While the state of U.S. manufacturing has been in the spotlight under the Trump administration, CNBC’s Jim Cramer thinks that this attention is misplaced.
“Two thirds of our economy is based on consumer spending,” the “Mad Money” host said. “In other words, we spend far too much time worrying about our trading partners and far too little time talking about what our economy is really about: shopping for goods and services.”
Cramer pointed to several retail names that have beat earnings expectations in recent weeks, including Target, Lowe’s and Kohl’s. He believes that Wall Street analysts have been “dead wrong” in their evaluation of the retail sector, which has led to such large discrepancies between earnings estimates and reality.
Read about Cramer’s three main areas where analysts have missed the mark on retail here.
The Trump administration was dealt two blows Monday evening. First, Michael Cohen, President Trump’s former lawyer, pleaded guilty to breaking campaign finance laws. Minutes later, former Trump campaign manager Paul Manafort was convicted in a financial fraud trial on eight counts that included tax and bank fraud.
What effect will these verdicts have on the markets? CNBC’s Jim Cramer thinks that this new set of political turmoil could affect the markets in either direction. He uses Johnson & Johnson as an example to demonstrate his idea.
“A weakened president means a weakened dollar, which is terrific” for Johnson & Johnson, the “Mad Money” host said.
On the other hand, Cramer said that “investors who believe Trump is great for the stock market might worry” about potential information sharing between Cohen and Special Counsel Robert Mueller, which could have far reaching consequences for the president and the markets. Cramer believes that the president could pardon Cohen in order to avoid this scenario.
Read Cramer’s full take on the latest political news here.
One of the biggest trends Cramer has followed on “Mad Money” is the humanization of pets – that is, the growing number of pet owners and growing amounts of money they’re spending on their furry companions. He decided to design his own Mad Money Humanization of Pets Index in order to gather all of his favorite pet stocks in one place.
Cramer first included Central Garden & Pet Company, which he described as “an amazing long-term performer,” and also Freshpet, the best performing pet stock of 2018. He also added IDEXX Laboratories and PetIQ, among other names.
To add some diversity into his ETF, Cramer added General Mills, which recently acquired Blue Buffalo Pet Products. Although J.M. Smucker reported dismal earnings numbers, Cramer thinks it’s worth including because the company’s pet food brands “may just be able to save the company.”
Cramer’s favorite pet industry stocks in his fantasy ETF are up 30 percent so far this year, giving a better return than the S&P 500.
For all of Cramer’s pet picks, watch here.
Exact Sciences has partnered with Pfizer to help the molecular diagnostics company reach its long-term goal of screening 10 million people, Exact Sciences CEO Kevin Conroy told CNBC’s Jim Cramer.
“We think that Pfizer could be a real game-changer over the duration of the agreement,” Conroy said.
Exact Sciences and Pfizer announced on Wednesday that the two companies have partnered to commercialize Cologuard, Exact Sciences’ only commercial product. Cologuard is a non-invasive stool DNA screening test colorectal cancer.
Under the terms of the agreement that runs through 2021, Exact Sciences will be responsible for manufacturing and the laboratory operations for Cologuard.
Exact Sciences currently has a 3 percent market share when it comes to colon cancer screenings, according to Conroy. Its goal for this year is to screen 900,000 to 920,000 people.
Watch the full interview with Conroy here.
To justify her bad actions along the way, former Theranos CEO Elizabeth Holmes really believed that she was doing something positive for the world, author John Carreyrou told CNBC’s Jim Cramer.
“She really did believe that creating this machine that would be able to run every test known to man off of just a pinprick of blood, that that would really be good for society and that it would do good,” Carreyrou told the Mad Money host. “So I think she has this condition called noble cause corruption, which is that she ultimately believed that what she was going to achieve once she got there was gonna be a good thing for humanity. Therefore, every lie and every corner she cut along the way was justified.”
Carreyrou’s book “Bad Blood” tackles the rise and fall of Theranos and Holmes, its founder. The Silicon Valley darling, at one time valued at $9 billion, claimed that it only needed a microscopic amount of blood for its automated blood tests. Through his reporting in the Wall Street Journal, Carreyrou found that the technology did not work as promised, and that the biotech company misled customers about the methodology and accuracy of its tests.
Read the full interview with Carreyrou here.
Acadia Pharmaceuticals: “No, no, I used to have tremendous hope for it, but I no longer feel that it’s the way to go. Which is the biotech that I’m recommending is Amgen, that’s the cheap one.
XPO Logistics: “Gotta tell you, the seminar that I did, this webinar with Mark Chaikin, he was so bullish on it. All I could saw was I wish the club had not sold it, but it had a big gain. Yes, this is Brad Jacobs, he’s doing fantastic. Chaikin’s right.”
Dropbox: “I like Dropbox, I think the sellers are all wrong. I like the business model. Throw in Spotify, that’s another one that I like, both of them.”
Read the full lightning round here.
Disclosure: Cramer’s charitable trust owns shares of Amgen.
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