>> it doesn't matter. it's inside baseball, doesn't matter. great to have you back. i love that jacket. very smart. delta airlines still has room to 45. >> thank you, lori, for joining us tonight. thank you for watching "fast money." "mad money" with jim cramer 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 want to make friends. i'm just trying to make a little bit of money. my job is not just to entertain but to educate, put it in context. call me, 1-800-743-cnbc. tweet me @jimcramer. admit it. admit it. when you first heard about artificial intelligence, whoa, you were suspicious.

was it all hype? who could it really help besides, say, amazon, which is always trying to figure out what else you might want from your personal history? others more companies started talking about ai our suspicion only grew. chatgpt might abe lot of fun but it felt like kind of a parlor trick rather than a business opportunity. generative ai just seemed like a product in search of a need. but eventually it started driving up the whole market creating days like today where the dow gained 322 points, s&p jumped 1.03%, nasdaq with a nice 1.26%. a smart snapback from yesterday's sudden and vicious sell-off. but here we are one year after the ai demon was unleashed and people are still trying to figure out what to do with the darn thing. they don't want to be left behind. the use cases are growing, though. m when micron the gigantic chipmaker reported a true blowout quarter and told us that ai is causing a gigantic refresh for all sorts of tech from cell phones and personal computers to

autos and the internet of things, well, isn't that just about everybody? as micron said, and i quote, we are in the very early stages of a multiyear growth phase catalyzed and driven by generative ai and this disruptive technology will eventually transform every aspect of business and society, end quote. micron's comments propel the whole tech complex as they should because it really is a whole new world. right now people are still scrambling to figure out how best to use their own data to find patterns, maybe make their jobs better. not everybody knows what to do with it. by the way, that's one of the reasons why i like the stock of snowflake so much. many companies when they hear of ai don't want to spend a fortune on equipment which is why they rent the cloud via snowflake, then try to figure out what ai can do for them. we are, though, starting to see some real examples and seems like micron is very right and ai's very compelling for many businesses. what are the main uses? what's driving this incredible demand that micron's seeing now that we're a year? in i went right to the source. i went to chatgpt and my buddy

pal friend bard over at google to see what people are using generative ai for and it's pretty darn cool, even as bard admonishes that determining the top ten uses can, i quote, be subjective depending on the perspective and emphasis, end quote. what a weasel. chat just gives it to you straight. no hedging. first my spakz paerian ai buddy says in so many words people are checking their brain and letting barbed do the creativity with art and music generation, everything from stunning visuals, photorealistic landsscapes abstract paintses and original music, kind of like the music that accompanied an nvidia presentation or a machine that drew me a seascape. it can write storylines and scripts. no wonder the writers went on strike. of course website copy child place. health care. ai can blow through immense data sets to find promising drugs. can help diagnose too, much better at interpret an mri than a human can. it also has the potential to personalize medicine though we haven't gotten that far on that

one yet. it's got all sorts of productivity enhancements too ai can come up with new product enhancements and variations it can innovate and optimize which probably speaks to our own inadequacies. and create chatbots and personal assists that can do routine things. but so far i found it to be irmy annoying if you're asking anything different from a standard query because when it gets stumped you get routed to planet mars. [ rim shot ] this is bard taking the data and bragging but it can create synthetic data and train other machines to be better at being machines. it can create personalized learning materials to make education more engaging, which is a borderline impossible task for most humans. bard does point out that this is just a glimpse, but to me it's pretty clear that anything i can do bard can do better. anything bard can do i can do worse. yes it can. chatgpt is more of the point. just direct. it says generative ai is good at advanced language translation, it can have natural and con context-aware conversations, it can imagine and synthesize

tasks, offer realistic image generation, do medical imaging and diagnosis as well as help gaming development creating molecular structures while making better compounds for medicine, not to mention assessing risk and market trends and generating financial reports for all sorts of businesses. but to translate, albeit not as well as my pal bard or chatgpt could, generative artificial intelligence can do pretty much whatever it wants. anything we want it to. and if we don't ask it another enterprise will and that competitor will get the answer faster and better than we can arrive at it which is why everybody's ordering all this stuff. more important it's very hard to come up with something your brain does that ai doesn't do in a smarter faster fashion. off the top of your head go back to when you were at school. wouldn't you say that other than recess it's more efficient and effective than anything you tried to learn and they tried to teach? at least they still have the monkey bars. seesaws. compared to ai we're just slouches. as someone who was tracked in track 4 of 4 with 1 being the

best i can tell you hands down a thing that i learned that's valuable now versus what i can get from these machines. we should have just sat there and watched how mr. sun or that movie about the dinosaurs walking to death in the desert and enjoyed ourselves. but then again i don't want to sell any of these too short. i got real smart after track 4 and got summa cum laude in my general exams at harvard. but i can tell you once again that that was mainly because i have trouble sleeping, so i could stay up a 48-hour cram session and still take the test very well. what's scary is bard -- not chatgpt but i think bard could have crushed me. all that studying for nothing. i digress. here's what's really crazy. both programs spit out pretty much everything we humans need to do at the office. in the old days scientists and technicians and engineers would find ways to obviate jobs where we had o'use our hands. now it seems to obviate our brains. to go full circle because ai is so amazing we may never again have enough semiconductors to

meet the demand. for all those use cases. because it's hard to think of something these two programs really can't do. yes, tonight we have cintas which delivers uniforms and safety equipment to a million clients but they like google cloud, probably immune. domino's pizza hard to think machines couldn't do better. levi's, good company but i wouldn't be surprised if ai can't make it better. these tasks all seem like the height of machines' creativity. but we're actually still in the first year of the explosion. the good news, generative ai can't do everything. the bad news, what it can do does better than we'll ever do unless you're einstein or beethoven or oppenheimer and mozart. i would want to say picasso and matisse, but i've seen what those two can do with modern art and nobody's safe in that profession anymore. bottom line, once ai really gets going boy, will we of have a lot of time on our hands. all the more reason to invest in stocks now before the robots put us out of work and all the easy

money has been made. let's go to dustin in colorado. justin. >> caller: hey, jim. how are you doing? >> dustin. i'm all set for you. >> caller: okay. i just had a question about -- >> ai button. give me a question, please. >> caller: ampbell's. >> dustin. how are you? >> caller: good. campbell's where it's going to be the coldest time of the year coming up and i'm thinking with it being pretty low i'm thinking it would be a pretty good start to pick. i want to see what you had to -- >> you know, this is -- this is what speaks to how tough it is at campbell's. i think mark clouse is a brilliant businessperson. a veteran. he's done great things. and yet every single thing he's done and he still can't get the earnings breakout. i want to hold on to it too and not just because -- i don't know if you had the seasonal pepperidge farm but they are killers! but we've got to wait. sam in pennsylvania.

sam. >> caller: jim, before i begin i just would like to point out i saw you this morning discuss the single-day options and that price action yesterday and i just want to highlight i think that's something we should be paying attention to. >> you're absolutely right. we did a good piece off the charts about it. i read through it again today. it is absolutely true. they can be in control because they're 40% of the options market. so we've got to be very careful on days where there's not a lot of vibe. sam, how do we go to work together? >> caller: so jim, listen, now that we've got the fed having talked about reducing interest rates, demand for single-family housing has been nothing but strong and as interest rates begin to decline that is something that should only pick up. one of the more important things that every single american house, almost every single american house has in there is whirlpool. and with interest rates coming down i would expect whirlpool to begin to do quite well. they do $20 billion in revenue

and have only -- >> i know. well, i've got to tell you, sam, i felt the same way. and jeff marks and i got together and we put whirlpool in the bullpen. i thought it was going to be a blowout quarter. and they didn't deliver the quarter that i expected. so instead we bought stanley black & decker. and i think that's the better way to play the same theme. this morning we saw just how broad the use cases for ai are and that propel all of tech. i think you want to invest in it before the robots put us out of jobs. a five-year plan called hungry for more. at its investor day earlier in the month. and i am learning more about what will drive the next level of growth for the pizza chain with the company's ceo. trying to get a read on the economy look no further than cintas. i'm seeing what the business services company has to say when it comes to their 1 million customers in north america. but first levi's is set to welcome former kohl's ceo michelle gass beginning in

january. and i'm getting a handle on the company from the incoming and outgoing ceo. so stay with cramer. >> announcer: don't miss a second of "mad money." follow @jimcramer on x. have a question? tweet cramer. #mad mentions. send jim an e-mail to madmoney@cnbc.com. or give us a call at 1-800-743-cnbc. miss something? ado dmeyc.com.

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domino's pizza finally gotten its groove back? after peaking in late 2021 the stock struggled till this summer in part thanks to a post-covid hangover but also because of competing online delivery services. for years domino's had the best app and delivery. but as doordash and uber eats got bigger and more rivals who

are willing to pay doordash to cut in or to get more business. but domino's announced they'd partner with uber eats and the market loved the news so much the stock shot up nearly 40 bucks in response. then we got another leg higher when the company reported a very solid quarter in october. so can this thing keep running? let's check in with russell wieners, the ceo of domino's pizza. welcome back to "mad money." >> jim, thanks so much for having me. happy holidays. >> it's so great to have you. the company feels to me very re-energized. a lot of people at your analyst day, a lot of the executives really told great stories. what is behind the newfound energy that gives you confident enough to have very good promises to numbers for many years out now? >> i think what we try to do was give two messages to analysts when they were here. one is domino's foundation has never been stronger. we are back. and secondly we took them

through our new five-year plan. we call it hungry for more. sxhungry for more delivers exactly what it sounds like in the title. more. more sales, more stores and more profits. and to give you a sense, jim, kind of big picture what this delivers, on the sales side we're seeing 7% plus. so 7% is the floor. we're hungry to deliver more. 7% over the next five years, that's $7 billion. that's the equivalent to taking the number 10 restaurant in the u.s. and adding it to how big domino's is today. >> you certainly give me a reason to think it's true because one pizza's personal and popular. two, you guys have the absolute best system now to deliver it. everybody can have it. and third, the price is still right. all these things you told me when you came in were true. but i think you've only made each one of them better. >> well, we appreciate it. certainly we have a great team here. and i think what really gave people a lot of confidence, you

know, we've always been honest and transparent with our customers. and with you. these last couple years from a delivery standpoint we weren't where we needed to be, but we went back and fixed it. so our delivery times are back to where they were in 2019. what we talked about at the earnings day was that q4 to date not only are delivery sales positive but delivery orders. so transactions are positive. so our delivery business is back, and that's before you even add in any of the kind of tailwind we're getting from uber. that's why folks should have the confidence that the strategy we put out is already starting to work. >> you do have massive rich data possibly better than anybody and you're doing generative ai. what have you been able to come up with so far that makes it even faster and better? >> what we're doing today is just the start. jim, we start making the pizza before people actually order it. our ai helps us with that. we bring it out to the driver before the driver even comes

back. and so we're going to continue to build that. we call our operating system, the technology behind it, dom-o.s. so domino's operating system. it's going to get smarter and smarter over time. we're working with microsoft on generative ai. and at the end of the day my goal is to have just in time pizza making. >> that is brilliant. it really is. because that's something we want. as you say throughout your analyst day, people want speed. i was surprised at how important speed really is to the point where they want emergency pizza. >> well, emergency pizza was great. what i love that our marketing department has been able to do, they did it with carryout tips and they're doing it with emergency pizza. jim, all emergency pizza is, it's a buy one, get one free. but the get one free is your emergency pizza. what a great way to think about promotional mechanisms. been out for a long time and we get folks like you talking about it. so i'm really proud of the team. we innovate on product, on technology and in marketing. >> but at the same time you're really doing a top to bottom

redo of the technology. i thought the technology's great. it doesn't satisfy you. >> we are a work in progress brand. we wake up every day asking ourselves are we better than the day before. our new loyalty program we just launched, it is fantastic. we have over the last year, jim, added about 2 million loyalty members. a million of them since september, since we had launched a new program. what we did was changed the program so users could get in at lower thresholds, $5 versus 10, and now you can also redeem at 20, 40, and 60 points. not just 60. so all of a sudden all these light users, we've got 32 million users in our loyalty data base. we have 40 to 50 million additional users that tried our loyalty program but didn't come back. and now we have a much more compelling program. >> i also think people might say how about the other guys? you had some statistics you presented on the analyst day. the other guys are closing a

huge amount of stores while you're opening stores. >> i am so proud of our system. we went back to 2015 during analyst day because that's when we lost our loyalty program. the numbers i'll give you are between 15 and 22. in the u.s. we opened up 1600 stores net and our competition, our two public competitors combined closed about 1300 total. so you look at that difference and that's part of why our share's increased. our share during that time period, 2015 up through analyst day, is up almost 9 1/2 points. and we've taken from the national competitors, we've take frent local chains and the regional chains. >> one of the reasons i'm impressed by what you're doing is it's clear domestic. international you have not even scratched the surface of the countries that want domino's pizza. >> yeah, our international team, it's such a special business. you know, history, 30 straight

years of positive same-store sales is amazing. and there are so many special things about our international business. but you know, this one to me is the one that gives me the most confidence is seven of our master franchisees internationally make up about 80% of our volume internationally. those seven companies are all public. not only accountable to us but right now one of them is getting quizzed by a jim cramer maybe in japan or in china. so they're accountable to the market. so when you think about it a go forward strategy as an investor or a leader here at domino's, you say wow, they're accountable to investors and to us. >> just incredible. and one last thing, we talked about when uber eats was announced. i was very excited about it. but it turns out i think that the enthusiasm wasn't even great enough. that's how well it's working out. >> we have not even gotten started. i just had a lunch call today with dara.

we were talking about how great so far this test is going. we plan on really turning things on the market on in late january and we're really excited to watch the ramp-up throughout the year and remember it's a billion-dollar opportunity for us. uber's just a piece of it. >> i want to congratulate you. it's been a long time since i've been -- i know i've been excited about domino's. not the pizza. i loved it the whole way. but what you're doing is terrific. that's russell weiner, ceo of domino's pizza. thanks for coming on, russell and happy holidays. >> thanks so much. you too. "mad money's" back after the break. >> announcer: coming up, is this durable denim dealer poised to deliver in the new year? with a ceo transition around the corner there's no time to waist. cramer gets the full riveting story, next.

there's a changing of the guard under way at levi strauss & company, the denim powerhouse. two weeks ago we learned that long-time ceo chip berg would be retiring next year with president michelle gass, formerly the ceo of kohl's, taking his place effective january 29th. although berg's sticking around as vice chairman until the official timing in april. and then as senior adviser until next november. this has been in the works for over a year now when they brought in michelle gass to lead levi's brands along with the company's digital and commercial operations. she's taken over one of the best-run apparel companies in america. let's take a close look with jim berk the president and outgoing ceo of levi's and michelle gass who's joining us from cnbc one market studio in san francisco. welcome back to "mad money." >> thank you, jim. great to be here. >> great to see you again, jim. >> thank you guys. i really appreciate it. chip, you've been with the company since 2011. a terrific time at the historic levi's. what have you been able to do with the brand over the last 12

years that you're most proud of? >> well, it's been great, jim. 12 1/2 years have really blflow by. i think probably what i'm most proud of is i'm leaving the company in a very different place than it was when i got here. the brand had lost its way and we put the brand back at the center of culture. arguably the levi's brand is stronger around the world today than it has ever been. and our foundations and fundamentals are really strong. but at the end of the day i think i'm going to look back and the thing i'm going to be most proud of is a very successful transition to my successor, michelle. and i'm super excited about leaving the company in really, really good hands with somebody who's got the capabilities and skill set that's going to take this company to the next level. >> let's go to michelle. michelle, you could do any job. why did you pick levi essence. >> first off let me just say

it's such an honor and a privilege to be following this guy, someone who i've had deep respect and admiration for. we've known each other for more than a decade now. and jim, it's levi's. it's one of the most beloved and iconic brands in the world. it's a business and brand that not only does great business but also does it the right way with the culture and values and how we take care of our people and communities and our consumers. and then the opportunity. i mean, this business and brand has been around for 170 years. it was the 1r50th anniversary this year of the 501, as a matter of fact. to have this much legacy and heritage. yet as we look ahead so much opportunity. i came in, chip and the team foote in place great strategies, which is putting the brand ahead of everything. second dtc first and making the pivot to become a retailer. and third diversifying our brinds across channels, brands,ing categories. all of those are working and i see lots of opportunities going forward.

>> let's talk about you are why latter point. on the last conference call you talked about making it more of a lifestyle brand. can you please explain that to our audience who may not be as close to the apparel business as you are? >> we can all say that levi's is famous for jeans, for denim bottoms. as we've traveled around i can say i've seen firsthand, we've gone to more than 15 markets, that in many of these markets levi's is much more than that. the way we describe it is denim lifestyle. snaft, over the last decade under chip's leadership business like tops has more than doubled. we're just sort of at the beginning of what people think levi's can be as an apparel brand or what i say is a denim lifestyle brand. first you go to where you have the authority and people love you, which is around den ichl, head to toe denim. that's denim shirts, denim skirts, denim dresses and i would say as someone who's a woman a lot of things besides

jeans and today we're very underpenetrated in categories like denim skirts. that's just one example of how we really see that massive unlock to pivot the company from being known as jeans to being truly a denim apparel lifestyle company. >> chip, what you've been able to do to make it as michelle's talking about is be able to provide us with levi's wherever we want it to be, equity whether direct to consumer wholesale. one thing you've done there's five of them but this one sounds great. the house of strauss in mexico city. can the house of strauss be in every kind of cool city we want to go to? >> i don't know if we're going to put them in every single cool city, jim, but the house of strauss is a capability that we landed upon and we really leverage it for center of culture moments that we can turn into great pr activation. we were down at the house of strauss in mexico city when the giants were playing there back in april. it was an amazing activation.

we got hundreds of millions of impre impressions. we had the potential for a few more. we've got a new one that's going to open in paris ahead of the olympics next summer. and how the team act vafts around the house of stress. >> michelle, are there some areas you think are dramatically unpenetrated that can be terrific? a lot of people are discovering including you that india turns out to be insanely good once you're in the culture. it's very hard from 30,000 feet. but are you discovering india should be a central point to sell levi essence. >> absolutely, jim. the international opportunities for this brand and this business are incredible. like i said, we traveled the world this year, more than 15 markets. in markets like india it feels like we're relatively just getting started. it's a raefltly small business for us today. the brand is on fire.

it's a youthful population. that is one example of a market that has tremendous upside. we made three trips to asia this past year and in every market we went to whether it was the philippines or thailand or even japan, china, you name it, we're just scratching the surface. and not just asia but chip was just talking about mexico. that's another wig growth market. so that's one of my key priorities. it has been for both of us. but as we transition international expansion is going to be top of the list. as we think about our growth prospects going forward. >> what have you passed on to her in the last year that you're most proud of? >> i think probably -- you know, the board, if you step back and think about succession planning, the board was really, really insistent that whoever was growing to be my successor needed to come from inside. and i give her a lot of credit for the humility that it took,

the humility and the courage to join as a sitting ceo, to come in as company president to spend a year, you know, working for me and learning the company and the culture and everything else. but i think probably the biggest thing that was really important for michelle to understand was the culture and how we activate around our values. we are a company that has a long track record of not being afraid to take stands on important issues of the day, and michelle is wired the same way as i am and has worked for companies that are very, very activated as well. but it was important for her to kind of see it from the inside and how we operate that, how we work with the bored of directors on when we are going to take stands and kind of experience that firsthand before she's actually sitting in the chair. >> michelle, i want to talk to you about that because there's this whole new rise -- just talk

about the schein economy where i thought we got rid of them. i thought when chip took me to show how clothes are really made in dermz of being able to preserve the environment and keep dignity involved with the people who make the product, this new stuff seems to be like a throwback. can you stay on course that chip has put you on for the environment and for worker dignity? >> oh, 100%, jim. this is again something i knew about the company coming in. i've had a year to study all aspects of the business including our sustainability efforts, our values-based approach. i love for many years wove talked about driving profits through principles and i'm 100% signed up for that. this is a company that's been around for 170 years and challenges come and go but we've stood the test of time. could not be more.

>> give me what you want to do for, say, the first 100 days. what's most important? >> we talked about a couple, which is continue to accelerate our international growth. second, this enormous opportunity we have to grow categories but do it thoughtfully through the lens of denim and levi's. and then i'd say the biggest thing, jim, this transformation to operating this business as a wholesale denims bottoms business to truly an apparel lifestyle retailer and become a best in class omni channel retailer. we're already a retailer today. it's more than 40% of our business. we see that growing to 55% and beyond as we grow this company to 9 to 10 billion. and there's tremendous opportunity. we all get really excited because there's nothing like having that consumer right in the center and when you're in retail you get to interact with that customer every single day and understand what their needs are at. our great example is our go to

market. i think we both say today it's too long. our go to market, how we develop products is 12 to 15 months. it has to be a lot faster so we can be faster, more responsive, more efficient -- >> this whole -- if i -- this whole pivot to direct to consumer first, we have always been a wholesaler first company. and it is a key reason why michelle is absolutely the right person to take this company forward. she his almost 30 years of really deep retail experience. and we need to make this hard pivot now that we really are a retailer. 40% our revenues. we need to make the pivot to run the company as if we were a vertical retailer. and that's the skill set smooez she's going to bring that's going to help take this company to the next level. >> chip, you'll be missed. michelle, welcome. i don't want to say aboard because you've been there. but it sounds like you've got all the right plans. and i can't wait to talk to you

about the -- i don't know, how about 1 about levi's. thank you so much for coming from san francisco but really coming from levi's. great to see you guys. >> thanks, jim. >> "mad money" will be back right after this break. >> announcer: coming up, dress for the job you have? the workplace apparel player is looking spiffy after earnings. cramer's got the ceo, next. in t. but it's gross. there is no way we're landing. are you sure no one is watching? gwen mallard! do it now, or we leave without you. ok.

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now, this is a great story. as we approach the new year everyone wants to figure out what the economy's going to look like in 2024. we've heard it from federal reserve officials, in-house economists at major investment firms and of course we've heard

from countless strategists, many of whom were dead wrong about 2023. but rather than taking their top down approach i am much more of a bottoms up guy, meaning i like to focus on how individual companies are doing. especially companies with a great read on the most important areas of the economy. take cintas, which mainly sells or cents uniforms but also provides everything from mats to restaurant supplies. first aid, fire safety, that's a big one. the basics of what you need to fill the workplace. these guys have their finger on the pulse of the economy, especially the labor market. when cintas reported a smash quarter today this stock flew. they delivered a top and bottom line surprise, 9% organic growth. management raised full year sales and earnings forecasts pretty dramatically. no wonder the stock jumped more than 6% capping off a full year. let's take a closer look with todd schneider, president and ceo of sinnedas, to learn more about this quarter and the year. mr. schneider, welcome back to "mad money." >> jim, thanks for having me. it's a flaeshz to see you again. and you're right, we had a great

quarter. we grew our revenue by 9.3%. our gross margin percentage by 100 basis points. we grew our e.p.s. by 15.6%. we raised our guidance for the year on the top and bottom line. and we bought back $320 million worth of stock during the second quarter. and lastly our dividend december over december we raised it by 17.1%. we're really operating on all cylinders. and you're correct. we have a great view of how the customers are doing out there, how the economy is performing. what we see is we service everybody from the fortune 50, which would be a household name, to main street usa and everything in between including goods producing, services providing in every geography that's out there. in general our customer bases, they're solid and we're seeing really good results.

one of the reasons that's occurring is our value proposition is really attractive. how we help customers with image, safety, cleanliness and compliance. they're very strong. they're strong buying motives and the customer i think is resonating with that. >> people have to recognize that this is twofold. amazing retention. and the cross-sell. i cannot believe how many things you can put through. they may start with uniforms. but there's fire and safety. everyone needs fire and safety. it's incredible. but all the other ancillaries that come through. how are you able to get this pipe to be so big and so repeatedly filled? >> well, we can grow in many different ways. you mentioned our new business. our new business is really robust. our retention levels are really attractive. our cross-sales are going great. and keep in mind we service a little over a million customers but there are 16 million businesses in the u.s. and canada. so we have a really long runway.

now, our first aid and safety business and our fire division and by the way, the fire division is the only business that we're in where you legally have to have itas a business. so that's really attractive. but our first aid and safety division is benefiting significantly from cross-sell because we have so many customers in the rental division that allow us to cross-sell. a great example is this. the customers were really valuing this. as you know we provide aeds to our customers. a great example is our aeds that we have out in the marketplace, on average we save one life per week with the aeds that we provide. i don't know a higher value of going to work every single day than saving lives. so we're really proud of that. it's not hard to get up in the morning for our people to go to work. >> as you should be proud. you also go above and beyond and i don't necessarily think you

can make a lot of money initially. but clean rooms. you bmt uilt your own clean roo? >> yeah, we've been in the clean room business for many years, but we see additional capacity. we built a clean room in north carolina, a clean room in wisconsin to service geographies around that. and there are more and more companies every single year that have a clean room level of requirement of what their garments come back to them. whatever the particulate level is of how the cleaning requirement they have, that's what we're providing. we see the pharmaceutical industry. we see biotechnology. other companies, even the auto companies, aerospace all have that level of requirement of cleaning. and we see some reshoring going on in the pharmaceutical industry and we want to make sure we're in a great position to service those customers and meet those demands. >> at the same time benefits from lower commodity prices. you are seeing a little deflation in your system. >> yeah, we watch commodity

prices really closely. energy specifically we watch closely. for two reasons. one is they're great customers of ours. but the other item is it's an input cost to us. and we know energy markets go up and they go down. but here's what we know will be consistently approaching, is we want to mitigate the utilization that we have from an energy standpoint. so we have a group of partners that are six sigma black belts. we have data analytics people. we have engineer professionals. we also have i.t. professionals that all work collaboratively to give us transparency into what's going on on our routes and what's going on in our processing facilities to mitigate the demand we have for our energy, and ultimately we know again prices will go up and go down in energy but what won't change is our approach to mitigating our use for that energy. >> it's incredible how well you've done. of course the fed tightened and tightened and tightened, didn't hurt your business at all. and i know you're coming in hot

into the next year. i want to congratulate you. and buying back your stock turned out to be a pretty good investment too. thank you for getting the dividend above where it was before the pandemic. you've just done a lot of things right, todd, and i really appreciate you coming on the show. >> jim thanks so much for having me. happy holidays and you to your family. >> same to you. that's todd schneider, president and ceo of cintas, long one of my favorite companies. "mad money's" back after the break. >> announcer: coming up, cramer takes your calls, and the sky's the limit. it's a fast-fire "lightning round." next.

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it is time! it's time for the "lightning round" on cramer's "mad money." rapid-fire calls -- buy buy buy, sell sell sell -- play until this sound. and then the "lightning round" is over. are you ready skee-daddy? time for the "lightning round" on cramer's "mad money." start with ryan in ohio. ryan! >> caller: jimmy chill, hey, brother. >> how are you doing, partner? >> caller: i'm great. thank you so much. last week was off the charts with charlie garner, took the hint, time to get some oil. what are your thoughts on occidental? >> not bad. warren buffett looks like it. i still prefer coterra because i want that optionality of natural gas which is so low right now. let's go to john in maryland. john. >> caller: hey, jim. first off merry christmas and happy new year. >> thank you. same to you. >> caller: sure. i need your thoughts on sofi. i got in at $7, and it's been a roller coaster ride. it seems like wall street doesn't know how to valuate this business, whether it's a bank or

a fintech stock. do i take the profit or ride it o out? >> john, you have correctly identified the biggest problem. people don't know which one it is. i say it's a company run by anthony noto that has been bringing in people and depositors and doing a great job by offering a terrific service, and that is a money good thing no matter what business it's in, which is why i've been recommending it for so long. let's go to john in kentucky. john! >> caller: boo-yah, jim! i've got a question about an energy stock. eqt. it's a gas company in utica and the marcelus -- >> john, you got this totally right. he finds the oil and gas where it should be. i think it's even more natural gas. i think it's an absolutely terrific company. jeff marks and i are trying to figure out how to add another oil or natural gas company. eqt is a winner. tom in virginia. >> caller: boo-yah, cramer. >> boo-yah. >> caller: your guidance has been making my account look

pretty. right now i'm evaluating a fast-growing fintech company based in brazil and it's expanding to other latin american countries. provides banking services. highly scalable business model. management execution is excellent. last quarter it beat on both the expected revenues profits. >> right. >> the stock price has react bid doubling near to date, though. >> okay. >> caller: my stock is nuholding. >> it's a winner. i would like to take nu. and let me throw in banco santander. san. this can be a two-fer for joining the thshow. and that, ladies and gentlemen, is the conclusion of the lrng! "lightning round"! >> announcer: coming up, 10 things i hate about you. cramer takes aim at the year

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why did so many money managers get it wrong in 2023? i blame it on orthodoxy and momentum. but really you'd be surprised how easy it is to get a whole

year wrong, especially when it involves a major pivot. remember in the spring we had old-fashioned bank runs when we discovered some regional players had put too much money in long duration bonds that were holding to maturity? that's fine in normal times. but the value of those bonds got crushed by the fed. and then in some cases they had to be sold to pay off fleeing depositors. that's what happened to silicon valley bank. the money just flew out through what felt like a twitter-led bank run. in response we saw a sharp decline in every bank stock aside from the few obvious bastions of safety like jpmorgan and equally sharp move into what i call the nation state stocks. huge companies with great balance sheets that simply don't need to borrow any money. those became the magnificent seven. almost nobody saw the bank runs coming so i don't blame anyone for being wrong in march. second, even though the bears didn't call the bank run it made them feel like they were ripe for being negative. so what did they do? they dug in their heels. sages like mike wilson, who'd be

dead right in 2022, turned out to be dead wrong in 2023. it's an old as the hills problem, not switching directions after a long period of being negative and being right. the ranks of trat jifts v jifts are littered with dogmatic thinkers who refuse to change their sxhiends ultimately made themselves look like fools. third factor in getting 2023 wrong very few people believed jay powell could effectively pivot taking rates just high enough to be able to beat inflation without ruining the economy. fourth, long-term interest rates soared over the summer in large part thanks to a poorly arranged bond issuance schedule. at one point long rates looked like they were headed for 6%. then the bond issuance schedule got updated and long rates quickly went to 4% and change. an extremely bullish development almost nobody saw coming. fifth the dangerous world warned by jamie dimon, the ceo of jpmorgan, did not appear to be a good reason to sell stocks. dimon was right it's a dangerous

world, no doubt but the stock market only cares about earnings and those weren't threatened. sixth just when techs seemed to be rolling over generative ai burst on the scene and changed everything. turned tech from a pariah into a golden child that could do no long while allowing nvidia to join the trillionaire club. seventh the fed mostly managed to tame inflation and while it can roar back right now jay powell has left himself enough room to delay rate cuts if he has top eighth i always tell you not to listen to billionaires when it comes to money management because the super rich are super risk averse. this year was a perfect example. they love to come on tv and preach endless negativity scaring many out of the market because we assume anyone that's wealthy must know what they're talking about. they do actually know what they're talking about but their advice is useless unless you happen to have a similar net worth. ninth the bears didn't pay attention to individual stocks. they're all about the s&p 500. so they missed a lot of what was going right at the company level. finally they got it wrong because bear markets tend not to last all that long. they come to an end and once

everyone's capitulated like they did in october we get the next generation of bulls. it's a time-honored tradition. i didn't enjoy the experience but it got us here. just don't forget how it happened. i like to say there's 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. sesee e u u yoyonext time. right now on last call, an exclusive with the billionaire joining us with his pulse on the red-hot consumer and more. battery production . reports sounded an alarm four teslas cyber truck. one major member on the exit. just so it. nike dumping shares right now. new numbers on who is owning a huge chunk of america's wealth and a big weekend looms for the nfl pick we will hear from bruce on the

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