beating that people are actually taking in the stock market, but it’ll take time to get there because stocks have run so much in the last decade. If the decline gets bad enough, he’ll do something. I bet he’ll ease up on the tariff rhetoric. We aren’t there yet though. This is a bad place to be but it is not horrendous that’s the best I can say about it.”
Looking ahead, Cramer highlighted two major catalysts that could shake-up the market. Those are President Trump’s expected announcement of a new tariff regime on Wednesday (what he self-proclaimed as “Liberation Day”) and next Friday’s important March jobs report:
“Now we don’t have a lot of earnings next week, but we do have some two gigantic events and first Wednesday. That’s what the president’s calling ‘Liberation Day’, the day when he tells us that what the new tariff regime will look like to liberate ourselves from our trading enemies or whatever, and then second Friday labor department’s non-farm payroll figures for March. These are both really, really big days. Everything else is a little tiny but we’re going to deal with it anyway. Both of those have the potential to turn this market around. One because it will be great when we are past it, and the other because people think that inflation is about to rage. Finally on Friday we get the labor department non-farm payroll. Let’s speak about this now in light of the very inflationary tariffs and tariffs are immediately inflationary. The bulls have to hope this number shows slow job growth and no wage growth.”
Lastly, Jim Cramer closed off the opening segment of the show by calling the current market a bear market and answered the burning question whether investors should get out now:
“Given this market’s mood I think that anything that deviates from that panglossian scenario will trigger not just talks of stagflation but definitive chatter about a bear market. That’s where we are, okay? People are going to start talking next week that we are in a bear market, and it’s not going to be anymore about a correction; it’s going to be the absolute bear. Which brings me to the fatal question: is it too late to get out, or should we start thinking buying amid weakness? Now I can tell you that a couple real bad days does not make a bear market. It’s a nasty run. Doesn’t seem like it’s over. So why not do this: take the other side of the trade if you have some cash on the sidelines – I’d actually put a small amount of money to work – into the abyss of Tuesday, betting that things are going to be too negative for what we see on Wednesday. Then you can put more money to work on Friday if we get knocked down by an overheated labor report. The bottom line it’s not the end of the world; it just feels that way.”
Our Methodology
For this article, we compiled a list of 10 stocks that were discussed by Jim Cramer during the episode of Mad Money aired on March 28. 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 on Nike (NKE): "They’ve Lost Their Edge" to On Running
A team of trainers and athletes displaying a wide range of athletic and casual footwear.
A caller asked Jim Cramer about NIKE, Inc. (NYSE:NKE), and Cramer shared a candid view on the brand’s recent performance, pointing to emerging competition, and how he actually prefers one of the brand’s competitors:
“You know it’s funny, I was talking to my trainer today, Jim, and we were both saying that Nike really has lost its edge, and that ON is the way to go, ONON. And I think the stocks correctly reflecting that analysis. I know they’re trying to turn in that striking but you know the other companies aren’t standing still while they try to turn, and that’s the big difference from all the other times I’ve seen Nike stumble.”
NIKE is one of the world’s leading athletic apparel and footwear brands, known for its iconic swoosh logo and deep sports marketing footprint. While historically dominant, the company is now facing increased competition from brands like On and Hoka in the performance segment, as well as macroeconomic headwinds.
RiverPark Large Growth Fund shared the following commentary on NIKE, Inc. (NYSE:NKE) in its Q4 2024 investor letter:
“NKE shares were a top detractor in the quarter following better than expected fiscal second quarter results reported in December but worse than feared third quarter guidance. The company delivered $13.4 billion of revenue (roughly $1 billion better than expectations) and $1.9 billion of EBIT (roughly $500 million ahead of street consensus) and generated better than expected earnings of $1.03 (investors were looking for $0.78). Despite better operating metrics last quarter, the company dramatically lowered expectations for the fiscal third quarter including expectations for double-digit percentage declines in revenue. NKE’s new CEO, Elliot Hill, described several key issues negatively impacting the company’s growth trajectory including 1) a multi-year move away from a focus on sports, 2) a shift away from innovative demand creating marketing, 3) too much centralization, which has led to lack of execution capabilities in local markets, and 4) too much focus on Nike Digital, which negatively impacted the brands standing in the marketplace. Nike is, by far, the leading athletic footwear, apparel, and equipment company in the world with over $50 billion in revenue, $6.7 billion in FY2024 annual free cash flow, and $10 billion of 7 excess cash. We believe that over the long term, the global secular growth trend towards active wear will continue to aid Nike’s top-line growth driving gross and operating margin improvements and long-term mid-teens or higher annual EPS growth. In the short term, we believe that the company will work through the above headwinds and that revenue and earnings growth will reaccelerate in the next 12 months.”
Overall, NKE ranks 7th on our list of stocks that Jim Cramer discusses. While we acknowledge the potential of NKE 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 timeframe. There is an AI stock that went up since the beginning of 2025, while popular AI stocks lost around 25%. If you are looking for an AI stock that is more promising than NKE but that trades at less than 5 times its earnings, check out our report about this cheapest AI stock.
