As swaths of the technology sector wither in response to Facebook’s stock weakness, CNBC’s Jim Cramer applauded one member of FANG, his acronym for Facebook, Amazon, Netflix and Google, now Alphabet, for holding up.
“Amazon is a juggernaut,” the “Mad Money” host said on Wednesday. “This company is the ultimate disruptor in retail, Prime is one of the greatest bargains in history and it gives them a nice recurring revenue stream. And, of course, Amazon Web Services, the biggest player in the cloud, [is] red hot.
“The latest quarter here was a thing of beauty,” he added.
While Amazon’s second-quarter earnings report missed analysts’ revenue expectations, the e-commerce giant more than doubled Wall Street’s earnings per share estimates.
“I’ve long told you that Amazon could turn on the spigot and make itself much more profitable whenever it wants; that gigantic earnings beat? … Well, that proves it,” Cramer said. “I think any pullback – buy it.”
As refreshed trade-related concerns drove stocks lower on Wednesday, all Cramer could see were “endless buying opportunities.”
“We saw the banks get slaughtered when rates were going lower,” he said. “Now rates are going higher again — and the Fed signaled today that they’re going to keep rising — the banks are superb investments.”
The retail stocks also became somewhat “hated” on Wednesday as sellers took to the sector on worries that business isn’t as strong as it seems.
But, as illustrated by his comments on Tuesday, Cramer wasn’t buying it.
Click here for the other sectors in which Cramer spotted chances to buy.
Cramer has always valued product loyalty. He smiles every time he sees the inscription on the back of his Procter & Gamble Old Spice deodorant bottles: “If your grandfather hadn’t worn it, you wouldn’t exist.”
“I smile because, indeed, my grandfather used Old Spice and, truly in the mindset of my era, that’s exactly why I buy it,” the “Mad Money” host said on Wednesday. “Will I ever switch? No, no more than I would ever switch from the Apple ecosystem to some ‘who cares’ handset company.”
That Apple loyalty speaks volumes to Cramer, who on Tuesday argued that the iPhone maker should definitively be valued like a consumer products company rather than a technology play.
And after he examined Procter & Gamble’s fourth-quarter earnings report, Cramer’s theory started to come into focus.
For more, click here.
For the last few years, Cramer has given investors many ways to play the “stay-at-home” economy — the increasing number of products and services that make it easy to eat, live and be entertained from the comfort of your couch.
And while his past recommendations like GrubHub, Take-Two Interactive Software and Logitech still hold up, Cramer wanted to flag some new spins on the stay-at-home space.
First, he turned to the food space, where he highlighted Conagra Brands, a packaged foods giant with a strong frozen foods segment.
“Conagra’s a classic stay-at-home play,” Cramer said. “You stockpile their food so that you can heat it up and make it for yourself in front of the TV or the computer rather than going to a restaurant.”
For Cramer’s other picks, which include the high-profile Walt Disney Company, click here.
After Agco Chairman and CEO Martin Richenhagen slammed what he called the Trump administration’s “protectionism” on “Mad Money” in May, Cramer had to revisit the issue in his Wednesday interview with Richenhagen.
But this time, the CEO of the agriculture equipment manufacturer was less combative. He told Cramer that he was in touch with U.S. Secretary of Agriculture Sonny Perdue — also the former governor of Georgia, where Agco is headquartered — about the president’s latest move: potential subsidies for farmers.
“We have a very good relationship,” Richenhagen said of Perdue. “What I, of course, would like to see is something they did in other countries in the world like in Italy, Spain and France.”
There, the governments implemented subsidies for equipment like Agco’s, calculating that farmers would eventually need to phase out their old equipment and ship it overseas.
“Basically they subsidized investments of farmers under the assumption that the old equipment would go out of the country, which would be great for the environment: less emission, less fuel consumption and more modern technologies,” Richenhagen explained.
To watch his full interview, click here.
In Cramer’s lightning round, he zoomed through his take on callers’ favorite stocks:
AGNC Investment Corp.: “You’re going to get an 11 percent yield, but the stock is going to do absolutely nothing, so you’re sitting there taking that yield in, but you might be losing on your principal. That is not what I want. I want to get capital gains and I want an increase in distribution, not just that distribution. I’ve been railing against [this stock] and I continue to do so. I’m going to throw in Annaly as another one I don’t like.”
Applied Optoelectronics, Inc.: “Fiber-optic networks are so hard. I mean, these are you’re-taking-your-life-in-your-hands stocks. I don’t want to do this. There are so many high-quality companies that I don’t need to do that for. I’m going to say please stay away from Applied. It really is just very hard. And look, I don’t even feel good about Juniper, Finisar, none of these. I’d throw in the whole shooting match.”
Disclosure: Cramer’s charitable trust owns shares of Facebook, Amazon, Alphabet and Apple.
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