>> westrock. if it goes through, the largest global packaging company. >> guy? >> nick actually messaged me, he wants to come on and do an acronym. pru. >> it's something like win, or, you know. thank you for watching "fast money." see you tomorrow at 5:00. don't go my mission is simple. to make you money. i'm here to level the playing field for all investors. there is always a bull market somewhere. i promise to help you find it. mad money starts now. >> hey. i am cramer. welcome. i'm just trying to make a little money. my job is to entertain and educate. call 1-800-743-cnbc.

anything positive was always met with the negative. enable was quickly met by sellers who took advantage of the aggressive ones to sell and buy at a higher price. the dow moved 171 points. it is rising effortlessly. it has been 24 years. 24 years. analyst recommendations have such a giant impact on the stock market. it is not that they are persuaded on what they had to say. we are seeing moves on pedestrian recommendations. those are about the institutions holding back from selling stock or the sellers simply are not being aggressive.

maybe they sold everything. there is no more stock to go. i mentioned 24 years ago because you have to go to the.com bubble to see such a big move. those drums occurred because they were reluctant to sell. you sense that every time someone said something good and constructive, a stock would attract new buyers. quite be aggressive? that is what is happening now. it is augmented by puppies that have spent years buying back and shrinking the supply of their stocks. here is what we will do. let me give you some examples of what is happening just in today's market. they published a piece on meta- platforms. man. what a barn burner. they talked about three positives.

it might be worth more than people think. in this push, just this. meta-stock jumped 13 points. why is this so astounding? none of this is new. i have been recommended meta for ages. when you get one of these , you find yourself in disbelief that a stock can go so far on this modest push. it is not because the buyers are more enthusiastic. it is because the sellers are not popping up like they used to. they are done or have little stock left to sell. the 2020 for outlook -- rising demand to meet rising threat. what is driving this?

there is an empty seat. this is not a new thesis. it is not like the bitcoin thing. it is not like, wow. i can't believe it. what are they telling you to buy? palo alto network and ford net, which the analyst describes as the three horsemen. put this aside for a moment. there were actually four horsemen. maybe they should have gone with three amigos. let's focus on the fact that hardly a day goes by without this. i think fortnite is a broken down mare. how many times have i told you

about these two horsemen? and how are they doing? if you go to the investing club, you are probably sick of hearing me make the same arguments that sent the stock soaring. they are old hat. how about home depot? there is the spike in interest rates. they are in the rearview mirror. now, rates have come down. the infection is in sight. inflection. is there anything better than inflection? maybe a pivot? this recap of why home depot is worth owning caused its stock to raise 3%. how about collateral improvement? it goes up three bucks.

what is good for the home depot goose is good for the home depot gander. and salesforce.com. they call this a good eps growth compounder. really? an accelerating topline story. wow. this was so powerful that one fortune came out about salesforce, they stopped for a minute and came back as if nothing happened. there is nothing really market moving about any of it. yet they somehow struck a chord and cost sellers to step aside. now, i don't want to focus on amazon. it capital to -- catapulted higher. it is not doing poorly. they figured out what is not working and what is working. microsoft may be in -- investing in interesting technology.

i thought maybe we had a twofer, but only microsoft busted off with a little less than 2%. they had the 3% dividend boost. the stock went up 3.5% for lennar. oh, and let's not forget that an eight -- nvidia -- yeah, it's stock flew 12 bucks to another new hyde. perhaps it is from the halo that it got from being a star of both jpmorgan's healthcare conference and the electronics show. i know. i can be a little cynical. that's all the better. i need you to understand that these recommendations have power

in this market. at the moment there doesn't seem to be anything like what we would call resistance. there is nothing stopping these stocks from going higher. have you noticed if you don't really care about what people say anymore. it could be the market moving. finally, we get earnings. earnings season has proved sellers. we don't have long to find out if we are at one of the ends of one of these halcion periods. but you can move up pretty much every stock in positive dimensions. it is a rare moment. enjoy it while it lasts. john in new york. >> jim, thanks for taking my call. i'm interested in the obesity market. i was calling about weight watchers. they bought a company called sequence, which is a telehealth platform.

how will this affect not just weight watchers but all the companies looking to get into that market? >> it won't matter that much, frankly. i think that announcement was about not using this for vanity purposes. w has been hurt because you don't need that . also in new york, robert. >> i wanted to say happy new year's to you. jim, you have saved me money -- at the end of the year, if you recall, he told us, take money out of certain stocks. boeing. you saved me 25%. i had the best new year's because of you. if you listen to you, you steer us with a steady hand. >> thank you, buddy. i feel like buying you a beer come if i drink you beer.

>> they should put you in the treasury department should be that head of the federal reserve. >> i like the mint money department. >> i need to, but you are really good at this. >> now that interest has moved up and has a target from $39.72, you have profit margins going higher because you are spending less on gas with the amazon thing. you would think it is time to lighten up. >> i think pinterest understands how to monetize. we need new names besides amazon and alphabet. we have this already. of course, facebook. we want more names. we really do. let's go to tosh in pennsylvania. >> hi, jim. how are you? >> i'm good.

are you a birds fan? >> go birds. >> what's happening? >> my question is about the stopping down in 2023. down 10% for the year. do you think now is a good time to enter? >> you have managed to dodge a really big bullet because it went down. people have to borrow money. i would say stay away from that one right now. listen to me. it has been a long time since i saw modes like this where analyst conditions have such a big impact. this might be one of the biggest stories you never heard of. it is about cencora. could they be a powerhouse in the industry? that's coming up. and with the action, i will give you a preview of what he could expect for the reports.

they reach more patients than any med company in the world. how is it innovating to empower doctors and nurses with its products? i'm sitting down with the company stock branch. so stay with cramer. >> follow @jimcramer on x. give us a call at 1-800-743- cnbc. miss something? head to madmoney.cnbc.com.

i think he's having a midlife crisis i'm not. you got us t-mobile home internet lite. after a week of streaming they knocked us down... ...to dial up speeds. like from the 90s. great times. all i can do say is that my life is pre--

i like watching the puddles gather rain. -hey, your mom and i procreated to that song. oh, ew! i think you've said enough. why don't we just switch to xfinity like everyone else? then you would know what year it was. i know what year it is. spoke on to talk to you about the biggest company you've

never heard of. that is cencora. it is the new name for amerisourcebergen. most pharma companies use these partners. they can expand the reach of their sales while solving supply-chain issues. this one has been a fabulous long-term performer. can it keep running? we checked in with steven collis, the ceo and president of cencora. >> you are the head of cencora. why did he change the name? >> it is a terrific global brand. this is a generational change. we think this name will be enduring. we want to be at the center of healthcare. we are a purpose driven company. nothing could evoke that more

than a strong global brand, which is part of the business strategy of cencora, which is our strong presence on the distribution and manufacturing side of pharmaceutical healthcare. >> your revenues are incredible. you are a top 15 company in the world. >> so we had about $262 billion in revenue last year's. it is pretty awesome. we made 3.3 billion in operating income. i'm very proud of those numbers independently. taken together, it is illustrative of how efficient we have to be, how we manage the working capital so well. we do a wonderful job with that. >> i want you to tell people where cencora is in the pharmaceutical value chain. >> we buy the product. we have warehouses throughout the world. several hundred of them, actually. we ship them to providers. in the u.s., we have the most

broad range of providers, including hospitals, pharmacies, cancer centers. walgreens. from c's, large and small. mail order from cisse. skilled nursing facilities. anyone that uses a prescription. and then we do a lot of services for them. and then we think about the upstream customer. what can we do with them? what therapeutic areas? if they are in the specialty with innovative therapies, how do we help them bring products to market? how do we help them manage the product lifestyle? so we believe we think we have a consulting expertise in that. we tend to her that. >> that means you have got to be involved with the process. >> e.r. it's an example of the innovation that our industry brings. we are interested to see how this plays out. it is refrigerated product.

there will possibly be variations, but we think it is a good illustration of what pharmacists role can be. there are a lot of diagnoses ease and side effects. i think the pharmacist can play a role. that is what cencora tries to help with. >> someone asked me, what does amerisourcebergen do? i said it is a stock that goes up. someone said, why? and i said because you have a 10% earnings percentage. how are you so confident? >> we benefit from innovation. our industry does grow. a lot of the work that we do is before rebates and complexities with pharma pricing. one .3% operating income, we provide a lot of value. that includes a lot of the higher-margin businesses we are in. i think the benefit in

shareholding as we have strong cash flow. and we deployed that very thoughtfully. so last year, we did about 2 billion in acquisitions. we did one .2 billion in share repurchases. 500 billion in capital investments, and those capital investments are highly scrutinized and really help efficiency in the technology and the security and the advanced aspects of everything we do. >> at the same time, you are trying to keep the cost down in the system. >> absolutely. we think that biosiilars are huge innovations. we believe they are important for the entire enterprise grade it creates headroom for innovative therapies that are guided by synergy therapy. it allows room for this buttocks to be introduced. >> for your neighborhood from sea to get these dose there are 4000 of them.

it is almost impossible. without you, i don't think mine could get it. >> i think our industry provides valuable services to the pharmacies, including helping them with third-party reimbursement, which is so complex. we give them some of the attributes of a larger chain while retaining the value. we play a critical role for independent from c's. it is quite remarkable when you consider the competitive environment they have. >> it is hard for them to maintain the staff. it is very difficult. you are their best ally. >> i believe we are. i believe we have been for a long time. we will continue to do that in the future. we want to do similar services for community veterinarians and oncologists. special medications. these are core practices for us.

we can play a helpful role. >> you have the best robust data set. when you hear that, we should be thinking ai. >> it is definitely something. it is incumbent on us to use any productivity tool. this is all of those, to give better service. i talked about our world business. they track shipments using ai and machine learning. we can give the manufacturers up-to-date reports on where their parks are around the world and what the temperatures are. those are the things. the data set we have is robust and really worthwhile. and we want to keep on seeing how we can improve the services that we give to the providers and manufacturers. i think it gives us an incredible opportunity. >> how can you have that inventory and not screwed up? >> that is another opportunity for ai. i think we can do an even

better job. we want to keep on making sure that all of those productivity tools are used to improve the efficiency we provide. >> thank you for being one of the big companies in our town. we need more. >> we want to do our share. >> steven collis is the chairman and ceo of cencora. it is formally amerisourcebergen. i like the new name, cencora. it spans the world. thank you, steve. coming up, and earnings parade is marching down the block. be ready for friday. stick with cramer.

♪ unnecessary action hero! ♪ -missing punches? -unnecessary! -check reversals? -unnecessary! -time sheet corrections? -unnecessary! -unentered sick time? -unnecessary! -go! -unnecessary! -go! -unnecessary! -when you can take this phone, you'll be ready. -make the unnecessary, unnecessary. let your employees do their own payroll. earning system officially kicks off on friday morning, this time with all four of the big thanks. j.p. morgan chase, and wells fargo.

i'm going to get your for this blitz because the banks set the tone for the earnings season itself because they touched so many parts of the economy. most big-money centers came out smelling like roses. these were the safest places to deposit your money in a world where we had actual bankruptcies. j.p. morgan finished the year with 27%. wells fargo had 1920%. it was only bank of america that it poorly at one .7%. it had a large balance of unrealized losses from bond investments. that happened because the fed was aggressive. there were no solvency issues at bank of america. the rates have been coming down for months. it is no longer a problem. the valuations are all over the place. i like to look at what the institution will be worth if you manipulated the entire thing overnight. it is a good apples to apples

would look at it. they deserve a premium. that is getting up there. they traded one point for and one .3% values respectively. there is something very wrong about anything that cheap. it raises eyebrows. from a different perspective, they saw from earlier that it is well-liked but not beloved. i don't see many analysts scrambling for it.f america? for a while, this is why we considered this the second best money center at this point, bank of america

has been what we call it show me story. they need to put up a few good quarters in the road so we can get excited again. there is an excellent digital banking platform, underappreciated banking. very good management. for me, the most surprising thing is all the love we are seeing for citi which is really to 39% from its lows in october. they are coming out of restructuring efforts in september. in september, they said they would limit certain management layers and cut a number of jobs. by now, they have enacted multiple rounds of layoffs. the cost cuts will finally let citi deliver some real earnings. i don't know. will there be growth from that? questionable. this is the only major bank that is expected to grow earnings in 2024. that is up 5.2%. they think everyone else will experience declines. i hope citi can make a comeback, but i will believe it

when i see it. i'm excited about the real turn at wells fargo. they quoted not one but two separate downgrades. you know what, i couldn't disagree with the more. they are focused on cutting costs and improving technology. the dividend buybacks get better. they have more leeway. i think wells fargo is out of favor here. that gives you an opportunity. the ceo is on a mission to cut costs and boost revenue. he will succeed. what will we be watching from friday? the true key metrics here are net interest income, ii . that shows what they are making, and how they lend money at harrods. i want to know what management thinks about high achieving interest rates and how they will impact their bottom line.

second, we have the outlook on consumer and corporate credit. are they doing okay? many banks took losses during the pandemic. in 2022, they did it again. the actual losses didn't happen. last year, the banks reversed those credit charges. if credit quality remains robust, we could see more charge reversals, meaning the investments might be too low. if you have comments about credit quality, stocks could get hurt. third, i will be listening for any other commentary about the financial health of the consumer. it is a resilient labor market. most of these big banks are large credit card issuers. they can tell us about deposit

balances, loan demand, core spending. i will be watching this stuff closely because it is a great way to take the pulse of the consumer. it is a big deal for work and stanley and goldman sachs. i will be listening for commentary on the banking operations. there is optimism about recovery for businesses this year thanks to a resurgent ipo market and billions of dollars of bond issuances. we have seen a pickup in mna. this could allow the financials for us to get excellent performances this year. let me give you the bottom line about the banks. if you believe, as i do that the economy is in for a soft landing, then the banks should be earning right now. let's see what happens when the four big-money centers report on friday. why don't we take calls? tim and jordan. >> hey, jim. thank you for taking my call.

>> my pleasure. what's going on? >> i have been invested in so five for a couple of years now. i have a 650 share average. my investment strategy is simple. look for good companies with significant growth potential, excellent ceos. my question is related to evaluation. with cap probabilities, how do you think the market will evaluate sofi? >> excellent concerns. congratulations on having such a good basis on sofi. this will be the year that we stop thinking about how many people sign up and start thinking about how much they are making. you're right. i think at eight dollars, this is one of the cheapest banking stocks that has not been tapped. how about charlie in pennsylvania. >> it's an honor to be on your show.

i have been thinking about this for years. these are quite popular right now. there is a dividend. i'm thinking about a regional bank here. the community bank systems. >> holy cow. i like your choice. it is going to do very well. lower rate environment. good call. good call, my friend. if you believe that interest rates peak, then the bank should be worth owning right now. let's going to see what will happen. how are they using ai to streamline its business? i will get the latest. and then i go to san francisco with some of the ceos and healthcare.

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spoke while we were at the j.p. morgan conference, we checked in with a company known for its medication delivery systems, becton dickinson. becton dickinson has 90% of hospital patient having touched their products. we will get a better sense of where his company is headed.

let's take a look. >> tom, people know your company's name, but they may not know that for 3000 products in 190 countries, 38 billion medical devices last year. how is that possible? >> we are a company that pretty much everyone has experienced our products. 90% of anyone who goes into a hospital will be touched by a bd product. if you had to undergo chemotherapy. you're very likely to have been touched by a bd product. >> so if i get a syringe, that is yours, too. >> you also made your company, from production manufacturing,

best in class. you have to worry about security in the supply chain. you are integral to the covid fight. >> we were one of the first two companies in the world to develop a covid flexen. we make a little over 10 billion searches per year to deliver vaccines. we made an extra 2 billion syringes the year that the vaccine was created so we could help vaccinate the world. >> in you make those in the united states. >> connecticut and nebraska. >> so you are a huge employer in our country. you are still going very strong. >> train is a great business for us. we do most of our manufacturing in china for china. that is to help educate the chinese healthcare system to educate it. >>the companies that are

favored by the chinese government are doing what you are doing. there are the companies that export from cpi and companies that help the chinese. >> and that is what we have been doing, improving healthcare for patients around the world. that is her focus, advancing up. >> i've noticed when you are doing things, you are doing ai to identify bacteria, but ai for narcotics abuse? how does that work? >> hospitals have quite a bit of narcotics and unfortunately, healthcare workers can have a higher narcotics abuse rate than the general publishing because it is widely available. because we have software that is in these rooms, we can identify when someone could be diverting narcotics and abusing them. we could get this healthcare clinicians help and we can make sure that we don't have someone that is under -- administering care to patients. >> how is someone involved in diagnosing infectious diseases and identifying bacteria, how do you pick what you are focused on? >> we are focused on a few specific areas. one is diagnosing disease,

administering medications, and delivering care for chronic disease. we are focused on doing those things. >> and you have done some portfolio changes, too, to make it so you have some goals for 2025. you had to systematically change the portfolio to get to these goals. >> we have been moving bd into higher growth spaces. we spun out and created one of the largest pure plate diabetes businesses in the world. we recently sold off our surgery products business. we are focused on is moving into high-growth spaces. three spaces. one is utilizing robotics and ai to transform the future of healthcare. we are doing laboratory automation. >> that is doing things that would normally be humdrum. that is the stuff that we want ai to do so it frees people up.

>> think about pharmacists. heavy education to become a pharmacist. they don't go to school to count bills. >> i see them do that all the time. >> we have robotics. we have $700 million open x business that does that with low error rate. we help deliver vaccines and o bonus checks. we do the same thing in the laboratory. we do the same thing for nursing efficiency. we are really excited about where that is heading. the other area we are focused on is to countries that move care to new settings. care is moving into the home. as you think about things like the new weight loss drugs, people will be injecting litigations at home. there are new alzheimer's drugs. they are going to be -- some of them require confusion. there will be wearable and teasers so people can do that in the comfort of their home by themselves. we will continue to bring those

technologies to market. >> can you make prefilled syringes? >> we are the world leader of that by a large margin. as we think about gop1s, they are in our syringes. >> i'm very public about aimovig, but nothing happens. >> we are happy to hear that. i-i think what you are working on, this is one of the revolutionary things. this is new for you. >> so alaris is our pump platform. we are really excited about it.

>> so cybersecurity, i remember watching 24 where they figured out how to crack it and make it so that someone was in the pacemaker. you make it so someone can't happen. >> we spend a lot of time making sure that doesn't happen. we higher read hackers to try to hack into our products, identify where there could be risks, and we close it out and address it. we are constantly working on it. >> i'm glad somebody is. >> we have teams that do that. >> that is thomas polen from becton dickinson. we will be right back. >> coming up, pop open those umbrellas and t up your toughest questions. cramer takes on all comers in the lightning round. next.

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>> lightning round is brought to you by charles schwab. trade brilliantly. >> it is rapidfire. are you ready? frank in new jersey. frank. i-i love the show. i'm a new club member. i-i have a question about lithium stock. >> i have to tell you, let's take a pass on that one. elon musk does not like lithium companies. i don't want to go against him.

i've learned that much in my life. rebecca. >> hi. it is a pleasure talking with you. should i sell? i have devon energy. >> we cannot on a commodity stock where the commodity is in glut. let's go to tim in florida. 10. >> jim, thank you for taking my call. hello to you from florida. >> absolutely. september of last year, you recommended to buy some symbotica. a couple weeks ago, i pulled the trigger. i bought a position on the

stock. because of the volatility, i was wondering what your outlook was for cymbiotika for 2024. >> i like real ai. i like ai that can make a company money, not ai that is a press release and the use it for supply chain. i like that. let's go to rick in mississippi. rick. >> how are you? >> i'm well. how are you, rick? >> doing well, man. i'm thinking that my stock might be my favorite mid cap of 2024. would you think of pure storage? >> they are up and down. they put the numbers away or they don't do the numbers. you can buy it, but that is too difficult for me to navigate. let's go to nick in california. nick. >> professor cramer , i'm in

san francisco, california. >> i was there yesterday. should've dropped by. >> thanks for speaking to us young investors. it doesn't go unnoticed. you mentioned my thoughts last thursday in the morning. i couldn't be more appreciative. it is a bigger exploration. i'm on the edge of my seat. what is your outlook on it? >> what was that one? >> pology. -- apache. no one has forgiven them again. i am not recommending them right now. you know, we are not done. let's go to mauricio in

maryland. >> hi. i've been watching your show since 2006. >> holy cow. thank you. >> they did research. they have leverage. >> okay. >> is it time to buy more? >> it is way too controversial for me. this is a battleground between longs and shorts. and that is the conclusion of the lightning round. >> the lightning round is sponsored by charles schwab. go deeper with thinkorswim: our award-wining trading platforms.

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>> i guess every form a company needs a weight loss and diabetes drug. that was my take away from the jp morgan conference. they are designed to reduce weight. they have something to control diabetes were prevented entirely. sometimes you have to keep it simple, stupid. i didn't get to talk about this, but i got to speak with the ceo of eli lilly.

nobody in america comes close to them in that category. they have scale. they're putting up plants here and in europe. these plants are incredibly complex. they cost a fortune and they have to be perfect. no mistakes. it is a huge task. they pay two-point $7 billion to buy the plant. they have something similar. it requires more injections. i think lily remains the way to go. having factories is what matters. even ancillary situations will work. due to the standard of care for diabetes, which in part is noninvasive -- wrong call.

it is more complementary. people use the device with the gop1. they could get too frail to stay on them without supplements. there are other factors, too. the gop1s are expensive. the insurance companies could pay, but the decision was made on a state-by-state basis. employers may or may not choose to cover them. i doubt they would be willing to pay up until there is evidence that it can reduce heart disease and prevent fatalities in a major way. i know after covid it seems odd that we hold back on paying for them, given how many people die from comorbidities to obesity. there are studies that they

just don't have right now. and right now, if drug companies don't lower the cost, it will crush the healthcare system. we don't know how many people stay on them, given how self injection is disliked in this country. there is also a food and alcohol week. that's with the gop1s. takes away your craving for the fun stuff of life, snacks, drinks, great steak. nothing tastes good ever again. you put the weight back on when you stop taking it. we saw a downturn in food stocks. it would crush the industry. mike at j.p. morgan had some insights. he talks about what people are buying less of. meet snacks, nuts, popcorn, crackers, chips.

it is certainly something worth watching. when it comes to glp-1 drugs, it is all convoluted. take the extremely obvious eli lilly. they are the winner and the champion. thank you for joining us here on right now, last call, bitcoin epf approved. we have comments from the be gco. boeing field making a stunning admission. will be enough to win back investors? one stop to rule them all. one strategist says there is one name you got to own. a crucial inflation report out tomorrow will play right into your hands. why amazon may be prime to be the king of yet another business. hurts selling teslas at cut rate prices, why