actually on "options action" twitter feed have it on there. >> our time expired. i'm melissa lee thanks for watching. don't go anywhere, "mad money" with jim 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 you some money. my job is not just to entertain but to educate and teach you. so call me at 1-800-743-cnbc or tweet me @jimcramer. today should have been a day where we focused on earnings and earnings alone, and we had some big ones, some good ones like mcdonald's and some okay ones

like general electric that were important to the broader averages. dow only dipping 17 points. s&p falling 0.01%. nasdaq gaining 0.3%. but the day ended up being dominated by takeover talk, and that's precisely where i want to start my game plan for next week, with a potential deal, namely at&t buying time warner, something that david faber said could happen as soon as monday morning. judging by the huge leap in time warner stock, it's entirely possible this monumental possibly $80 billion deal could be announced 48 hours from now. that might be followed by another expected deal, qualcomm potentially buying nxpi for $110. if these deals occur it will be a wild monday that might distract us from the biggest earnings week of the year. they could send up everything. cbs as well as all the semiconductor stocks that are small enough to get a bid, and i'm talking about everybody from skyworks to micron. consolidation is a way of getting the bullish juices

flowing. but let's not ice earnings. monday morning we hear from kimberly-clark, nvf corp. the market wasn't crazy about their quarters last time around. i think we're looking at these companies way too short term because over time they've given you solid returns from a combination of price performance and dividends, but the market is in a what have you done for me lately mode right now and the answer is not enough. maybe the narrative will change, especially with vp corp. as long time ceo eric wiseman passes the baton. speaking of passing the baton, sad to see sharly shar of depart from visa, but maybe we'll degea sense of what new ceo has to stay about the next steps for this incredibly good credit card titan. not to make too much of this new ceo, old ceo stuff, but caterpillar kicks things off on tuesday morning with outgoing ceo doug obvious ra held men

frenting the numbers. i've got to tell you i think doug has done ater ific, hoar ohhic job of managing the downturn that wiped out many other infrastructure and commodity related companies. i actually expect a present decent quarter. the industrials have fallen out of favor with investors because of a worldwide slow down, but i can think of one industrial that may be a little more immune to a slowdown, and it's 3m. that reports before the open. the ceo has been able to reinvent the company through ingenuity. i think the pace of new product launches will drive earnings but it's still cyclical. it could still be under pressure. tuesday, few companies are more venerable than procter & gamble. it's done a lot of shuffling, but is it enough? i don't think the stock will power higher unless we hear more organic growth. we also hear from under armour. i wonder if this isn't the quarter that can break the spell in a positive way.

after the close tuesday, we get results from the largest company on earth, apple. and you know i expect a good number, and i always tell you don't trade it, own it. aided by an increase in the service revenue stream that comes from so many different offerings that they now make available to iphone users, last quarter apple talked about people switching from competitors, even talked about samsung. i can only imagine it will give the numbers an extra boost thanks to samsung galaxy note 7's spontaneous combustion issue. apple overshadows everything. we know that. but we'll also hear from chipotle. i think many people are jumping the gun on the recovery here. while i've said the stock is putting in a bottom in part because of an aggressive buy back, we know from the history of past health scares that you may have to wait longer for a comeback. on onch the work we have done shows it takes 18 months for a restaurant to get back on track after the kind of incidents that marred chipotle, which means the stock most likely won't begin to run until the middle of next year. i do think, though, that patience will be rewarded. oh, and i'd be remiss not to mention at&t itself because it's supposed to report after the close. it will be interesting to see if

the company itself is doing well or if they need to buy time warner because of a potential slowdown in sign-ups. losing some business to sprint and t-mobile. wednesday starts with boeing and i urge to wait for the conference call before you trade it. there's a widespread perception that the aerospace cycle has run its course. i couldn't disagree more. i think certain models have peaked, namely the wide bodies where there's a growing glut of planes. narrow bodies, though, they can't make enough of them. now, we don't know how boeing is faring in terms of its makeup of that order book. that's why i say wait to hear the granularity of the conference call because if you get a good headline number but then they talk down bodies on the call, the wide ones, the stock could be opened up and then go down. i know comparison's erroneous, but they always seem to be made when we get results from coca-cola as its former doppelganger pepsico blew away the numbers when it reported. coca-cola stock is down 2% while pepsico is up nearly 6%. i think the comparison no longer

relevant because pepsico's snack division now over shadows the beverage business, not so with coca-cola. what could change coke's trajectory, we're going to have to wait and see. i don't see anything on the horizon now, though. we also hear from norfolk sutherland on wednesday. i find the rails fascinating. csx delivered a superb number but union pacific earlier this week offered a very subpar account. either way, nobody gives you a better read on the u.s. economy than the rails. we'll listen in. thursday has got a gazillion companies reporting but i bet only three will capture, alphabit, amazon and twitter. i think alphabet, formerly known as google, has started to rekindle the mutual affection, starting with reignition of the revenue stream from youtube. get that thing humming. like everyone else, i'm expecting a gigantic number from amazon. heaven forbid if it doesn't give

us one. and also like everyone else, i'm expecting a worse one from twitter. even as the stock run up again today in expectation of still one more takeover bid. if they're buying time warner, i'm someone is going to craft a rumor story about twitter. it could be a real shocker if twitter sees a re-acceleration of user growth or some good numbers off of that nfl partnership. maybe we'll find out what really happened and what seems like an aborted auction. will they discuss it? will salesforce's name come up, or will they give us the heisman when it comes to the takeover talk. i got two things i would ask. what are you doing to control the toll problem, and two, how many of your 300 plus million users are actually individuals with multiple accounts? i know i have trolls who have reappeared over and over and over and over again under new names. does twitter count them each separately? pretty interesting question, isn't it? friday is oil day, exxon and chevron. both companies have weathered

the low price of crude with aplo aplomb. do they believe in the opec deal come november? do they see a continued price recovery? are they increasing their capital budgets? that's something that would make you want to buy schlumberger, which was down badly today. stay tuned, but that may be the trade for next week. here's the bottom line. we only get four weeks of the year where this many companies report, and because the bandwidth of wall street is so stretched, lots of mistakes get made. don't get taken in. before you act, listen to the conference calls. look at some notes, and be sure you know what the heck you're doing. believe me, there are plenty of people who will take action on the first bite of all these companies and very often, they'll turn out to be just plain wrong. mark in massachusetts. mark. >> caller: hi, jim. a big boston baked bean booyah to ya. >> that's nice. what's shakin'? >> caller: i'm currently in eight point energy and i'm wondering how the class action

lawsuit could impact? >> geez, i don't know. look, i got to tell you. the best thing you can do here is stay away from all of them. it's just not the right place to be right now. if i were in solar city, i would really take that one off the table. ellis in arkansas, please. ellis. >> caller: yes, jim. my stock is ppg, and i just wanted to know why the warning came out two weeks early before the financial report and it dropped 8.3%. why didn't they wait till the financial report come out to try to do this? >> i'll tell you because they're an honest company and the estimates were much higher than what the company reported. it was the right thing to do. bruce camish from real monday.com wrote a pretty negative piece about the chart. i will say this. it is highly unusual for this company to miss. it hasn't missed in many years. it's been a solid straight shooter, but it's not at the right level. i think it's got to go down a little more before i can get

excited about it. ray in south carolina. ray. >> caller: yes. hey, thanks for taking my call, jim. >> of course. >> caller: i bought allergan about a year ago for 293, at 293. i kept it, and i just watched it drop. when it dropped to 230 back in, i think, march of this year, i bought again. same thing. now, in your crystal ball, should i keep it? should i dump it? >> my charitable trust owns it. you can follow along. we're going to play big and bold this weekend. we always do a roundup at actionalertsplus.com. in it we are saying we don't expect anything near term to happen. because of the election, this is just a very tough time to own the drug stocks. we think bret saunders is putting together a powerhouse. what happened before was allergan got caught up in a pfizer merger that the government nixed it. allergan, i think, treads water. you can't really have a big position in a drug stock going into this election. all right. we've got the busiest week of earnings season ahead of us but don't get overwhelmed. listen to the calls.

do your homework, and think carefully before doing any buying or selling you might regret later. on "mad money" tonight, two companies, two comparable quarters, to totally different reactions from the market. i'll talking about illinois tool works and dan her. i'm dissecting the response. then is the action in boston beer company driving you to drink? with analysts split on the company's prospects, i'll help take the edge off. and i'll tell you if you can still pour some gains in your portfolio. and can auto zone kick into high gear? this stock has been in the red zone lately, but it outperforms the s&p come something is it still a buy? i'm putting you in the driver's seat. so stick with cramer. >> announcer: don't miss a second of "mad money." follow @jimcramer on twitter. have a question? tweet cramer, #madtweets. send jim an e-mail to madmoney@cnbc.com or give us a call at 1-800-743-cnbc. miss something?

head to madmoney.cnbc.com.

some things are simply impossible to ignore. the strikingly-designed lexus nx turbo and hybrid. get up to $5,000 customer cash on select 2016 models. see your lexus dealer. keeping the power lines clear,my job to protect public safety, while also protecting the environment. the natural world is a beautiful thing, the work that we do helps us protect it. public education is definitely a big part of our job, to teach our customers about the best type of trees

to plant around the power lines. we want to keep the power on for our customers. we want to keep our community safe. this is our community, this is where we live. we need to make sure that we have a beautiful place for our children to live. together, we're building a better california.

sometimes earnings season can be simple and straightforward but other times it can be down right confusing. the banks for example are all pretty straightforward. they all reported strong numbers. however, other groups have been decidedly more mixed. especially the rails and the industrials, where we're getting incredibly divergent performances from companies within the same sector. highly unusual, people. most puzzling of all is when two companies report very similar numbers but then their stocks do wildly different things. we got to talk about this. i want to talk about one of these situations so you understand better how the stock market works. specifically i'm referring to danaher and illinois tool works. two excellent industrial-focused companies that reported fairly comparable quarters yesterday even as their stocks reacted by moving in radically opposite directions. while many industrials are reporting, these two are

terrific real life examples so i can school you on this, teach you, help you understand the process of stock valuation and evaluation. how do you explain the market's response to these two companies and can it tell us anything about the way earnings are being graded? first a little background. the danaher of today is vastly different from the one of a year ago, thanks to the company's recent breakup. the old danaher was a diversified industrial operating a host of industries from dental products, automation technologies. over the summer, the company spun off almost all of its industrial-facing businesses as a new business. it's called fortive. the new danaher kept the product id businesses. it's still a conglomerate but a more focused one. how about the great illinois tool works? this is more of a smokestack stock has the company makes specialized manufacturing equipment. illinois tool works serves a variety of end markets from deep sea oil rigs to aerospace,

infrastructure, health care, construction, autos, and even wind turbines and electronic devices. i should mention that i've been a fan of both these companies for quite some time. so i was surprised by the way their stocks had behaved during this earnings season. that's why i had to dig deeper. it didn't make sense. when you look at the numbers they're very similar. danaher reported a modest 5 cent earnings beat off an 82 cent basis with in line revenue, illinois tool works reported a modest one cent earnings beat. could have been the same. now, granted danaher's numbers were a little bit better than itw's, but these quarters were incredibly alike. yet danaher rallied 3.9% on the news yesterday, and illinois tool works fell by 2.1%. so how do we make sense of this action? why did the market like the results from danaher even as it spurned the seemingly almost identical results from illinois tool works? these are the things that always

consume people that i get asked about all the time because they're confused. we're solving that. with most things in life, there are obvious reasons and the real reasons. first off, it's important to note that the stocks had performed very differently going into their quarters. danaher was up more than 9% for the year before it reported. nicely outpacing the s&p 500. the fact is that illinois tool works was up an astounding nearly 25% for the year, and that's a tremendous run. so all else equal, if the expect tags are higher, than the stock's post-quarter performance is likely to be weaker. illinois tool works definitely had higher expectations by judging from that almost 25% run up. at the same time danaher's numbers were somewhat better. one more obvious explanation. unlike danaher, illinois tool works provided organic revenue guidance and their forecast of flat to 2% growth for the next quarter was less than stellar for illinois tool works. it would have been great for a lot of other industrials we talked to. they were punished for providing

more transparency in a way. everything i said is true, but there's another deeper reason for the disparity between danaher's stock performance yesterday and itw's. at the end of the day, investors are starting to sour on this industrial cohort as a whole. that's becoming a theme of this earnings period. think about it. we've seen this performance from united technologies. honeywell, general electricity. with the economy apparently softening and the federal reserve looking like it's going to tighten in december, the industrials become less attractive because they need at least a better economy to produce decent numbers. illinois tool works is about as industrial as it gets. but danaher because of that recent spinoff has successfully distanced itself from the group. when danaher spun off fortive over the summer, the idea was to make the remaining business less cyclical, less industrial, more of a consistent growth play. foretive got nearly all their industrial divisions. the danaher of today is really more of a life sciences company than anything else. and when the company reported yesterday, all of its businesses, every one, delivered slow and steady numbers.

core revenues grew by 3%, dental division up 3.5%. diagnostics was up 3%. that's some real growth, and now danaher's stock is finally getting credit for it. as president and ceo tom joyce put it in the conference call, so to wrap up, we're pleased with our performance in the current macroeconomic environment. we believe that the steps we've taken to reshape our portfolio positions us well for stronger growth and value creation, end quote. i think he's absolutely right. danaher has made itself less cyclical, and that puts them in a very good position right now. illinois tools, it's a quintessential industrial. they have seven segments and while the company saw mare ginle expansion at most of them, the fact is illinois tool works only experienced revenue growth in three out of these seven businesses. another one was flat. three more saw revenue contractions like the welding division. really when you draw down, these two quarters had less in common than it might seem at first

glance. fabulous company but one with super expectations that in the end is still an industrial. so here's the bottom line. just because two companies in roughly the same category report seemingly similar numbers, that doesn't necessarily mean the situations are analogous. with danaher and illinois tool works, you need to understand the context. the industrials are falling out of favor on the wall street fashion show. i think we'll see that next week when united technologies and 3m report. danaher got credit for spinning off its industrial businesses while illinois tool works was punished for being a pure industrial, for being itself. now, look, i like both of these companies and their stocks long term, but for the moment, you got to stick with danaher because it's become more of a life science play, something much more to the market's liking than a plain old industrial, even one as great as illinois tool works. we've got much more "mad money" ahead. i'm poring through boston beer company's latest earnings to see if you should be doubling down on your drinks, sam. then got car troubles?

so does autozone. after being a market darling for years and a huge favorite of cramerica, the stock's been stalling. maybe it's time to cut bait. and what do we do with microsoft and mcdonald's? what do they have in common? more than you think. it could be good news for your portfolio. so stick with cramer. they may want the latest products and services, but they demand the best shopping experiences. they're your customers. and by blending physical with digital,

cognizant is helping 8 of the 10 largest u.s. retailers meet their demands with more responsive retail models... ones that transcend channels and locations, anticipate expectations... creating new ways to engage at every imaginable touch-point. it's a new day in retail, and together, we're building the store of the future. digital works for retail. let's talk about how digital works for your business. we're drowning in information. where, in all of this,

is the stuff that matters? the stakes are so high, your finances, your future. how do you solve this? you don't. you partner with a firm that advises governments and the fortune 500, and, can deliver insight person to person, on what matters to you. morgan stanley. okay. what the heck just happened to boston beer, the brewer best known for making sam adams, hence the ticker sam. last night the company reported a flat out disappointing quarter, i mean just plain ugly. i promise you there was nothing to like here. yet after opening down more than 6% this morning, boston beer's stock pirouetted. executed a stunning reversal, and not only did it erase all of its gains, the darn thing

ultimately closed up $6.70, a 4.92%. it's one of the bigger winners of the market. it was astonishing. look, when you see a stock roaring higher in spite of an awful quarter, it's always worth digging deeper. in the case of boston beer, the numbers -- they're miserable. the company earned $2.48 per share. wall street was looking for $2.60. their sales were much weaker than anticipated. shimt volumes declined by 12%. the gross margin shrank by 90 basis points. oh, and they cut their full-year earnings guidance. really the only positive was that management has essentially discontinued their marketing budget for the rest of the year. basically they're sacrificing the company's near term results in order to reset, hopefully reinvigorate the business somewhere down the line. that's not much of a positive. the stock was looking down big. but after it got hammered in the morning, buyers nevertheless swooped in, and their bullishness allowed boston beer

to close up pretty substantially. what drew them in? in part i think the move has elements of what we call a short squeeze, right? going into the quarter a lot of money managers had bet against the stock of boston beer. in fact, the shortage was a very high 19%. when the quarter turned out to be bad, some of the short sellers decided ka-ching, ka-ching, let's ring the register and cover our short positions. that means take a profit in them, and you have to buy the stock back in order to do that. in this case, though, there weren't enough natural sellers, people who panicked or didn't like the quarter, to offset the short covering. so those short covers had to go take the stock higher to find the supply they need to cover their short and close out the position. on top of that, boston beer got a boost from a bloomberg piece that suggested it might be an attractive takeover target given the stock has come down so dramatically over the past 18 months. we know there's been a lot of consolidation in the beer industry. however, if you really want to understand today's crazy reversal, and i know i did, you need to know where the bulls and the bears are coming from. and it just so happens that last

month we got a compelling look at both sides of the equation, both arguments from a pair of dueling analysts. first credit squeeze came out and initiated a coverage of boston beer with an underperform rating. that's wall street speak for sell. less than a week later, william blair fired back a response initiating coverage on the stock with an outperform, wall street speak for a buy rating. this is the kind of analyst battle royal that i found very educational. i hope you do at home, especially since the argument over boston beer played out pretty dramatically just today with the bears on the verge of victory this morning before the bulls turned things around and stole the prize, at least for this one session. first some context. for those of you who don't know boston beer, this is the largest craft beer brewer in the united states. and while they get the majority of their sales from sam adams, okay, the company also makes hard ciders and flavored malt

beverages under angry orchard and twisted t brands. i didn't know they made this before i started this piece. on top of that, they have a craft beer incubator where the company invests in smaller brands. now, for many years boston beer was a beloved stock holding. from the generational bottom in 2009 through january 2015, the darn thing seemed unstoppable, roaring higher year after year. but around 18 months ago, investors realized the growth seemed to be slowing. since then the stock has lost an astounding nearly 50% of its value, and that is exactly what happens to growth stocks that lose their momentum. i'm always trying to teach you that. so with that in mind, let's drill down into the bull/bear thesis. william blair laid out the case when they initiated coverage on the stock with an outperform. to these analysts boston beer is still pioneering. they think the company is well positioned to take advantage of the opportunity here. basically boston beer is larger than any other craft brewer, but

it's still small enough to be focused on this one particular nearby. what about the problems the company has run into over the past 18 months? the company acknowledges that boston beer sales are shrinking, but they believe boston beer has a chance to start growing its revenues again by expanding into new distribution channels like convenience and drugstores, coming out with better markets, releasing new products, all pretty positive. what about the fact that smaller, trendier craft beer brands seem to be eating sam adams alive? i mean you make a good beer, but it's hardly the epitome of cool anymore. nevertheless, the bulls at william blair think that boston beer can ultimately use its scale and distribution network to fight off many of its smaller competitors. personally, i put a lot more credence in the bear thesis as outlined by credit suisse when they initiated coverage on boston beer with an underperform five weeks ago. credit suisse points out that sam has been losing market share

pretty dramatically in the craft beer segment. the analysts here view boston beer as a victim of its own success. they were an early mover in the craft beer space with sam adams, and lately that space has gotten so hot that the number of producers have exploded with more than 4,000 independent craft brewers in the united states. the influx of new brands has really hurt them and perhaps more important, all these independent brewers have called boston beer's craft beer cred into question. i mean let's be honest. unlike the days before the craft beer proliferation, nobody's going to be impressed if you go tiny a bar and say, i'd like a sam adams. in this kind of business, that does matter. trendier, the cooler you are. this isn't trendy. now, the bulls clearly won today since the stock rallied in the wake of an ugly quarter. when i look at both sides of the argument, i worry boston beer could go lower. a little cheaper than bud and more expensive than molson coors which sells for 20 times earnings. that's crazy to me.

boston beer's numbers are in decline, whereas constellation has terrific growth, including amazing numbers from balanlas point. even though boston beer managed to rocket higher today after lousy earnings and a big decline in pre-market trading, i am siding with the bears and credit suisse on this one, not with the bulls at william blair. why pay up for boston beer when you can get the far superior constellation brands for the same valuation? just so you know, that is modelo and corona plus the ballast point. as for the argument it could be a takeover target. you know i never recommend stocks sew solely on a takeover basis if the fundamentals are in decline. and that is definitely the case with sam. >> the house of pain. >> ron in florida. ron. >> caller: hey, jim. happy friday to you. >> oh, man, i'm glad it's friday. how about you? >> caller: i'm doing great.

thank you. hey, i got kind of a two-part question for you. how would you deal a donald trump or hillary clinton presidency would influence grocery stocks like kroger, whole foods, et cetera, and what impact do you feel a regime change will have on food prices? >> none. these are very separate. we got to draw the line right here. the consumer packaged good stocks, they do not trade off elections. the domestic markets, they are entirely about competition with each other and the fact that there's food deflation. neither candidate could be able to control that. so the answer is there are many reasons to buy or sell those stocks, but politics, thank heavens, it isn't one of them. all right. looking to give your portfolio a nice buzz? even after today's move higher, i'd steer clear of boston beer company. pour yourself some constellation brands instead, modelo, corona.

much more "mad money" ahead. with the average american car now over 11 years old, is it time to hop in for investment in the zone? buckle your seat belts. i'll tell you if the company is still on track. then best week ever. well, it seems like it's been ages since so much good news hit the tape on a given day. i'm taking you through all the action and telling you what's behind the positives we're seeing. and a thank god it's friday edition of the lightning round. so stick with cramer!

mary buys a little lamb. one of millions of orders on this company's servers. accessible by thousands of suppliers and employees globally. but with cyber threats on the rise, mary's data could be under attack. with the help of at&t, and security that senses and mitigates cyber threats, their critical data is safer than ever. giving them the agility to be open & secure. because no one knows & like at&t. this is my retirement. retiring retired tires. and i never get tired of it. are you entirely prepared to retire? plan your never tiring retiring retired tires retirement with e*trade. i'm in vests and as a vested investor in vests i invest with e*trade, where investors can investigate and invest in vests...

or not in vests. sign up at etrade.com and get up to six hundred dollars.

search for your prescription, and pay for it online - before you pick up at your regular pharmacy. you'll pay nothing at check out. blink is accepted at all major chains and most independent pharmacies nationwide. it's free to use, it works for everyone, and purchases are always refundable. check the blink price of your prescription now, and get $10 off your first purchase at blinkhealth.com, promo code tv. what do you do with a stock with a long term track record that seems to have lost its mojo? and that's the question we need

to answer tonight when it comes to autozone, the nation's leading ult parts retailer. with more than 5,000 store as cross u.s., mexico, and brazil. this one has long been one of my favorites. it's been a fabulous story, in part because of the average car on the road is now 11 years old and thus needs a lot of maintenance. and in part because the company has had a voracious buy back. if you bought autozone three years ago, you'd be up a terrific 73% versus a 23% gain for the s&p 500. if you bought it two years ago, you'd be up 45% versus just 12% for the s&p. however, over the last 12 months, it's starting to feel like autozone has hit a wall and not the kind of wall you want to hit. the stock's up just 1% for 2016, lagging the 5% gain in the s&p. so we have to wonder has the autozone rally run out of gas? or is this a high quality stock that's simply pausing to refuel before it resumes its march

higher. before we can understand why it appears to be languishing, we got to know what made the stock such an incredible outperformer for so many years. in 2005, bill rhodes took over as ceo and he's the one who masterminded the company's renaissance. he focused on improving the do it yourself business, selling parts to people who do maintenance on their own cars and kick started the company's commercial business, selling parts to actual mechanics. he continued the habit of buying back massive quantities of stock, retiring the float. for years autozone had one of the best buy backs in the whole stock market. the combination of those repurchases and the company's solid numbers meant that the share price moved steadily higher year after year after year. however, in addition to being good, rhodes has also been lucky. now, you know i always say it's better to be lucky than good. but really it's best to be both. autozone has benefited enormously in the monster recovery in auto sales since the great recession.

there are more and more vehicles on the road that need to be serviced. at the same time, many americans are hanging on to their old cars for longer. a lot either don't want to or can't afford to shell out the money for a new one. so for the past five years, the average car on the road in this country has been more than 11 years old, and they keep getting older. old cars need more maintenance, more spare parts, and you buy those spare parts at autozone. plus ever since the price of oil collapsed in 2014, consumers have been operating at a low gasoline price environment, which translates into people doing more driving. we got statistics to back that up. again, the more miles you put on your car, the more often it needs to be tuned up. that's why autozone's stock was such a juggernaut. so what the heck has happened? has this former market darling lost its luster? okay. after putting up some solid numbers for ages, autozone's last two quarters have been, i have to tell you, somewhat disappointing. in late may they reported out a flat out earnings and revenue miss with 2% same-store sales.

now, some of that was because oil prices had gone from a tail wind to a head wind, with the rebound in crude from the february lows. and it's not like they were alone. the whole industry has had trouble that last quarter. o'reilly automotive, they're pretty regular. advanced auto parts has been a good one. of course one suboptimal quarter is the kind of thing you can dismiss as a one-time occurrence. but a month ago autozone reported some more suboptimal results while the company managed to deliver a small earnings beat, the revenue came in a bit light and the same-store sales, flat out disappointing. up only 1%. wall street was looking for 1.8% increase. the problem? over the past five years autozone got a big boost as it start the serving commercial customers at more and more of its stores. but now that rollout is almost over. 83% of their locations are now set up to serve commercial auto mechanic customers, so the same-store sales growth has slowed. however, it wasn't all bad. management said trends had accelerated near the end of the quarter and into the next one. they also pointed out that part

of the slowdown here was simply weather related. cars don't need as much maintenance with the weather is mild. what else is weighing on the stock? a number of analysts are worried that autozone's focus on the do it yourself business could hurt them going forward as cars become increasingly complicated with more and more electronic content, making do it yourself maintenance a lot more difficult. how often do we talk about the connected car? but autozone remains confident that some hobbyists will continue to fix their own cars even if there's a slowdown in do it yourself. the company has aggressively been courting commercial customers who will get more business as the do it yourself thing fizzles. that's part of the reason why autozone has been laser focused on rolling out two key initiatives to bolter its commercial same-store sales. the company is doing more to ensure that key items remain in stock so that professional auto mechanic customers don't walk away from the stores empty hands. 1,900 of autozone's 5,300 locations are receiving

deliveries at least three times a week and they plan to roll out this program at another 1,000 stores. the sec initiative is the mega hub concept, super size stories that carry twice the number of products. the point of these mega hubs is they can serve as distribution centers for autozone's normal locations and 3,000 stores have access to mega hub inventory with more coming. yes, autozone has challenges, but they're also taking steps to meet those challenges. in the end, i default to the numbers. in the most recent quarter, autozone posted 3% revenue growth, which is admittedly down from 6% to 8% range from last year, but their earnings per share still increased by 12%. while that's down from 13% growth the quarter before, it's still pretty darn good. if autozone can deliver that kind of earnings growth when business is slow and their same-store sales rose by 1%, can you imagine how well they'd do when business improves? plus a big part of the recent slowdown is simply because the company finished lapping some very easy comparisons in terms

of gas prices, something that affected the whole industry and based on management's comments in the last conference call, it sounds like things are already picking up. so, yes, i still like autozone, the company. and autozone, the stock, it's inexpensive, selling at just 16.4 times earnings. that's the cheapest now of the auto parts retailers even though this one has the best growth. plus it still has got that voracious buy back. look at this. from 2011 through 2015, this company retired 17 million shares for $6.7 billion. that is huge. considering they have just 29 million shares outstanding now. that's why i say it's probably the best buyback on the whole new york stock exchange. here's the bottom line. even though it's reported a couple of shake quarters,ry he main a believer in autozone. this is one of the few parts of retail that can't beat amazon, and sooner or later, i bet autozone resumes its long march

higher. "mad money" is back after the break.

>> announcer: lightning round is sponsored by td ameritrade.

>> it is time! it's time for the lightning round! that's where i take your calls rapid fire. you tell me the stock. i tell you to buy, buy, buy or sell, sell, sell. we'll play this sound -- [ buzzer ] -- and then the lightning round is over. are you ready, skee-daddy? it's time for the lightning round on cramer's "mad money." we'll start with don in california. don. >> caller: hey, jim cramer. thank you for all that you do for us smaller investors. >> excellent. that's what the show is about. it's about you. what can i do? >> caller: as i lay around rehabbing from my broken leg, i have plenty of time. i am a long time action alerts member, and on my own i've accumulated a good size position in celgene. it's no secret that the biotechs are under pressure. i don't think celgene price gouges their customers. so before next week's earnings, what do you think? >> first of all, thank you for subscribing to action alerts where we address all the stocks my charitable trust owns and then some. second, celgene reports next

week and you are absolutely right. i don't think they do any gouging under the new ceo. they've been very straightforward. however, it is an election year, and i have not been pounding the table on any of the pharmaceuticals until after it's over. but i suggest taking no action. it's too low. how about kenneth in florida. kenneth. >> caller: how are you? >> i am good. how about you, kenneth? >> caller: oh, i'm great. i'm so happy to speak to you. you ought to be running for president. >> well, thank you. i'm running for president of cramerica. what's up? >> caller: what's up is hot. >> not great hotel chain, not going to recommend it. if you want to be in the hotel, it's going to be marriott after that merger. i don't like the business in particular because i think a lot of people believe airbnb is coming after them. may i suggest you buy expedia. how about don in florida, don. >> caller: i'm calling you from

vero beach, florida. i watch you every day. >> thank you. >> caller: my question is ffr. >> i don't like to reach for yield. we've got both verizon and at&t going down. i think that 5% is a better deal at fron tire. i am taking jerome from my home state of new jersey. jerome. >> caller: jim, my stock is lg homes. >> yes. i know lg. it's okay. i think the home builders frankly are too hard to own right here, right now until we find out more clarity about interest rates between here and year end. and that, ladies and gentlemen, is the conclusion of the lightning round! [ buzzer ] >> announcer: the lightning round is sponsored by td ameritrade. booyah, jim cramer.

i'm from south beach, florida where the women are as hot as jim cramer. [ crickets chirping ] >> i don't know whether to thank you or not there with the hot as a pistol there or whatever. >> booyah, jim, double booyah. >> hi, jim, the oracle of cnbc. >> oh, no. >> i love you for coining new phrases like people are cooky. >> caller: you and i have share a birthday. i am one day, 24 hours your senior. >> excellent. you're 48. >> and of course slap it on the meanest place on earth. oh, i'm sorry. slap it on twitter. i'll tell you why talk of possible democratic -- [ buzzer ] >> i'd like to finish the show, and then you can go do whatever you want, which is obviously not the show. e you doing? oh hey john, i'm connecting our brains so we can share our amazing trading knowledge. that's a great idea,

but why don't you just go to thinkorswim's chat rooms where you can share strategies, ideas, even actual trades with market professionals and thousands of other traders? i know. your brain told my brain before you told my face. mmm, blueberry? tap into the knowledge of other traders on thinkorswim. only at td ameritrade. will your business be ready when growth presents itself? american express open cards can help you take on a new job, or fill a big order or expand your office and take on whatever comes next. find out how american express cards and services can help prepare you for growth at open.com.

it's been ages since we've gotten in this much news in a single session. there's so much information to process that we need to group it by category if we're going to get a handle on what really happened today. in order of shows you tobacco remains one of the most lucrative businesses around. i bet british american has to pay more, but i doend think rend reynolds is worth chasing.

david faber always breaking new ground made clear qualcomm and nxpi have come to a deal. that was a little disappointing for nxpi shareholders, including my charitable trust, which you can follow along at actionalertsplus.com, but remember this stock was indeed at 80 not that long og. huge win. then the consolidation may continue as david indicated where there's smoke with this at&t and time warner story, there could be fire. just think with relding, nxpi, time warner, the merger related bid underneath makes the market a lot more easy to bet with than against. then there's the upside and down side of earnings. one was microsoft, which delivered a quarter that showed incredible cloud growth, made us feel like amazon might have a real competitor, maybe even a superior won to its web services business. rallied 4%, all time high. i remember when the ceo came in and talked to me about doing $18 billion in cloud revenues in a couple year' time. i thought he was being aggressive.

yet now on track to hit $20 billion by 2018. i think he's going to pull it off. the man is continually underestimated but not by me. did you see mcdonald's roaring up 3%. that move makes perfect sense. an astounding number. the naysayers don't understand this man. easter brook has reenergized the most important constituency, which is the franchisees. while people keep thinking the breakfast all day menu, i can safely say you ain't seen nothing yet. do not ring the register. you know what else is worth hanging onto? alkermese. last night the drug company announced some very positive data on its break through antidepressant that works when other medications have failed and doesn't produce weight gain. this is the holy grail of one of the largest pharmaceutical markets out there. major props to richard pops, the

ceo, for pressing forward relentlessly on this drug when others had given up on it. even up $12 or 28%, you know, i don't think the stock is done going higher although profit takers will no doubt swarm in eventually. but it wasn't all fair weather. my charitable trust may own nxpi semi and feeling good, but it also owns general electric. at ge, the orders were down 6% while the revenue disappointed. not disastrous, but certainly nothing to cheer about. i remain committed to it, but if the stock didn't have a decent yield, i bet it would go lower. three other disappointors worth mentioning. verizon, union pacific, and travelers. for verizon, blame more aggressive competitors like sprint and t-mobile. they've won the hearts and minds and more importantly the pocket books of the millennials with their radical advertisements and low prices. union pacific, people got too excited about a turn. too early. travelers, wow. this stock's been shelled mercilessly because of what's

known as this term in their call, distracted drivers. for years automobile fatalities were on the decline. that is until texting came along. it's the scourge of the highways and insurers including travelers simply weren't ready for it. they stnt aren't. what a couple of days. i bet this counts as calm versus next week, when the earnings season kicks into even higher gear. stick with cramer.

what's critical thinking like? a basketball costs $14. what's team spirit worth? (cheers) what's it worth to talk to your mom? what's the value of a walk in the woods? the value of capital is to create, not just wealth, but things that matter. morgan stanley

okay. look, if this time warner deal doesn't happen, this market's going to be in a little bit of trouble. that's how much hype there is. time warner is indeed, i think, worth $110. the stock is up 10, and everybody is presuming a done deal. nxpi/qualcomm, that 110 price, i tell you it's not that disappointing because the stock was at 80 a few weeks ago. i like to say there's always a bull market somewhere. i promise to try and find it just for you right here on "mad money." i'm jim cramer, and i will see you monday!

male announcer: america is struggling to shake off the recession. public distrust of wealthy ceos remains high. but more and more bosses are looking for radical ways to reconnect with their workforce in order to find out what's really going on in their companies. each week, we follow the boss of a major corporation as they go undercover in their own company. this week on undercover boss... - gentlemen, start your engines. announcer: the chief marketing officer of nascar poses as kevin, a lucky competition-winning race fan with an all-access pass.