>> i'm jim cramer. welcome to my world. you need to get into the game. these firms are going to go out of business. and he's nuts. they're nuts. he's nuts. they know nothing! i always like to say there's a bull market somewhere. and i promise -- "mad money" you can't afford to miss it. hey, i'm cramer. welcome to "mad money." welcome to cramerica. other people want to make friends, not interested in that. trying to make you money. throw in a little entertainment. call me at 1-800-743-cnbc. tomorrow's papers, it won't look like much. nine-point gain in the dow, fractional inch up in the s&p, but those papers are lying. they're masking one of the wildest days we've had in ages around here, one where we saw an intraday 112-point dow swing,

bottom to top which leads me to ask you a simple question -- were you ready for this market's intraday red tag sale? were you ready for a buy one, get one moment coupon cents off at the cash register? today reminds us that when the bull market store throws a couple-hours-long sale, we've got to get our shopping list ready. through the cacophony of earnings season we look for the broader themes all the time on "mad money" that allows us to buy when the market is down, just like we had intraday today. these themes arrived at from the distillation of all the conference calls i tell you to listen to tell us where to steer our shopping carts. what aisles have the best bargains, best discounts put on because of extraneous stuff because of like wall street and goldman sachs -- aren't you sick of the goldman sachs story yet? i am. or the one of spain, greece, portugal or any

of the countries that have better food than we do. you may have missed the sale today, but that's okay. the bears and the scaredy cats, do we have one of those? yeah. they will throw us another one of these sales sometime real soon. hey, maybe even tomorrow. if it looks to be disappointing microsoft and amazon earnings so listen up and listen good! because after tonight's show, you will know which merchandise is worth picking up when everyone is marking down every stock, regardless of whether it deserves to be sold or not. so what are the big overarching themes we've seen so far this earnings season? much more important than individual numbers? i've got them. i've got five of them. i want you to get out a piece of paper while i walk over to the desk here and write these down because the earnings season is still young and we have plenty of selloffs ahead that we've got to be ready for. first off, there's the market's love affair with explosive growth! it's so palpable that stocks can rally 10, 12 points in a day. hey, usually you don't see those

gains unless you get a takeover. ♪ hallelujah >> take apple. it's the greatest growth stock i've ever seen in my whole life. it's got the ipod, it's got the iphone, it's got the ipad. the stock was off badly today because verizon didn't mention on its conference call it would be selling iphones. whoa, scary. but later on, word seeped out that verizon is ready when apple is ready and the stock took off to new highs. you know i still think there's plenty of room to run for am and i've been mr. apple. as a matter of fact some people call me mr. apple -- well, not really. you caught a ten-point move from bottom to top in apple today, and i don't want you missing the next one, which could happen tomorrow. can you imagine how huge apple sales will be when it can tap into verizon's 92.8 million customers? i mean, can you hear me now, apple? that is supercalifragilisticexpialidocio growth.

doci docio dociousalifragilidtw -- okay, get this. i've seen the latest fashion statement and i'm not kidding you. kids, i'm not kidding. kids are wearing i pads around their necks like bling. i'm not kidding. ipad bling. what else is growing like a wing and being bought up like apple. let's get some more. people are grabbing up endless fame cramer's favorite chipotle is a great growth story. terrific new blueprint for smaller stores in the u.s. people like tasty food that doesn't give them added advantage. this is tasty food that doesn't give you a heart attack. hey, not bad, huh? that's why this stock, which reported a monster quarter last night could go up 18 points in one day. 18 points and it wasn't with a takeover? hey, how about netflix, all right? that has off the charts growth. 35% year over year subscriber growth. and the quarter reported last night which is such a big deal versus every other subscriber business model

that i follow out there. it is a wonder it ever traded down. it dropped seven points right after it reported. i always tell you not to trade off of headlines. i think it was the short sellers and scaredy cats seriously misjudging the importance of netflix's growth. and now they're paying for it. get this -- from last night's close until today, netflix rallied 26%. $79.63 to 1$125. that was a lifetime move. that is a lifetime move. are you in? an incredible reward for an incredible growth! these stocks, chipotle, netflix, apple. they all show us that the market is still worshiping at the altar of growth providing it is super high growth for which there is no price they won't pay. you need to have one of these stocks. i'm telling you you've got to have one just to stay in the game. second theme is aerospace. i've said this for 25 points, but that's okay. i've seen boeing double and double again during these

multiyear seven-year cycles. we're seeing united technologies shot the lights when it reported yesterday too. boeing is up huge. buyers don't care. they wanted it at all costs. i think this is the breakout quarter as both of these stocks confirm. there's plenty of ways to play the aerospace cycle in case you missed it. s the spirit, goodrich. beav is the symbol there. the number three, banking revenue growth. that's right, revenue growth. this market is willing to pay up for banks that can grow revenues. investors can not get enough of citigroup which grew overall revenues of 25.5 billion. as its securities and banking services more than doubled and experienced major international revenue growth. virtually every other bank in the u.s. is only in the u.s. citigroup is not constrained by the limbs of our country. more than half of its revenues came from other countries. pnc and huntington bank both up

big, thanks again, revenue growth, we don't just want better credit, we want actual growth, and these three have it, which is why they have run so much and belong on our shopping list for the next time the market gets downs. hey, by the way, hunting ton, i don't want you to chase -- by citigroup at $4.89. mouth watering. existing home sales going new march. you better believe housing is coming back. total supply of homes declining. standard pacific, spf, you know we like that. 40% is buying land. precursor to growth because you don't buy land and build houses unless you can sell them. that's the sign we've been waiting for. house prices appreciation is now at last here. on one of its most recent conference calls they talked about the markets were up an average of 40%. couples were able to get fabulous deals in virginia. spf, perfect play on housing. we also like what goes into

housing. pier one, sherwin williams, not to mention sears, whirlpool, stanley, black and decker. appliances are on fire here. anything that goes into a home. anybody that sells it, tjx, bed bath & beyond, smoking. and finally, home number five, and this is a new one for the show, hotels. marriott reported a fabulous quarter today, beating the street's consensus by two cents a share. on the conference call, marriott talked about how the recovery is happening faster than expected. corporate travel room nights up 16% year over year. business strengthening, uk, europe, asia, starwood symbol hot. another great hotel chain reports next week. i expect good things. our favorite play, winn for its growth potential. newly launched encore. if you bought winn at its low today, you made $5.72.

7% gain. better than a sharp stick in the eye. here's the bottom line. the next time we get a pullback like we got today, and i think we'll get one tomorrow because of amazon and microsoft. i want you to remember this shopping list of big themes so you can buy on weakness. ultra fast growers, aerospace, banks but only with revenue growth, the return to housing growth and house price appreciation, and hotels. try to catch some of these intraday sales in this red hot market. they're pretty much the only sales that ever get through. virginia and illinois which is a combination of states. >> caller: boo-yah from the windy city. how are you? >> great to have you on the show. thanks for coming on. how can i help? >> caller: i'm confused with garmin, can they compete with the palms or are they just another one waiting to happen? >> i don't want to call it another palm, because it does have this really terrific very interesting aerospace business that palm doesn't have. palm has got a lot of commodity against apple which is impossible to compete with.

but garmon is not an up stock. let's go to david in florida. >> caller: boo-yah, jimmy. first time long time. >> good to have you on, sunshine. >> caller: hey, i own flex, f-l-e-x, flextronics. lately the stock has been lagging. my question is, should i buy more flex ahead of the earnings? >> the answer is yes. the answer is yes. selestica is moving up too. this whole group is moving. they're one of the first to start moving up. it's now starting to lag. that's okay. i think it plays catch-up. okay, remember the overarching themes. ultra fast cars. i want you to think apple, chipotle, netflix, banking revenue growth stories, housing growth, unbelievable hotels. who would have thunk it? "mad money" will be right back. >> coming up, headlines can be deceiving. cramer is looking at what they really mean to your portfolio on an all new "sell block."

could increased steel demand put profits in your portfolio. new answers from nucor. going green, a trend or great investment? it's no longer just solar and wind but checking in to see if hewlett-packard's greener pastures could lead to pack forward.

♪ don't want a nation that drives the new medium ♪ >> i got your back here. sometimes it seems like there's no rhyme or reason. the market seems to be downright insane. it feels like an idiot

significant signifying nothing. it makes you want to pull out your money out of the market and stick it in bonds or cds, right? because even if you don't get a fabulous return, at least you don't feel like you're losing your mind. having lost my mind multiple times in the last decades, i'm not going to let that happen to you. i'm going to explain it to you. that's what happened to coca-cola, ko, two days ago when the company reported its first quarter results. coke earned 80 cents per share. its earnings were up 19% over the previous year. big earnings beat, right? monster growth. and what happens? coke was down 1.5%. on a day when the s&p was up 0.8%. hey, the stock was down huge. coke was down huge versus the averages. they did a phenomenal quarter, right? i mean, that's what the headline said. how does that decline make any sense?

or was the market simply wrong? that's what we're explaining tonight in the certainly "sell block" block" edition. at first our initial reaction was coke was being dinged for its weak north american business. maybe it was weak sales. who cares about that. we like coke for its international growth, along with that juicy dividend. and strong earnings means it can return cash to shareholders through the dividend. then we got to wondering, why was coke down, despite the stellar numbers when yum brands, which you know as kfc, pizza hut, long john silvers went higher off a similar beat that showed strong international growth and weak domestic growth. so they basically did the same thing. why did one go up and one go down? why the double standard? what makes colonel sanders better than knockout, which is the street slang for coke because coke's symbol is ko. maybe this was a tko. while we like coke, the double

standard actually does make sense. let me explain. why did coke go down and yum go up. i want you to think about it like this. here we have a straight "a" student and it reports good results. yum is more like a "c" plus or "b" minus student that delivered an "a" quarter. when that happen, the "c" student gets a standing ovation. the "a" student, we just yawn and say, oh, yeah, he's applying to brown. look where the analysts stand. of the 13 firms that raided -- rated coke, they're both trading around 15 times price to earnings ratios. yum was quite different. ten buy, nine holes. consider the evaluations. coke and yum are trading at the same amount. the street expected less from yum than it did from coke. so yum's good quarter made a big splash. this was totally ignored. just consider how these companies did versus the previous quarter.

yum's same-store sales in china had declined 3%. this year they turned positive. that's very significant, especially since many analysts had many negative expectations for china. people did not see this china turn coming. i didn't see it coming. how about coke? we've known about coke's strength in china for some time. and the company actually did worse relative to the previous quarter. last year their coke buying was up 2 % so the 6% volume growth didn't impress anybody. overall, coke's volume was up 3%, deceleration from the previous quarter. the company delivered a 5% increase. so the whole headline positive, it wasn't a hill of beans. what about the united states? both coke and yum may be international growth stories with weaker business domestically, but yum's u.s. performance was less bad than it was. coke showed no real improvement. yum, same-store sales were down 1% u.s., that's not good, right? but isn't that better than the 8% decline posted the previous quarter or the 2% decline from the previous year?

going forward, yum emphasized they expected u.s. business to keep improving. especially since they're about to get rid of some easy numbers. that's called easy comparisons going forward. i like the term in pizza hud -- and there again, it's something i didn't expect, and i follow this and mr. novak very closely. he's the ceo. he's real good. as for coke, the company's north american group unit case volume declined 2%. net revenues down 6%. see, that's what the headlines should have said. that's is worse than the previous quarter. unit volume was down with us 1%. coke's earnings per share may have been incredibly strong. but when you get down to the details, this feels like a good quarter, not a great one. and the street was expecting perfect. how about competition? yum has barely any. especially in the fast growing ee mering market that's so important to business. most of yum's competitors aren't trying to open restaurants in some of these countries. coke, on the other hand, has to worry about pepsi gunning for their chinese business in china and everywhere else around the world. it has the bottling

consolidation. i like the yield. they just boosted their dividend by 7% in february. you know we see dividend hikes as one of the best signals that a stock is only going higher. but now you can also understand why the market didn't go lady gaga over that quarter. here's the bottom line, when expectations are really high, stocks can get creamed even on good news, just because it wasn't good enough. that's why i'm always telling you, do not trade during earnings season. it is too easy to be misled by headlines that don't have all the facts. stop, listen, do the homework, and you will not be fooled by the press release or the irrational, it looks to be, beat-downs and rewards over what seems to be the wrong companies. john in colorado? john? >> caller: cramer, i wanted to give you a big colorado boo-yah. >> man, i'm liking that. i'm liking that mile high boo-yah. that makes me happy. what's up? >> i bought mcdonald's at $63 a share. it's now at $71. should i buy more shares? should i hold it?

or should i sell and take the profits? >> the research direction at actionownersplus.com, my charitable trust, we both like mcdonald's. i got to tell you something, i don't like to buy stocks at a 52-week high, but i would sanction buying mcdonald's right here. you have a nice gain, congratulations, but mcdonald's is a keeper and a winner. tomorrow the market will probably be down off of amazon, microsoft. maybe get a chance to buy some under 7, that would be a terrific place to pull the trigger. let's go to lucas in minnesota. lucas? >> caller: big boo-yah to you, jim. my question is with the economy on the rise, should i hang on to adm or sell them? >> archer daniels, i'm going to give you a twofer and also tell you to sell dean foods. this is not the kind of stock we want. the only food stock that really i'm kind of gaga over was hershey's. but that stock went up so huge i no longer want to recommend it. general mills, it's the best there is, and it ain't moving. let's stay away from the foods for now. if you need yield go to altrius

and hold your nose, i know, tobacco, maybe i shouldn't be wrecking it. but take that dividend and go set up an anti-smoking clinic. go support d.a.r.e. let's go to dick. hey, dick, what's up? uh-oh, i'm looking bad out here without a net. hey, throw me some kfc, throw me a colonel. anyway, don't be fooled by the press releases again. coke went down while yum went up because it actually made sense. i hope you understand now. and after the break -- well, after a break where i eat a couple drumsticks, let me just try to make you a little more money. stay with cramer. coming up, could increased steel demand put solid profits in your pocket? cramer is getting answers from nucor's ceo on the cute tiff decision.

today, nucor, i own it for

my charitable trust, delivered a strong quarter. the company earning 10 cents per share, 4 cents more than wall street was expecting. sales were up 24% sequentially. on 19% higher volume and 5% higher pricing. now, nucor had lowered the bar when it preannounced in the middle of the quarter. but these results are still looking real good. the company's utilization rate was 73%, up big from the previous quarter when it came in at 58%. $2 billion in cash. second quarter will be better than the first, they say. we spoke to hair ceo and we also like nucor because it's an integrative producer. its raw material is scrap metal. and nucor has its own scrap business that finds all the raw materials it needs. then the company uses about 82% of the scrap it obtains and sells other to producers, giving nucor more control over its costs.

plus, they've got a beautiful 3.2% yield and a propensity of paying special dividends to boot. worth remembering that nucor is indeed the largest recycler in north america. we want to take a closer look at this quarter. the state of the steel business, the future of american manufacturing and, yes, employment. and nobody's better suited to help us than that than nucor's ceo dan d'amico. welcome back to "mad money." how are you? >> fine, jim. flat to be back. how are you? >> listen, we're all listening to the conference call and we were all saying the same thing, holy cow, we think dan got a little optimistic. you were a little more positive on this call than you've been in the last 18 months. >> well, listen, it's hard mott to be a little bit more optimistic for sure. you know, a year ago we were looking at a loss of 60 crypts a

share. this quarter we made 10 cents. a year ago, we had operating profit excluding lifeo. this quarter we had it 146 million. our utilization is up to 73% versus 45% a year ago and 58% last quarter. things have improved but i don't want to mislead you, jim. we've still got a tough road ahead of us. >> well, you did say it was an uneven recovery. >> yes. >> you got the automotive side turning up but why don't you speak to the nonresidential construction market, which i thought would have been flying at this point coming out of the great recession. >> it's actually worse than it was a year ago, jim. it's not flying anywhere. but it's more like nose diving. i think we're at bottom, but there's no signs of it picking up any time soon. and so, you know, we're running at significantly lower utilization rates, particularly beams and bars,

particularly reinforcing bar. we have not seen any benefit from any stimulus effects from this point in time. n nonresidential or commercial construction which is a big consumer steal for all steel companies. >> well, how can that -- we spend hundreds of billions of dollars in stimulus, and i think the biggest jobs are created by nonresidential construction jobs, am i right? >> oh, yeah. for every billion dollars spent on infrastructure work and n nonres, you're looking at 35,000 jobs being created. but that hasn't been happening. you have to understand, we haven't spent $800 billion or $1 trillion to stimulate this part of the economy. out of the $800 billion originally in the stimulus package a little over a year ago, only $60 billion went into infrastructure, and we really haven't seen much of that yet. we've been saying that we'll probably see something in the second half of this year. well, we're not there yet.

but -- and as you know, raw material costs have been going up because of what's been going on globally. we've been able to pass along a lot more of those raw material costs than we had up to this point in the fourth quarter, but, you know, we're still behind the curve. we've still got more to make up. and we're looking to things in the second quarter to be better both from a margin standpoint and a volume standpoint. but the biggest jump in volume took place between this year and last year. and this year and first quarter. we're not sure exactly how big an increase we'll see. but we do believe the second quarter will be bigger. but at 73% utilization rate, when we normally run 90% in average years, you know, we still got a long way to go. >> you took an unprecedented move in your conference call. i'm just going to quote it. you go "it's extremely frustrating with all the jobs lost they continue to focus on jobs in washington as a top priority to see we're not

focussing on jobs. it is very frustrating, extremely negative impact on rate of recovery. you are putting this, your utilization rate at the feet of washington, aren't you? >> well, it's not just our utilization rate. what's good for the united states is good for nucor. we're a basic materials company. and we're not seeing a recovery of any significance at all. if anything, we're still losing net jobs. and how can you have a prolonged successful recovery in the economy if you're not creating jobs by now. particularly after spending all the money we've created. we've spent -- maybe we've saved some jobs, but take a look at what's happening at the state levels, teachers are getting laid off, public servers are getting laid off. they don't have their money to make their budgets. it's -- you know, it's not getting significantly better. despite what's going on in wall street, and that's the hard reality. with all the rhetoric, with all the talk, we still are not seeing our leaders in washington and the congress or the

administration focusing on the seriousness of the jobs issue, which is we need to create in excess of $25 million jobs over the next 3 to 7 years. not 8 million, not 11 million. we've talked about this before on the show. >> right. i think it's important enough to bring up again. frankly, that's why i'm doing it. okay. i don't want to be a downer because this quarter wasn't a downer, all right? >> i agree. >> you talk automotive because automotive is a situation, we've got ford's alan mulally who doesn't want government funds. he want to sell cars. tell us a positive story about that because a lot of this is great leverage for you. >> look, the segment of our business, we're the most diversified steel producer in north america. we're in everything, so on average we're a good indicator of what's going on in the economy, all right? the positive side of our business has been the sheet business. it has been the coal bar

business or coal finish bar business. and the sheet business, it's been automotive related. it's been energy related, with all the increase in energy production with the winning the trade cases against china for their illegal dumping of material in our country, we have seen those two sectors get significantly better. the question is, will they continue to do so? we believe the energy sector will -- we're still a little cautious about the automotive sector, but those two things have really driven our improvements over the fourth quarter and over a year ago. >> dan, i'm going to end it there, not just because i've got to go, but because that's a positive note. >> can i say one more thing? >> sure. >> what kind of shirt do i have on? >> a red, orange thing. >> red. we wear them one day a week in honor of the military serves here and in harm's way overseas. i challenge all your viewers to wear red shirts in their honda tomorrow. thank you.

>> dan d'amico, you're the best there is. thanks for coming on "mad money," sir. thank you. >> thank you, jim. >> the one thing we didn't talk about is how outrageously this stock is. join me, buy it. join him, red shirt, i like it. stay with cramer. >> i want to tell you about an coming up jim goes fast and furious as he faces a nonstop barrage of calls giving stock after stock their final verdict on "the lightning round." .

no, hold it. before we start "the lightning round," i want to tell you about an amazing show on tonight. it's called "beyond the barrel" the race to fuel the future. you know, this is a big issue on "mad money." i don't want you to miss this one. it's on tonight at 8:00 p.m. and midnight eastern. i think it's really fabulous. okay? now it is time for "the lightning round." you say the name of a stock, i tell you whether to buy, buy, buy or sell, sell, sell. i don't know the stocks or the

callers ahead of time. we play until you hear this sound [ buzzer ] and then the lightning round is over. are you ready, skee-daddy? it is time for the "lightning round." phillip in d.c. phillip? >> caller: jim! qualcomm is killing me! should i hold it or sell it? >> you know, i didn't know whether i would get a question on qualcomm today because i'm very angry about it. i think this company has become a serial disappointer. they raise and then they cut, and then they raise and then they cut. i am issuing a very strong sell, sell, sell. i was tempted to do a "sell block" on this company tonight. i just couldn't even get my arms around how bad it is. but i spent a lot of day on it. and i'm telling you it's not too late because here's qualcomm. let's go to tom in maine.

>> caller: hey, jim, a lobster boo-yah to you from university of maine in augusta. >> one of the absolute great schools. everybody wants to go there from summit high. go ahead. >> caller: nly capital. >> you've got to be worried about mortgage rates right here, what the fed is doing. i've got enough headaches. i would rather see you in citigroup. how about corey in florida. corey? >> caller: biscayne babe boo-yah, jim. >> real estate coming back. "florida trend" magazine which i read had things to say about the palm beach market up 8%. fabulous. hit me. >> caller: i got in at $26. i want to know the target for sbac. >> you better call at&t, because this is just an unbelievable data hog. remember what the great gary smith said the other day from ciena.

we don't stand anymore. we sit. he said that we've got a terrestrial voice network and it's not working for all the data and video. sba is one of the solutions. and, by the way, i reiterate my buy on ciena. i think it's a $30 stock. ron in west virginia. ron? >> caller: a west virginia, potomac river boo-yah, jim. >> intel, is it too late? >> wow, wow. hey, man, john chambers some west virginia boo-yah. how can i help? >> caller: question for you. intel, is it too late to add -- >> absolutely not. i was right and idea mad money" was right from the street. i've got to tell you something. buy it at the opening today. it's unbelievable. the stock has not taken off the schneid after the first quarter. i have never seen intel this cheap. i want to buy it. tom from illinois. >> caller: jim, good to hear from you. what do you think of given

imaging, givn, the pill things are just amazing. >> i don't know. i don't know what given imaging is right. i need to do work on that. i haven't looked at given imaging since they've reported. so let me do work. staff, we have to do work on it. i don't know what it's going to do. and the health care business. did you see baxter today? it was off almost $8. let's go to bonnie in arkansas. bonnie? >> caller: hey, mr. cramer, how in the world are you? >> thank you, i'm darn good. how about you? >> caller: i'm great. listen, before i ask my question, i would like to invite you, yours and even tim to mountain home, arkansas. >> what do you got there whitewater rafting? >> caller: we got everything, two big lakes and rivers. buffalo river, the white. norfolk and bull shows lake. it's beautiful. >> my buddy joe, one of my favorite waiters at roots just

came back from arkansas. he said it was a sportsman paradise, no offense to louisiana. so let's make some money together. >> caller: mountain home is beautiful. you need to come up there. >> all right. i accept the invite i'm going to work with my friend regina. we'll go down to arizona, regina. razorback country, you know that school has loved our show. and i've got a big football from razorback. >> caller: wonderful. listen, i'm going to ask my question. >> go ahead. >> caller: i would like your opinion on eldorado. >> ego, ego, you know that's one of our favorite gold stocks. that said, is this the season to own gold? >> merger. >> i say you let it come in. i said that on a video with my friend alex steel this morning at the street. i think it's don't buy territory. let it come in. gold will start percolating in june because of the indian wedding season. let's go to geetha in massachusetts. geetha! >> caller: big boo-yah boston. can you tell me about dry ships,

d-r-y-s? >> i think the red sox broke out of that slump. i think epstein said the right thing and suddenly they're playing with heart. what was the stock? i got sidetracked by the red sox's comeback. oh, dryships. sorry. look, one day i'm going to be a sports guy. we all know that. that's how i started. all right. dryships now. we're not a buyer of that. when it comes to the tankers, we decided we became believers when george opolis was on, we want to buy balt. it's down big from where we felt it was a sell. why do we have to stop the lightning round now? why? why am i not in the charge. there's no more? look at this. you want to know why "the lightning round" is didn't. it's her. it's her. it's not me. i'm going to do "the lightning round" from the big zucker party later. ♪

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you know on "mad money" the only green we care about is the green color of sweet benjamins. that said, today is earth day. we've been hearing a lot about businesses that are environmentally friendly.

while i think this is a good form for learning about company, it's not a reason to buy a stock. however, as it happens, the outfit that "newsweek" dubbed the greenest company in america back in september also happens to be a terrific high quality tech stock. and i'm talking about hewlett-packard, in large part because it offers what its clients want, a greener pc, a greener printer, a greener information technology solution. "newsweek" may have hailed it for its initiatives to recycle pcs and reduce packaging material. that means lower costs. but even though it is green week, we would not be highlighting this company if it weren't the leader in pcs, printers. i did a lot of work on this issue. we don't want to recommend a company that's green out of the goodness of a ceo's heart or my

heart but is losing money. hey, that's idea mat money's" equivalent of an ecological disaster. it's still taking share. the company has a lot of recurring revenue. great brand. been aggressive about cutting costs, balance sheet is strong. it's among the best in the business. we want to take a closer look at hewlett-packard. its cost-saving green initiatives and how they are improving not just a touchy-feeley selling pitch but an actual bottom line for the company which is why we're thrilled to have michael mendenhall, the chief marketing officer here with us tonight. mr. mendenhall, good to have you with us. >> thank you. >> you don't get called the biggest, greenest company for nothing. give us a synopsis. >> well, jim, what we look at is building a sustainable society.

what we've heard from is government's municipalities, community, corporations, large or small is sustainability is important, but it's about doing good by doing well. right? so you can do good and you can do well. we believe as you begin to look at the portfolio that the company is strategically built from hardware, software, networking to services, that we have the capability to help you do that. and you're going to do well, but you're going to drop to the bottom line some great numbers. >> okay. so how much of your green thrust is to make money? and how much of it is to just be a good citizen. what's the ratio? >> well, i would say they go hand in hand. so i wouldn't say that there's a ratio we use within the company. i mean, for us, i think it's about, you know, when you begin to look at building sustainable societies, you look at key vertical industries, energy being one. so we really look at energy and we say, when you look at the greenhouse emissions that come from energy, when you look at what's going to happen in global population growth over the next 15 year, the migration of people into cities and urban areas

where the infrastructure that we've built over the last 100 years is not going to map to the next 100 years, what are those technologies and solutions that an hp can bring within its portfolio to help you reduce energy consumption, thus reducing cost, help you become more efficient, right? produce better business process optimization through some of the key software and hardware that we have to offer and drop it all to the bottom line so it's really about how go we din to build a sustainable company, thus, a sustainable community and society. >> let's talk about the way you're different. we go to buy a washer machine, what do i see? >> so i will tell you we are the first, there's no other i.t. or tech company that decided to put an eco highlights label on. we decided to do this. this wasn't by mandate or regulations but to showcase to people what becomes important relative 0 purchasing devices and as you'll see on the photo

smart premium which is an all in one you can save 30% and it will showcase that here in energy, thus, again, reducing greenhouse emissions in energy. that's energy on your energy bill. the bill you get every month. this will reduce that. most may have a scanner or printer. will have another device, all separate, all consuming energy. here you have an all in one that reduces that 30%. there are other products we make that are made from 79% recycled material. all the plastic is recycle. again, we'll call that out on here. because what we know is that consumers, companies, small, medium-sized businesses are looking for sustainable solutions that are also going to help them in efficiency and help them in profitability. >> one of the things i've seen in the world -- and i have another guest on the show tonight we're talking about -- china. china is not necessarily a good actor in a lot of things. okay, a good customer. not necessarily a good actor. they will, if necessary, in order to promote growth, do things that some of us would

regard as being nonecological. what if you run up against a competitor that says, you know what, maybe we're not the best when it comes to the environment, but we'll save you money because our price is well through hewlett-packard. how do you compete against the so-called bad actor? >> yeah, but i think what you're going to find -- and this is just a prime example, and i'll give you examples relative to the enterprise side. when you begin to look at, first and foremost, the efficiency play, so how do we begin to build sort of efficiency? we all know that we're coming out of this macro economic climate. we know ceos are concerned about growing the top line, concerned about the bottom line, and they're saying, how do we tackle this? at the same time, we're getting mounting pressure, mounting pressure to be green, mounting pressure to be sustainable. >> and that's from who? from their daughters, their fathers -- >> that's from corporations. that's from individuals, right, from consumers. people are saying -- >> but the pressure is on to make big money. the pressure is not on -- >> so you've got both pressures. you have both pressures, right? so how do you balance that?

so let's take a look at what hewlett-packard did. talk about data centers when you begin to look at energy consumption. when we started out, there were 85 data centers. we consolidated them down to 6. we lost no efficiency and no computing power by doing that. it was all through how we looked at our applications so the software, the middleware, and also the hardware. we reduced our energy consumption by 60% in the company. >> 60% consumption. so you go out to your customers and you show them that. >> yes. >> right. so you're making your customers more money and greener. >> that's correct. >> and that's really the selling proposition, right? >> that's correct. >> one last question. i know i'm running out of time. i see this. this is a vivian tam laptop. >> yes. >> now, it's cool. it's definitely cool, right, but is it also good for energy? kids who care about this with a passion. >> so listen, not only do we know that personalization is important, this becomes like a clutch. you know, they carry these in the high-end fashion sales. vivian tam did a nice job.

what i can tell you is from 2000 -- >> go ahead. >> you can carry it. from 2005 to 2011 we reduced energy consumption by 40% in all these products that you see here. we committed to it. >> in five years? 40%? >> 40%. that reduces greenhouse gas emissions. so we believe we can help companies do well by doing good, and you can't have companies say it's something we have to do. we want companies and our customers to say it's something we want to do. >> okay. and that's why hewlett-packard got this award. i want to thank michael mendenhall, hewlett-packard senior vice president, chief operating officer. they're making money for the companies. they're making money for themselves and making money for shareholders, and they're doing it by being green. >> thank you. >> idea mad money" is on after the break.

amazon is disappointing. we've got to do more work. all right. i always like to say there's a bull market somewhere. i promise to find it right here for you on "mad money." i'm jim cramer. i'll see you tomorrow. next, join cnbc for the power of the future. "beyond the barely: the race to fuel the future" repriors next.