We recently published a list of Jim Cramer’s Complete Black Monday Warning Plus 10 Stocks. In this article, we are going to take a look at where Nucor Corporation (NYSE:NUE) stands against other stocks that Jim Cramer discusses.
In his appearance on CNBC’s Squawk on the Street on Friday as markets were crashing for the second consecutive day, Cramer commented that China’s decision to announce reciprocal tariffs meant that the world was in a tit-for-tat environment. He outlined:
“Well, I think we are in a tit for tat environment. I think that when you look at what they are gonna bang us first, it’s gonna be ag. It won’t feel that much and the President and Congress will give them checks cause that’s what we do as a country and we’ve done since 1933. I do think away from that it’ll be technology. Or either starting some investigations that are bad.”
Cramer also believes that the situation was poorly handled. He has long supported tariffs against America’s trading partners as he believes that American companies are unfairly restricted from selling their goods worldwide. However, he commented that “we can go further deep into how poorly we’ve handled this situation. And I’m happy to do that. I think that it’s very disappointing, for us who would favor fair trade and tariffs. We’re still struggling with what exactly they were doing. Uh, for a position that I’ve long since held that could have been great. The botching of it is quite extraordinary.”
One of Cramer’s most stunning remarks during the show came when he wondered whether the selloffs on Thursday and Friday were leading to something more diabolical. The full remarks deserve to be quoted:
“Okay so on Wednesday, October 14th, I don’t know if I have to mention the year, Dow was down 3.8%. On Thursday, October 15th, the Dow was 2.4%. On Friday, October 16th, the Dow fell 4.6%. On Monday, the Dow fell 22.6%. That’s where were are unless the President changes course. That’s called a Black Monday, that’s called a 1987. I think that’s a very good analogy. The other one’s with the April 2000, and then maybe March of 2020. Those are the good ones. The good ones are, I was hoping for a good one. But the best I can come up with is April 2020 when there was, March 2020 when we, that was of course one of the worst declines. But then, the April 2000 and the big switch out of tech and into Bristol Myers and Coca-Cola, that works too. Not initially, but that one works.”
Like all of us, Cramer’s co-host Carl Quintanilla was also stunned. He asked Cramer if he was warning about a true market crash. In response, Cramer added that if “you bottom fish Thursday and if you bottom fish Friday in 1987, you slept with the fishes on Monday.”
Reiterating the familiarity of the current situation with the Black Monday crash, Cramer also shared some positives and potential actions by the government to avoid a similar situation. He outlined:
“Well I mean look, a lot of people are in disbelief and don’t think that Peter Navarro, who for instance is a very fine man or Bessent wouldn’t go in, maybe Lutnick, wouldn’t go to the President and say look, we don’t really want a crash. You don’t wanna be as hard line. Maybe you do a TikTok deal, maybe you say look, but here’s a way to cure things. Which was the way that [Jensen Huang’s GPU company] did with Taiwan, but they could have a crash, I don’t see why not. Why would you buy stocks? What is the. . .I mean look, and truly, if you waited one year, if you waited till October of 1988, almost every stock that you sold at 87, you were up one if you held it. But now, in 2007, it took you five years. So it’s a longer case. Now, against that, I mean there’s some good things. The ten year’s at 3.9, oil’s at 60, uh, you have a chance to, we have good employment. So those are what makes it feel like it could be just 2020 or could be just 2000. And 2000 was a tech bubble. Now we do have real tech. AI’s real. Uh, and, that could be delayed by this. But I think that they have to be a little more thoughtful about what’s going on.”
Our Methodology
To make our list of the stocks that Jim Cramer talked about, we listed down the stocks he mentioned during CNBC’s Squawk on the Street aired on April 4th.
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).
Jim Cramer on Nucor Corporation (NUE): “Great Company” — But Buybacks Can “Kill Cash”
Nucor Corporation (NYSE:NUE) is the largest steel manufacturer in America. Cramer has discussed the stock several times this year and has remained bullish about the firm. He believes that Nucor Corporation (NYSE:NUE) has suffered due to cheap Chinese steel flooding the American markets. More recently, he advised viewers to sell the shares if Nippon Steel succeeds in buying US Steel. Here are his comments during Friday’s tariff selloff:
“I got concerned about Nucor bought back a lot of stock high. I mean buybacks, if not done with precision can really make it so that you don’t have enough cash. But Nucor’s a great company.”
Overall, NUE ranks 1st on our list of stocks that Jim Cramer discusses. While we acknowledge the potential of NUE 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. 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 NUE but that trades at less than 5 times its earnings, check out our report about this cheapest AI stock.
