CNBC’s Jim Cramer said on Wednesday the stock market cares more about stronger economic growth than President Donald Trump‘s legal troubles.
The U.S. is seeing the “strongest consumer ever,” Cramer said, praising Target CEO Brian Cornell for pointing that out.
In a CNBC interview Wednesday after Target reported earnings, Cornell credited the strongest consumer environment he’s “ever seen” in his career for strong quarterly results at the retailer. Consumer spending accounts for two-thirds of U.S. economic activity.
That type of pronouncement from a CEO who gets a window into the economy through the diverse offerings at Target seems to be outweighing the risk to Trump from Tuesday’s Michael Cohen and Paul Manafort bombshells, Cramer said on “Squawk on the Street.”
“The president, what does he have to do with the price to earnings ratio of Johnson and Johnson” or any other company? Cramer said as a way to highlight that politics was taking a backseat to stock-picking metrics.
“The market likes profits,” he said, citing robust fundamentals as a reason Wall Street on Wednesday has been able to largely shrug off former Trump lawyer Cohen’s guilty plea and former Trump campaign chairman Manafort’s conviction.
Before the plea and jury verdict were announced on Tuesday, the S&P 500 hit an all-time high for the first time in seven months but failed to close at a record. The bull market could become the longest ever on Wednesday, at 3,453 days old.
Cramer, the host of “Mad Money,” said there will be people “selling until they see the midterms” no matter what.
The November midterm elections will decide whether Republicans can hold on their majorities in the House and even the Senate. “This is about impeachment versus non-impeachment,” Cramer said.
If the House were to flip Democrat, the chances that Trump might face impeachment proceedings could increase, he said.
However, he added he could see Democrats deciding to forego impeachment on concerns that it could “hurt their bigger agenda” of trying to take back the White House in 2020.
Cramer did say he is concerned about whether Chinese President Xi Jinping may try to press any perceived Trump weakness in the U.S.-China trade dispute.
“I most fear President Xi saying, ‘You know what, I am president for life and this guy [Trump] may not even by president’ for much longer,” Cramer said.
Chinese officials are in Washington Wednesday to resume negotiations with their U.S. counterparts aimed at resolving the trade differences between the world’s two largest economies.
