In a recent appearance on CNBC’s Squawk on the Street, Jim Cramer commented on the devastation ushered in by the California wildfire calamity, social media CEO Mark Zuckerberg’s appearance on the Joe Rogan Experience podcast, and interest rates. Cramer started the show by talking about healthcare stocks and said “Healthcare really hasn’t had much of a move so I think those stocks, honestly a safe haven with interest rates going higher.”
He added that the US government’s export control rules to protect American national security interests were hitting markets hard. According to Cramer “I still expect 5% to hit on the ten-year [bond] but I’ve got to tell you the tone is hideous, I think the tone is being set by the Biden administration, doing a last minute 200-page ruling about who can get AI and who can’t.” He added “And then David, I’ve got to tell you, I think the Zuckerberg interview on Joe Rogan was seminal.” The reason behind it was that Zuckerberg’s thoughts about the firm behind the iPhone indicated “you’re done, nothing since Steve Jobs, one one of the most offensive interviews I’ve heard in a very long time.
Returning to the rate cuts, Cramer asserted again that the Fed had misjudged the economy by lower rates in December. According to him “The whole concept of the rate cuts, as opposed to one or two rate cuts, gotta be off the table because it looks like we’ve had some very serious misjudgment by the Fed.”
As for the fires, Cramer started by stating that there’s “Not enough talk about the fires.” The day this show was aired, he was covering the JPMorgan Healthcare Conference. Cramer outlined “I certainly wanna ask everyone at the healthcare conference, what can happen, in terms of public health, what can happen in terms of asthma.” Along with healthcare problems arising from the disaster, he added “But more important as you know, Carl, the loss of life, the destruction, so immense, it’s going to impact the economy. We don’t even know yet, what could be the results.”
One industry that’s been at the center of media coverage whether it’s for disasters or healthcare is the insurance industry. Talking about insurance, Cramer revealed, “Well I have to tell you, the insurance regime out here in California is so strict that you have to wonder why bother to write anything. There’s a loss-sharing agreement that’s terrible, there is a sense to me that it’s going to take longer to come back than people realize. David, the rebuild will be immense, it’s obviously not done.”
He added “And I think that if we’re going to talk about what the economy, what’s going to happen, one-fifth of the country is California. Obviously, this is just the South end, could be contained to Los Angeles. But you know David this is one of those things we can’t really factor in but we must factor in, in terms of trying to figure out what it’s gonna mean for the whole US economy.”
The CNBC host also shared his thoughts on some of the reasons behind the wildfires. “Yeah look I think that we’re gonna look at this, we’re gonna say, there are reasons why this happened. Reservoirs not working. Some issues, whether the firefighters were ready.” Linking the calamity with interest rates, he commented, “But you know Carl the most important this is at least, if we’re going to talk about the economy, if we’re going to talk about the rate cuts versus rate increases, it may be a reason that we have to put things on a pause. Maybe when the smoke clears. Proverbial smoke and literal. It may mean that things are going to be slower.”
Cramer then returned to Zuckerberg’s podcast appearance. According to him “Zuckerberg. I mean I gotta hand it to him, I mean he basically made the Justice Department’s case against” the iPhone designer. He added “It’s almost as if he sat down with, with the outgoing administration, Jonathan Kanter, and said, look let me tell you what I think” the firm is doing. Cramer concluded “Because everything that he’s complaining about, the Justice Department is complaining about. Carl, it was one of the most damming interviews. I couldn’t tell whether Mark was having fun, or whether he was just basically saying Apple is the axis of evil and others that play along because they all are scared. . . And he’s not scared. He’s tough. Taekwondo. . .it’s a libertarian love fest.”
As for whether Zuckerberg’s remarks were made to buttress his relationship with the incoming Trump administration, Cramer commented “Well he’s, let’s call him savvy. He talked about libertarian, but there were these moments, you know he lives on a ranch, and he has to shoot pigs. Okay, so he’s pro-gun.” However, Cramer added, “At one point, . . .it did have a kind of element of extremism that I’m not used to anyone having.” He also speculated whether Zuckerberg was aware of how he sounded during the interview. According to Cramer:
“And I think that Joe Rogan is sophisticated enough to be able to put a line out for Mark to really go for it. I don’t know whether Mark realizes exactly how damming it sounds, and I think that it’s a little of a shame if only just because he made me feel like that he himself really despises a company that we all love. I wish that there’d been some push back.”
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 recently
For these stocks, we also mentioned the number of hedge fund investors. Why are we interested in the stocks that hedge funds invest in? 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 275% since May 2014, beating its benchmark by 150 percentage points. (see more details here).
A closeup of an elderly patient happily receiving a specialty healthcare product.
Number of Hedge Fund Holders In Q3 2024: 60
Humana Inc. (NYSE:HUM) is one of the biggest healthcare insurance companies in America. Given the negative attention that its industry has faced after recent events and President-elect Trump’s vow to tackle the healthcare middleman, Humana Inc. (NYSE:HUM)’s shares have lost 30% over the past six months. The drop is also due to a plan rating downgrade which the firm revealed affected a sizable portion of its customers. However, Humana Inc. (NYSE:HUM)’s shares have gained 11% year-to-date. Cramer shared the reason behind the jump:
“And then the other stocks David that are up, shockingly, are the managed care stocks. Because the Medicare provisions were much better than expected on Friday. Should really help Humana all day.”
Overall HUM ranks 8th on our list of the stocks Jim Cramer recently discussed. While we acknowledge the potential of HUM 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. If you are looking for an AI stock that is more promising than HUM but that trades at less than 5 times its earnings, check out our report about the cheapest AI stock.
