>> strong quarter in what i perceive to be a more conservative outlook rather than a bad outlook. tjx on weakness. >> thank you for watching "fast money. mea do not go anywhere "mad money" th j cmewiimrar starts right now my mission is simple, to make you money i'm here to level the playing field for all investors. there's always a bull market somewhere, and i promise to help you find it. "mad money" starts now >> hey, i'm cramer welcome to "mad money. welcome to cramerica other people make friends. i'm just trying to make you a little money my job not just to entertain, but to educate and teach you so call me at 1-800-743-cnbc newsom or tweet me @jimcramer. after a giant rally, they're always predictable and yes, a little ridiculous. they're about buying stocks that were missed on day one or stocks of companies that just gave you

a new reason to value them higher, and stocks upon further review, just like in a football game, can now be justified as worth owning that's what led hard today as dow jumped 164 points. s&p gained 1.6%. but the nasdaq yesterday advanced by just 0.7%. i think it's worth breaking down today's move because it shows how much people want to own stocks here, buy stocks. they just had trouble finding new ideas. inflation is rapidly cooling and we're coming to the end of the fed's rate hike cycle. let's start with target. you'll hear from brian cornell later in the show it's today's biggest winner. >> hallelujah! >> up magnificent 18%. we know there has been relentless levitation to costco, walmart and along with amazon for digital. but money managers don't trust anything else in that industry and target has specifically lagged behind because it hasn't produced positive same-store sales. that's the key metric that

defines real growth. in ages, target is seen less of a bargain than the four bigs ones with higher costs and less differentiation, or at least that was the story today this morning target reported a quarter that showed bountiful profits, much better than expected even as the same-store sales were still nothing to write home about and the total revenue was only in line with expectations none of those matter because the company had extreme inventories, down 14% year-over-year, meaning they weren't forced to discount lots of merchandise just to get it out of the store. and there was less of a theft problem while transport costs have finally returned to normalcy these positives are fantastic for gross margins, what wall street cares about hence the huge earnings beat, and there should be a lot more of these quarters ahead. in response, the stock flew straight up, running nearly 20 points how could that move be justified if target only posted a earnings beat, not a big revenue beat as well simple people are looking for lagers that perhaps shouldn't be lagers they're looking for stocks to

play catch-up that are excellent companies that may have hit some rough patches. target hit its high for the year back in the beginning of february when it struck $181 its all-time high of around $269 was set two years ago today. last night it closed at 110. walmart traded in the mid 140s the beginning of february. tjx from 80 to 89. costco rallying from 500 to 600. big time money managers look at those comparisons and say how, is target behind let's buy it now. >> buy, buy, buy, buy, buy, buy! >> and maybe it solves its sales problems no matter what, it's a bargain relative to earnings a bargain relative to other companies, especially if the fed is done tightening it is a compelling argument. it is a bargain versus the others of course, there are a host of other reasons why target works here 3.4% yield looks a lot more attractive. the fed is not going raise interest rates anymore by treasury bond comparison

if inflation continues to cool down, consumers are have much more money to spend. and the company solidified its partnership with ulta, cvs for drugs and starbucks for libations. lots of these store within a store concepts that make the shopping experience much more enticing that gives people reason to pay up for the stock when it otherwise might seem foolhardy. that's called second-day behavior here is another example. this there is nothing like a foreign leader visiting the united states to get people to buy something. it gives you a whole new perspective on what some stocks that were left behind or even left for dead, stocks that will do better when the chinese economy has a pulse. we had our monthly conference call for investing club today and we had to mention that estee lauder has been a big loser for the charitable trust but you know what? estee lauder does a lot of business in china. the stock had a big move yesterday in anticipation of the chinese meeting, and then followed it again with another rally today because it's one of the most behind-the-market stocks out there see, back in february, lauder

traded at $280 that's when there were still hope that the china economy would come back online with a vengeance. that didn't happen, and instead a real estate collapse, estee lauder plummeted to 104 to lows a couple of weeks ago, an unthinkable decline for such an iconic company with name brand management of course, we have no idea if anything good is happening here, but after that, it doesn't even matter the stock had a second-day bounce written all over it hence why it rallied another 3% today after a large run yesterday. who else goes on a roll when china is back? that's nike. here is a stock that is terribly behind the market even though any portfolio manager can rationalize buying it any day of the week they're always trying to justify their existence and their high fees they need to show value added, buying nike off some sort of thaw in china? that works every time. some stocks that bounced today fit several silos. disney has been on a tear. first it got too cheap, then

rallied because the company reported better than expected quarter management, announcing $2 billion in cost cuts on top of $5.5 billion they already committed to great streaming numbers, and they said the streaming business could be profitable by late next year, something that would further justify buying the rest of hul law from comcast. now disney has a huge and often forgotten about chinese business that can only be helped by xi's visit. certainly can't hurt and then we learned pseudo activist hedge fund is building a stake in the company value act could be a real catalyst for management that maybe even includes finding a successor to bob iger. so we have a new reason to look at disney, and we have news to justify paying for more. i'm calling that one a two fer >> hallelujah! >> finally, some stocks with forgotten about that can easily be justified as plays on a lower economy. you know, the transports -- >> all aboard! >> -- in this environment

thinking united parcel and fed ex they can be slotted in the portfolio especially because we're near the holidays. lululemon is always new. ralph lauren's got newness these work real well they can't be proven long for the moment because there are no new data points that would possibly cause a glitch. maybe they're foolproof to the end of the year. i want to emphasize that there is nothing wrong with this kind of thinking. i know i made it sound glib, but there is nothing wrong i just to teach you to anticipate this kind of thinking and there is absolutely let's say fair play to notice the profit-taking we saw in big cap tech too, especially for this evening's disappointment in both cisco and palo alto networks' reports. we've got the ceos of both companies on tonight we have to find out what really happened not the headlines, but what really happened. the bottom line. today's session shows people are itching to get into the market in the worst way and sometimes the worst way is to knock on wood and buy anything it's what you do when you missed the big move and if you're a

professional, it's how you demonstrate why you are worth paying for robert in new york, robert >> caller: jim, i got to tell you, you definitely have our back and i have become pretty good at this by listening to you, number one. >> thank you >> caller: i got to tell you this, i really do. i'd like to know if you are firm on affirm holdings >> okay, i talked about this with ben stoto today who works with me, research director and we said without a doubt, i said i think the firm has turned the corner they would say it never had to turn any corners, been a straight line. but i thought this quarter was a remarkable quarter, and they demonstrate how to be able to lend in what many people think is a dicier environment. affirm's for real. all right. today's action shows me that people are really itching to get back into the market, even doing it in the worst way, the second day by buying a lagers and hoping for a catch-up trade. three big stories. target really hit the mark, whoa, this quarter stock surging nearly 18% today

what drove the strength? i'll give you a preview about the holiday season and palo alto networks reported and the street right now doesn't know what to think other than to maybe sell let's talk with the ceo and figure it out. and cisco much more on its forecast, and i'm making sense of what's going on here with the ceo, chuck robbins so stay with cramer. don't miss a second of "mad money. follow @jimcramer on x have a question? tweet cramer, #madmentions send jim an email to madmoney@cnbc.com. or give us a call at 1-800-743-cnbc miss something head to madmoney.cnbc.com.

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it looks like rumors of retail's demise have been greatly exaggerated. that's one of my takeaways from the beaten down stock of target that surged nearly 18% today in response to a much better than expected quarter now, you don't get that kind of earnings rally unless the expectations coming into the quarter are ridiculously low given that the stock plunged from $269 two years ago to 110 yesterday. people weren't expecting much. i think this quarter showed that the market was wrong to count target out because it's always been a superb merchant with a sense of newness that never gets old. while the top line wasn't what i wanted, target delivered a monster 63 earnings beat and a return to what i'd actually describe as normalcy, each in an uncertain environment. so is this the start of more sustained recovery let's check with brian cornell, the chairman and ceo of target, get a better sense of the quarter and how about the holiday season and next year mr. cornell, welcome back to "mad money." >> jim, it's great to be here. what a beautiful new set >> oh, thank you, brian.

i love the way we have decorated it with beautiful target merchandise. this is what i'm talking about newness. you're doing a lot in the stores that we haven't seen before. >> well, it's been a really great day for our brand, jim, a great day for the team, and hopefully a great day for shareholders and newness plays a big part of it we're excited about the progress we delivered in the third quarter. and there is more to come. and i think today was a really important demonstration of the durability of our model, and our ability to grow our profits despite some weakness on the top line >> now throughout your conference call, when i speak with you, you are what i say preternaturally cautious given the fact there are costs that people, particularly people on wall street, frankly, may not even understand. it just costs a lot more to be alive right now. >> well you heard me talking about the fact that by compare pricing to prepandemic, not just for target, but across the retail industry, food and beverage prices are up on average 25%. versus prepandemic so those have put some real

pressure on the consumer's wallet they have to make some tough choices. if you're a parent right now with a baby, it's costing you 30% more than it did prepandemic for baby food and formula. so it's forcing consumers to step back. they're on a budget. they're shopping carefully but they're still spending, jim. and i think it's one of the things we should talk about. we delivered $25 billion of sales in the third quarter we're on track to deliver over $100 billion of revenue for the full year. and while there is opportunities for us to continue to accelerate our top-line growth, half of our business and half of that revenue is still coming from discretionary categories. >> right. >> apparel and home and hard line so they're still buying those categories we'll generate over $50 billion of sales in those categories >> and some are yourself, your label which i regard as a premium product even over brand. >> well, i think it what makes us really distinct in the business it's that combination of our own

brands, our great national brands, and then some of those partnerships thats i know you love the talk about. >> sure do. >> if we were in a store together, we'd be taking a walk right now. and we could see the partnerships, our own brands, our national brands come to life if you walk into a target store today, the first thing you see is starbucks >> right. >> it's been a great partnership for us and i've known their new ceo >> an old friend of yours. >> a long time one of the first things our team has done together is now take that great in-store experience out to the drive-up lane so if you pull in our lane, i can get your favorite pumpkin spice product and walk it right out to your car. and it's early days. we're bringing 100,000 orders out every week so it's a great partnership. in food and beverage, jim, good&gather, a brand we launched just before the pandemic is now a multibillion product. >> a great thanksgiving offering from them. >> you bet. >> meantime, ulta is doing well. there are things you and i talk

about that i have been uncertain about. you are very good to your employees. congratulations for closing on thanksgiving so they can be with their families. >> absolutely. >> we also can't have them be policemen. so you've had some theft that we know has gotten to you it looks like you're starting to get that down, which can really help in the end make gross margins be better. >> jim, this is an industry-wide issue. >> right. >> and we've certainly been up-front from a kind of our share of voice standpoint because we felt an obligation on behalf of the retail industry to make sure we got more focus at the federal, state and local level. i'm really pleased with the progress that we've seen and matt shea at nrf and brian dodge have been great partners but just in the last year, the federal level, has been passed it's going the make it a lot harder for these crime rings to monetize the items that they're stealing we're seeing a lot of support from the department of homeland security and they're activating their office across the country.

and then retailers now are walking stores with local district attorneys so there is a lot more focus. >> wow >> but i want to make sure it's clear, jim, this isn't a target issue. this is a retail issue. >> that's a good point here are some target issues i am concerned about. you saw 130,000 people for the holidays a few years ago i know you're only hiring 100,000. are you concerned it won't be a big holiday season >> actually, it's quite the opposite one of the things we've changed is making sure our existing team gets access to those additional hours during the holiday season. so we want to make sure they get a chance to say you know what? we want to work more hours >> okay. >> we want the take advantage of the holiday season, and then we'll staff accordingly with seasonal key members but we're geared up for the holiday season we're leaning in despite the fact that our inventories are down 14% >> that also made me feel like then you have some extra cash. you had 460 million shares you justed to have 900 million shares back to 2004. you're not buying back stock

that shows maybe you're not as confident about your stock. >> jim, we are bury sitting in this environment today, we think it's appropriate to be cautious. >> okay. >> to make sure we preserve cash we want to make sure we're investing in our business. you will see that continue into 2024 and beyond. and we want to make sure that dividend we pay is something that our shareholders can count on quarter after quarter >> all right that's fair enough the reason i'm concerned is because i always like the dividend, i like the buyback, i like the package right now i know i'm getting a good dividend, and there is no problem with that i know you care about the balance sheet, which is absolutely terrific but it is possible that given what you said about the consumer, that we can see down comes for another year, brian? >> jim, we are laser focused right now on restoring top-line growth this is an important step forward. we said in 2023, we've got make sure we're restoring profitability. we've grown our profits by a billion dollars in the first three quarters that was our full year objective we want to make sure we're

improving the bottom line. >> okay. >> but category by category from both a store standpoint and a digital standpoint, we are focused on restoring traffic and growth to our business >> all right if that's the case, then tell me what you're restoring the traffic to what are people excited about? give me some ideas for thanksgiving give me some ideas for the holidays. >> it comes back down to combination of great newness, and we're going have 10,000 new items in our assortment. the power of our own brands and affordability. if we were walking our store today, you would see that great combination of some of our up on unique brands. >> like figment? tell me about that it seems intriguing. >> it's a great new home brand we've got great brands at home like threshold, great partnerships like hearth and home but figment is off to a fabulous start. it's an important remind they're consumers are still looking for those great discretionary items. so great style, great quality at an amazing value

and we're seeing that brand get off the a great start. >> look, i got to tell you, when i saw the stock today, i said i can't wait to see brian, because to me, target is back. but then i don't want to insult him because it never went away the fact is this is the resilient, strong target that people want to invest in i think this was a point of demarcation. helping jim know you're going too far. otherwise i'm going say even up 19, people should buy. >> i'm bullish at target and we're playing the long game. sitting here today, we're $30 billion bigger than we were prepandemic. and importantly, our traffic has grown by 20% >> and yet your stock? >> well, we've got to deliver consistent results quarter after quarter, both on the top and bottom line. we've got get back to playing our game, investing in our stores, our digital assets, investing in our brands, extending those partnerships you talk about ulta beauty we have over 500 ultas inside of target >> i know from them.

the last question i have, you're still committed to the inner city i know you did have to close some, and there were theft issues, but you're still committed. >> jim, we're right here in new york city. think about how far we've come when you and i first started talking:00, this is ms. tenth holiday season, we didn't have a presence in manhattan. we've had 12 stores now. we just opened up a new one in union square and those stores are part of the community. so we're very committed to those stores we're committed to growing our store base we like to open stores we open 21 this year you'll see it continue to open smaller stores but also full-sides stores as we go forward. we're going to continue to invest in our business we're here to grow and provide great returns for our shareholders and you know i'm playing the long game and i'm as bullish on target as you are. >> that's what i want to hear. that's what i want that's brian cornell, chairman and ceo of target. this stock deserved to be up and i got to tell you, it's not done going higher. thank you, brian "mad money" is back after the break.

♪ coming up, has a strong demand for data defense driven this stock to a state of security palo alto reports. and cramer's got the ceo, next

♪ what do we make of this quarter from palo alto networks? the best of breed cyber security operator it's been a huge winner for my charitable trust, until this evening. while the stock got clobbered hours, it would be wrong to assume management said business was doing badly. almost every line for the reported quarter included a 22% earnings beat off the $1.16 basis. problem with the guidance. but even there, mainly the billing guidance is disappointing. management explained this was a technical result how the company

accounts for paying for the records. it's not a demand problem. it made me feel better about the situation, but i have to admit, i'm confused that's why we have to dig deep were with nikesh arora, the chairman and ceo of palo alto to find out more. mr. chairman, welcome back tell me about these numbers. >> thank you for having me i'm surprised to hear you're confused you're never confused. we had a great quarter we beat almost every metric out there. phenomenal profitability, phenomenal market growth in a market volatile i think the market is getting spooked by the fact that we adjusted billings guidance down. it's important to understand, look, our business is a hybrid of people who pay annually and pay us up-front over three years. and as the interest rate environment continues to stay higher for longer, we're noticing that customers want to have longer conversation about when they will pay us and whether we should finance them or not

this cosmetically impacts the billings numbers but there is nothing to be confused about there is tremendous demand out there. cyber security attacks are unfortunately going up you've never seen a quarter as active as q1 for us in the last three months where people are seeing more attacks. we've never seen more customers sitting down and trying to derive strategies. so demand function is strong our revenue forecast has not changed. our profitability forecast has gone up. so from our perspective, we had a great quarter and the prospects are bright. >> that would mean people selling the stock down 20 points simply don't understand the business and are making a big mistake. at the same time, the crowd is rarely as wrong as that. and i think some people feel that this was just a light number, and that you have some problems, say, with firewall business that are similar to fortinet, and that what is really going on here it's getting harder and harder to close deals in a business that shouldn't be because it's cyber security >> well, i think, jim, we should

parse that a bit more. we have been very consistent in the last 12 to 18 months saying that we expected the hardware business, the product business throughout is growing at 0 to 5% we did 3% growth there are people out there who larger numbers and i'm going to show smaller numbers we stayed down the middle and managed to make sure we manage our supply price and backlog i don't think the hard rules of other people in our industry are pertinent to us. i think from a customer deal perspectives, i said, we have the ability to finance deals we have $7 billion of cash in our balance sheets so we can finance deals. i'm telling you, we don't have customers say we don't want to do business. it's just negotiate payment terms. here is an interesting metric. our deals are shorter. when deals are shorter, you get lower billings it doesn't mean there are less bills. still doing the same amount of business my churn is low.

i don't mind if a customer says i'll sign for one year and come back later no problem real yooel be back next year. >> i see you brought back $67 million of shares last quarter, $227 you've got gigantic amount of cash maybe this is the opportunity to show the people who just threeing the stock away because they do not understand what you just said that you know what here, sell it to me. i got all the capital. you want to have my stock? i think that's terrific. i don't want you as my shareholder if you don't understand what i'm doing. >> well, jim, we have an evergreen stock buyback approval from our board in the vicinity for a billion dollars. and our treasury team is very diligent about how they look at the market, and they will opportunistically see when they believe we should be in the market, and they'll do what is needed. >> fair enough okay so let's talk about the threats. we've got -- by the way, we have president xi here right now. does that mean that china is not a threat because he is here and how what is going on in the middle east? it would seem to be this is the greatest disruption. and tell me what happened at clorox tell me what happened at the

casinos. because it seems to me that i would pay you anything if i ran a business right now and i was worried about cyber security >> well, jim, aulie tell you is the cyber activity is so high that we're -- we got the most number of calls in the response team in the last month than we've ever had in palo alto networks we're not the biggest player incident response. i can only imagine what some of our other peers in the industry are seeing from a response activity yesterday, we announced a program for our top 2,000 customers around the world, we will give them free incident response if they get attacked. call us. we'll come and help you and worry about how to deal with the economics later. so it's free for the first because we want to support our customers. we think the activity is bad and it's going get worse the and in function is there there are people out there who are getting breached we have to be there for them as their partner of choice. >> would you ever make that same deal to people who aren't using you, but realize perhaps they're not with as good a vendor and

would rather be with you from now on >> you know we will not not return every phone call. if people call us, we will be there. if they're not a customer, we'll figure out a way to help them for sure. >> this is something that okta told me. you the people at the companies. they all want the help clients, each other and they give away information freely that they shouldn't what can palo alto do about people who just don't understand that you can't just help everybody anymore? >> we can't solve pour people who are not going to pay attention to how they need to be about the data but we can work with most of our customers and prospects throughout in making sure they have a robust cyber security strategy, a strategy that is connected to the technology, make sure they're not going to be out there and easily attacked we'll make sure that if they do see activity, we'll be there to support them we have various services services will that will help

monitor their environment with them so they don't have to get complex, we can take the complexity out of it from them we have partners across the industry with many system inside grater companies we can partner with who will do that work with us for them. there is tons of opportunity i think the important part to understand is as we go through this technological evolution, as we start being more and more attention to ai, we're going have more and more stress factors show up. we see adversaries using ai now to attack customers. so this is happening it's realtime. people need to get their technology stacks up to speed, more robust, more in the next generation that's something we all have to do across the board. otherwise won't be successful. >> understood. one last question going forward. should we notbe focused on billing? should you say point-blank that is not representative. this is the way we need to start thinking if we want to understand how to value palo alto >> well, jim, look, in the end what you care about is eps and cash flow. >> yes. >> eps is consequence of revenue you deliver and cash flow is

what is left over after you spend everything you need to spend. we have shown the biggest collection of cash this quarter, close to $1.5 billion. we have shown revenue growth north of 20% our eps, operating model 28.4% so we are hitting all the profitability and cash flow met rings to the market. billings is an indicator of revenue in the future. and the better indicator of revenue in future or obligations with i we grew at 26%. >> i absolutely agree with you. >> it doesn't take a math whiz to figure out what's going on. >> i learned that in the past two years. perhaps i'm a little less confused after speaking to you fair enough? thank you. that's nikesh arora, chairman and ceo of palo alto networks, panw the stock is down. you just heard another version of what people are doing and selling off of maybe they're making a mistake "mad money" is back after the break. coming up, more from today's top tech movers.

cisco checks in fresh off earnings, next ( ♪ ♪ ) ( ♪ ♪ ) ♪ (when the day that) ♪ ♪ (lies ahead of me) ♪ ♪ ( seems impossible to face) ♪ ♪ (a lovely day) ♪ ♪ (lovely day) ♪ ♪ (lovely day) ♪ ♪ (lovely day) ♪ a bank that knows your business grows your business. bmo.

what the heck just went wrong at cisco to send the stock plummeting after hours quartering they reported solid reports but the guidance was not pretty. nearly every major line is expected to be lighter than what the analysts were expecting. about 12.6 to 12.8 in revenue. how do explain the numbers normally just say we got to be buyers here, but maybe we ought to find out what's behind the grim forecast. maybe there is more too it let's take a closer look with chuck robbins. he is a straight-shooting chairman and ceo of cisco systems who comes on the show in good times and bad mr. robbins, welcome back to

"mad money." >> well, thank you, jim. it's good to be here i appreciate you having me. >> thank you for being on, chuck. i'm going put it to you straight did you experience some sort of slowdown in customer demand that has cause you'd to be able to what i think deliver a pretty substantial guidance >> jim, what we saw during the quarter, and this was -- it did surprise us as we exited last quarter, we saw a lot of momentum from an orders perspective in the last week of the quarter. actually outperforming the opening forecast that week by a few hundred million. so we felt really good going into the quarter but as we got into the quarter, we came to the conclusion quickly because of all the inventory we have shipped into our largest customers, we have a problem where they have not been able to consume all of that technology and we have really unloaded over the last six months. our backlog is now back to normal we shipped billions of dollars more than what we normally would have sent to our customers and we've seen the issue exist

in our service provider customers before now, but it moved over into the large enterprise so that's really what's contributed to the slowdown in orders which led to the guidance that you referenced. >> let's figure out what can happen we now know what can go wrong, and you're very straight forward about that cup but scott hearn straight forward's cfo did say in tonight's call, and i'm quoting, expect to see product quarter rates accelerate in the second half of the year why should we expect that is the case if that is the case at 45, 56, 57, where i see the stock trading, that's a different story. >> well, jim, what we see and what we've heard from our customers, and some of the analytics that we've done relative to how long it's taken between when we ship a product and when it connects back to the cloud, we actually know that it's taken one to two quarters longer than what it has taken historically so we think there is one to two quarters worth of inventory sitting with our customers right now. so we believe in the second half of the year that our teams are

forecasting it, that we will rea-accelerate the growth if you think about the opportunities ahead of us, what is going on inartificial intelligence, the security opportunity, hybrid work, all the multicloud use cases and rebuilding of applications, and then we have the splunk acquisition on the horizon so there is a lot of positives for us as we enter the second half of the year. >> i know one of the things i was hoping you would be able to get into is work with jensen huang and nvidia because he bought a company called mellano mellanox i think to some extent it competes with you. i have to believe you have something with jenson. >> well, you have talked about this for a while that you thought that would be good jensen actually approached me a few weeks ago and we had a 90-minute call meeting yesterday here at our headquarters in san jose he brought four or five of his execs. i had the same on our side and what we really see is that the combination of their technology, their gpus and dpus

and other components and their software stack combined with our network infrastructure, we can build some integrated solutions that will help the enterprise actually consume ai more simply. and so building that stack and candidly leveraging our go to market scale and our partner organization is a big opportunity for all of us. so we spent some time yesterday, our engineering teams are back together tomorrow. and i think you'll hear more about these solutions as we move through the coming weeks >> see, i'm torn because you know i obviously like that because you need to be in that stack. but i also think that splunk will make your company so different that i don't want people to sell for a quarter and then buy back a quarter later because splunk will almost be closed splunk is a cash deal that could be closed probably in the spring of next year >> well, we think worst case, it's going to be in the september time frame but we did this week on monday the hard scott rodino time frame

expired. so we effectively passed the antitrust scenario in the united states we still have other approvals to get from around the world. so it could be sooner than we expected and we do believe that, you know, in the security space and in the observability space that the combination of our assets are going to really create a lot of value for our customers i think it's going to be very good for our customers i think we're going to be able to help them identify threats and predict and prevent threats more effectively, and also understand what's going on in their infrastructure we're excited about the opportunity. we're excited about the combination, and we look forward the working through the approvals. >> is there any way the look at what happened with your margins, your forecast margins and say you know what? maybe things areweaker in technology than we realized. maybe the hyper scales aren't doing as well. we just went through a quarter i thought they were doing pretty darn well. >> well, the hyper scalers relative to working with us is we have a very well defined

order time frame we understand their plans. they know how long it takes for our products to be delivered we basically cut our lead times by 2 1/2 times in the last say four, five months. so they now are planning on a much shorter time frame than they had to before and so we believe they'll crank back up after the first of the year we have good visibility within, because obviously, much like the service providers and the telcos that we worked with for so long, they plan for a multi-year deployments. so we're excited about the opportunity there. and we're now in three of the four largest web scale players in the u.s. with our networking technologies underneath their artificial intelligence gpus so we feel good about our position there >> and why don't you tell me about -- i've already felt that hybrid work is a big tailwind for you. is it still, or is that going

away >> no, it still is we saw strength with our collaboration devices and obviously hybrid work is more than just collaboration. but it's all about networking and security and the home office becoming a branch. and so it's a big opportunity for us we see, you know, customers having to rearchitect their infrastructure relative to the multicloud traffic patterns and the mobile worker. you've got hybrid work you've got application rearch rearchitecture you have sustainability which is a big driver for us, and obviously cyber security and the architecture of the cyber security strategy relative to all these changes. all of those are opportunities for us, which is why we're optimistic about the future. >> all right let's leave it at that, chuck. see the stock settle in. obviously it's a little bit jarring, but 2024 has a lot of good things in the pipe. thank you so much, chuck robbins chair and ceo of cisco chuck, thanks for coming on the show. >> thank you, jim. >> "mad money" will be back after the break. coming up, pop open those umbrellas and tee up your

toughest questions cramer takes on all comers in the "lightning round." next gaining on, mr. cramer, thank you. thank you for everything you do. >> you've been a wonderful source with your teachings i have to say thanks. >> thank you for all your advice and saving us from ourselves >> your advice let me quit a job that i hated i love you to death. >> thank you for everything you do thanks for making us money and more importantly, thanks for keeping us from losing money

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♪ it is time, it's time for the "lightning round." phone number, say buy, buy, buy, calls play this out -- [ buzzer ] >> and then the "lightning round" is over are you ready, skee-daddy? talking about the "lightning round. start with peter in connecticut. peter? >> caller: hey, jim, thank you so much for having me on >> of course >> caller: i want to give a quick shout out to my 99-year-old grandfather nick in rochester. i'm calling in for him tonight to ask about the stock cc -- >> you know, i have come around to the idea, not that there is going to be nuclear reactors built, but that people like to invest in uranium. so that is the highest quality uranium play let's go to larry in new york, larry? >> yeah. hi, jim. thanks for take mick call. >> of course >> caller: some time ago, you

interviewed the ceo of h&r block. >> a long time okay. >> caller: the stock was 25. i took up a position and since then it's 85% and still trades at less than a market multiple. what are your thoughts now >> well, you know, i like intuit it, but it's an expensive stock. you do the right thing i actually defer to you. i think you made a great call and i would stick with it. i think you got the right way to look at it let's go to tom in north carolina, tom? >> caller: greetings from north carolina, jim. thanks for taking my call. >> of course. >> caller: for my ira account, i like looking at a company whose stock has taken a little bit of a beating and take a look at it and see was it a knee-jerk reaction or an indicator of some problem in business fundamentals >> okay. >> caller: different brands, they seem to have solid cash flows and a trajectory for sales. i was wondering -- >> you're talking about a very

automotive services is very hit or miss. that's why i've always believed in autozone, azo because it does a buyback that is the most aggressive in the stock and gives me the comfort i need. let's go to steve in florida steve? >> caller: hi. a big thank you to you and jeff for informative club meeting today. >> thank you that was a hard one. geez thank you. >> caller: my portfolio has dramatically improved with your helpful advice and knowledge. >> thank you. >> caller: do i hold on to it for the proposed 34.10 share buyout >> if they walk away from that deal, if the government botches that deal, i don't know if the stock goes down anymore, frankly. i think you're okay with that one. let's go to jim in delaware, jim? >> caller: boo-yah, jim. >> boo-yah >> caller: hey, a philly sports fan we're you. at this point in my life, i'm looking more for some income stocks.

>> okay. >> caller: pretty heavy rated in high-tech. i came across this british oil tanker company, and it's called torm -- >> it's got a very big yield, but i think that yield may be put it under the character of too good to be true? i think you got to stick with a realistic yield and will be there for the ages let's go to thomas in georgia, please, thomas >> caller: hey, jim, thanks for the call. >> oh, thank you. >> caller: and thanks to you and jeff for all the hard work. >> yeah, jeff is unbelievable so so good. >> caller: keeping in with today's hold 'em or folden, i'm sitting on roblox. >> i thought this was the first good quarter in a long time. i believe that you know what in this is not the time to sell roblox that, ladies and gentlemen, is the conclusion of the "lightning round" [ buzzer ] >> the "lightning round" is

sponsored by charles schwab. coming up, cramer shares a business lesson that never goes out of style cash flow and christmas memories, when "mad money" returns. giving traders even more ways to sharpen their skills with tailored education. get an expanding library filled with new online videos, webcasts, articles, courses, and more - all crafted just for traders. and with guided learning paths stacked with content curated to fit your unique goals, you can spend less time searching and more time learning. trade brilliantly with schwab.

♪ when i was a little boy, i used to go to the place, which is what my dad called his warehouse/office for

international patching products. a name he gave for his distinctly nonoperational operation in old city philadelphia, back when it was the warehouse section of a run-downtown this time of year was make or break for him because he'd order christmas wrapping paper for all the mom and pop stores in the philly area, all the way to wilmington and atlantic city it was pure joy for me because christmas paper came in these great big rolls that were much taller than i would. what i didn't know is every year pop had to make a judgment about how much business would be done at all the men stores, the ladies dress emporiums and the department stores he sold the stuff to he didn't know if it would be a good christmas or a bad christmas. but the paper was mostly various santa themes and it would make any store owner proud, high quality stuff. there wasn't much differentiation between the solo stores and major department stores where he once sold gabardine trousers and was fired after returning from the war or

liszt where my mom suns sold lingerie the way the stores could distinguish themselves was through gift wrapping. pop sold gift paper to tape to the ribbon that tied it all together oh, pop was brilliant at so many things he loved john milton, "paradise lost" guy. he used to constantly count the rolls after i knocked them over, setting them up again and again. i couldn't figure out why he kept counting them only long after when i took an economic class in college, i realize he counted them because he didn't pay for the rolls directly he borrowed money to buy this merchandise. or as i learned when i too owned my own business, he financed them i always wondered what was the big deal, if he had too much christmas paper, couldn't he use it again next year i didn't realize that's not how it works just sitting on this stuff for 12 months is expensive the business didn't have the money on hand to pay for the finance charges, which were really high back then. something i didn't understand back then either

would mom be really angry at pop because he left a five spot under the west clock alarm clock instead of the 10. the five meant hamburger and watered down grape juice the 10 meant chicken now i realize my dad wasn't selling christmas paper. heavy was selling end phase solar systems. he was selling generac generators it was sun run, a solar power play but really it's a financing story like generac it's a financing story these were the same rates the way pop's gift wrap business was a financing story. you needed to borrow money so much money has been lost by investors believing that these solar companies were actually solar plays and not just financing plays where few of the buyers paid cash in the end, the residential solar stocks have more in common with car dealerships than anything else except for perhaps pop's christmas paper. as i always tell members of the investing club, know what you own. pop didn't truly own

international packaging products creditors did. and gift wrapping can last until next year but only if you don't go broke paying finance charges in the interim, just like so many of the solar devices that people tried to buy. i like to say there is always a bull market somewhere, and i promise to try to find it just for you right here on "mad money. i'm jim cramer see you cramer see you tomorrow "last call" starts now all right. good evening we begin "last call" tonight with breaking news president biden is set to hold a press conference following his critical summit with china's president xi jinping he will deliver remarks from that podium on your screen it was the first time the two leaders have met face to face in a year and it comes at a time of still high tensions between the two nations, an out of control fentanyl epidemic, as well as critical money focused conversations around tariffs and human rights in china's labor conditions we've got a ho