tv Mad Money CNBC December 22, 2016 6:00pm-7:01pm EST
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way to hedge your portfolio. >> guy? >> pete turning 53 today, i know you're watching. tesla, tesla! >> i'm melissa lee. thank you for watching. see you back tomorrow at 5:00. . "mad money" starts with jim cramer now. my mission is simple, to make you money. i'm here to level the playing field for all investors. there's always a bull market somewhere, and i promise to help you find it. "mad money" starts now. hey, i'm cramer. welcome to "mad money." welcome to cramerica. other people want to make friends. i'm just trying to make 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. hey, what's the deal here? isn't the market always supposed to go up? how come stocks are breaking down instead of shooting higher? dow backsliding 23 points, spiep
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0.19%, nasdaq declining 0.44% today. ominous. now, look, only in a bull market of epic proportions would we even think of asking such questions. selloffs are a natural occurrence, and if they never happen, guess what. we wouldn't be so fixated on dow 20,000. we've been fixated on dow 200,000. of course that doesn't mean there's no reason for the decline or that we can ignore it. so let's go there. let's explore what's sending us lower so we can figure out whether this is a simple garden variety profit taking move or something more significant that we actually need to worry about. first when disseconding any down tape, i like to ask myself which is the leadership group that was most bearish? today it was retail. the standout negative narrative, the nasty miss by bed, bath, and beyond, a general merchandiser with a home emphasis that missed its projections by a mile, earning 85 cents when the street was looking for 98 cents.
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negative 1.4% same-store sales, much lower than the gain people were expecting. that's quite a miss. now, oddly the company was pretty cold blooded about the miss on the call saying that sales were soft around the election, did get better around black friday. but the fact is that bed, bath, and beyond is once again in a rebuilding year, think like sports, okay. this time building around one king's lane, their home goods catalog offering as well as personalization mall whi. personally, i could hardly believe the shortfall given how much my wife spent this quarter and fiscal year on one king's lane merchandise. but clearly even her buying wasn't enough to get bed/bath to the promised land of positive comps. that means a lot of other people couldn't have been buying. more important, the stock had been coming back. as investors had been betting that both housing related items and retail in general might be
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doing better than we thought. i don't know whether to extrapolate as easy as the street did, but the miss was nasty, causing one of the biggest long time supporters at raymond james to go from strong buy to hold with this little note. quote, we now will need to see even some scintilla of evidence of improvement before again sticking our collective neck out and recommending new purchases of bed, bath, and beyond. ouch! that negative pivot was one of the reasons why the stock was down 9% today. bed bath's woes cascaded down the retail group. it certainly didn't help that most analysts were caught looking the other way with an expectation that the colder weather and the confluence of hanukkah and christmas at the same time would produce a spike at the end of the quarter or at least after the quarter where they could talk about not a decline. but we didn't get that kind of positive chatter. on top of that, many were shocked yet that finish line could report such hideous numbers in light of the fact
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adidas and underunder armour were supposed to be taking pieces of a larger pie even as nike may not have been doing all that well domestically. other than matthew boss, the analyst from jpmorgan, who told us that according to nordstrom, mall traffic is the worst its been since 1972, there's been a lot of bullish commentary about retail since the election. a lot of it anecdotal, but it looks like this key group may have less going for it than we thought. the normally strong home goods category, it might be going down with the ship along with the already weather beaten apparel companies. that's how people felt after today's trading. it doesn't help that now we're hearing rum blings of a cross border tax on imports, something else that boss flagged earlier this week. of course our retailers import hundreds of billions of dollars worth of items, and that tax will have to be eaten by the retailers themselves as they're very little gives these days among relentlessly sharp consumers. not even the lower taxes so many are expecting, individual taxes
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from the trump administration, can mitigate the kind of grow margin decline a true tariff like that would accord. the next disappointer? red hat, which we'll be hearing from later. if you use open source software and you want to switch to the cloud, they're pretty much the only game in town. however, if red hat's the only game in town and they're having this much trouble closing deals, which they are, then could there be a broader slowdown going on in information technology spending? that's what people were talking about. if so, let's connect the dot. workday had problems closing deals. oracle had strong cloud numbers but weak on premises software numbers. yesterday accenture offered
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tepid guidance. red hat spins a new negative stoif about tech spending and what was supposed to be the hottest area out there. maybe after we talk to the straight shooting jim white hursz, we can reach a different, more positive conclusion. i bet the company uses its considerable cash on the balance sheet to buy in a ton of stock here after this decline. for now the trend is certainly looking worrisome. this days when we see a chink in the cloud, we get all queasy about everything in the fang cohort. just as they were the bright light last year at this time, they're now an area of total vulnerability even as many of them have been putting up great numbers. they're all seen, well, i think that we understand what kind of cohort they really are. >> not a trump stock, not a trump stock. >> because they do well regardless of whether the economy accelerates because of trump and his pro-business agenda. now, before we get too gloomy about tech, can we please pay homage to micron, which reported
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a magnificent quarter even though they pre-announced the upside not that long ago. it was the kind of upstart surprise you dream of, created by not enough supply of derams and flash remy chips to meet the incredible demand out there. western digital with its flash products and lam research, another one of my faves, two giant semiconductor equipment companies that will have to get new orders in order to sate all this demand. micron stock vaulted 12%. yeah, it's that good. here's one totally from left field. conagra trounced estimates. the makish of goods that we find in our pantries like swiss miss, ready whip, orville redden backer's popcorn, and hunts tomato iterations, brands they identify as iconic showed an impressive turn with better earnings and real margin improvement. this group has been shelled
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lately. it's become widely viewed as uninvestable. not today. plus oil rally, putting one morbid under that group. but it generated no pin action away. remember when the old market used to go up when the oil stocks went up. the other fang, which is the symbol for diamondback energy, did jump 1.28, though. that fang is doing so much better than the other fang. you know what i think? after endless days of rallying, it makes sense we cool off a bit, especially when even ardent trumpites, people like carl icahn telling us that short term, he's worried about the market. but let's -- let's put an asterisk on that. we don't want to come into 2017 so vulnerable that we can repeal lots of our recent gains. i don't think things are as negative as some of the retailers indicate. we just got good numbers the other day from carnival and darden although neither is mall-based and neither would get hit by import taxes if we get them. also this is a rally led by the financials and there's still no flies in that group. here's the bottom line. i say we have to get used to having some down days because you didn't get up to dow 19,975
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or thereabouts without them. and you won't get to dow 21,000 or any other number without them either. detours, they're acceptable, even logical along the way. and perhaps we finally hit a real one. let's go to jim in arizona, jim. >> caller: mr. cramer, thank you for taking my call. >> mm-hmm. >> caller: i bought palo alto networks before the moving average back on december 8th at $131, but now i'm down 4 1/2%. did i make a mistake? >> you know, i asked bruce kamich, who's therrific, and th chart's just okay. the stock is expensive. this group is for sale, but i don't want to sell palo alto down here even though i didn't like the quarter that much. i think you have to hold on to it, but the chart is -- bill in my home state of new
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jersey, bill. >> caller: how are you doing sir? >> good how about you? >> caller: pretty good there. i bought first republic bank stock back in the summer. doing pretty good with it so far. i'm just wondering what your thoughts were on keeping it as a long term investment. >> oh, yeah. that's actually what you want to do. i don't even want to -- this is one -- it's good, and you just hold it, and that's really about all there is to say about it. how about jacob in colorado, jacob. >> caller: hello, mr. cramer. nice to talk to you. >> same. >> caller: i recently received a few shares of add van 6 as a spinoff from honeywell, and i wonder whether you think it's worth purchasing some more. >> here's what we have to do. we have to do a full piece on that. we're going to have to huddle. my thinking by the way, remember, dave cody is about to retire, the great ceo of honeywell, and we like to see what happens after a ceo of a major company like that, who has done such a good job, does retire. he may be headed, by the way, for the wall of fame. larry. my old friend larry in massachusetts. happy holidays, larry.
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>> caller: jim, happy hanukkah, happy new year. get a good rest, and you don't mind if we don't hold dow 20,000 for you. >> do what you have to do. that's the way i look at it. and the patriots will be in the super bowl, so you don't have to worry. against the giants of all things. unbelievable. i saw it in the press. what's up? >> caller: hey, jim, with so many of the bond market yield equivalent stock oz so precarious but the financials and techs still thriving, would i be wrong to build a portfolio around cypress semi and ventas. >> i'm concerned only because i'm concerned about the real estate investment trust. cypress, i think is a takeout candidate. i like your ideas, and once again larry from massachusetts, what does he have? horse sense. all right. don't worry. it's just a destours. selloffs are natural. on "mad money" tonight, red hat reported yesterday.
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oh, boy. market didn't care for those earnings. i'm going to talk with the ceo, find out if the drop could be a buying opportunity or a red flag. then it's the world oldest bank and it may be collapsing. what it could mean for us here at home. plus i'm getting the yule lock ready. join me during my fire side chat where i'm talking some questions with a holiday spin. 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.
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ware and storage software that's increasingly been moving into the cloud. last night they reported. today the stock got obliterated. here's the thing. even though red hat posted a three cent earnings beat off a 58 cent basis, the revenue came in by low wall street expectations. more important, we saw a deceleration in the all important key metric for this kind of enterprise software, which is billings, up just 9%, down from 19% and 16% in the previous two quarters. that's a pretty big change and not for the better although it turns out this is mostly because some big government deals slipped into the next quarter, but there could be other reasons. management lowered the revenue outlook for the rest of the fiscal year even as they raised their earnings forecast br a few cents. the cfo, a favorite of mine, someone who has come on "mad money" to represent the company, a rarity on a ceo-based show, is stepping down in january. ouch. nobody likes it when the cfo steps down. this is obviously not what
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people wanted to see. but we have to wonder has the market overreacted with the selloff? after all, red hat indicated that billings would pick up against next quarter. the company is still signing a ton of big deals at higher prices. so is this a buying opportunity in the stock of a high quality company that simply hit a speed bump or do we need to be more concerned about its future? let's check in with jim whitehurst, president and ceo. mr. whitehurst, welcome back to "mad money." >> hey, jim. thanks for having me back. >> jim, first of all, i am thrilled that you came on on an obviously tough day for the stock. it wasn't like you said, i'm not coming on "mad money." i do have to ask you, though, when you say in your own words, we faced a few challenges that tempered the growth of some of the items in our results, i immediately think does tempered the growth mean that business actually got softer or competition came in to take business away? >> this was really a couple of specific deals. what we tried to convey on the call is we had phenomenal deal
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metrics across the board. unfortunately, those were masked by a couple of large government deals that didn't close, which we believe was due to the continuing resolution legislation as well as the changing government. those deals are on track to close now, and with those two deals, we would have been in mid teens. we even guided mid teens for next quarter on our billings number. we do think this was an air pocket related to two deals. >> in the conference call, it got very caught up in the notion of short term and long term. i have to side with one of my favorite analysts and friend, heather ballerinany, who said that -- she used it on the conference call. she said, i just don't understand it. should we just -- did we get off track in the conference call. >> we can look at long term and short term, but what we've
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always said on billings is it's volume di volatile in any one quarter. we did our best to explain that both the long term and short term -- short term was due to a couple government deals. long term was due to some really massive deals that we did, and we called out two of the deals alone that were, you know, combined well over $40 million, which only billed one year at a time. if you put those two things together, that's about $47 million in billings which would have put us way, way, way over the top. so this really was optics around literally four deals and where they fell. >> all right. were you happy yourself with the execution of your company this quarter? >> oh, absolutely happy. if we look overall at the business, we continue to perform extremely well. we guided cash flow next quarter up 22% to 28%. we never guide billings because it is volatile. but because of the slowdown, we actually guided mid teens billing, so a rebound in billings, which is to convey that we see a lot of strength in the business and feel very good
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about where we are and where we're going. >> so i just want to be sure. those four deals that come back in, you would not have had that billings growth, and it would have been a better quarter? >> with those four deals alone, we would have had very high teens to low 20s billings growth, which would have been well above where wall street was. >> but you understand also, let's talk about frank, your cfo leaving. i don't have cfos on the show. he's one of them. he's one of them because he is key management. so when you understand that when he leaves, i don't like it when a cfo leaves candidly, and we're showing some video of when he was here. but when you were not available, i was thrilled to have frank on because he is a great spokesperson for where he works. so you understand the impact. it was not just some cfo leaving. >> yeah, i fully understand that. but i mean as you know, the quality of someone like frank calderoneny, he's an extraordinary executive, and he was always more of a ceo in waiting. you know, an opportunity came up, and he will be a ceo, and
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when he came to red hat, he said his aspiration was to be a ceo. so i fully understood that, and obviously the timing's not perfect, but he has a great opportunity which ultimately he'll talk a little more about in january. so, you know, i think this was to be expected at some point. it's just unfortunately is this quarter. >> we have a litany we have to address. oracle reported a quarter that was really the legacy business wasn't that strong, but the cloud wasn't strong enough to offset it. accenture said tougher times coming. how do we know red hat isn't part of that whole litany, that narrative? >> well, that's why we tried to provide some guidance for q4 that we would say is actually quite strong. again, cash flow up 22% to 28%. we guided that mid teens billings, a rebound in billings. we're trying to convey we see a very, very strong pipeline unlike some of the companies you mentioned. some of those actually were okay in the dwaert and they actually
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guided down. we were the reverse. we had a soft patch in this quarter. if anything, we guided across most measures much more positively than we typically do. we try to be very transparent about the very specific down to the deal level of what caused this to miss on some of those metrics this quarter. >> are you surprised that more people didn't key in on the fact that 25 of 25 of your biggest guides were up, and all 25 renewed, and they did so at more than 120% of their prior annual commitment, which to me is a better metric if you're trying to think longer term about red hat. >> well, absolutely. we talked about every one of our 30 deals was over $2 million. that's the first time that's ever happened. we had 72 deals in total that were over $1 million. that's 20% more than we've ever had in a q3. so overall, we had really, really strong deal measures. but as you said, you know, this is a business that's measured on billings, and so billings was light. we worked to explain why, but certainly understand there's a
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negative reaction when that happens. >> one last question. we do have a new administration coming in. it does have a bit of a different tone to it. i know the first thing that president-elect trump did was call executives, including some executives he thinks cost the government too much. are you going into a new regime where the federal government may be even more slow because they're concerned that the president may find out how much money somebody is spending on something and really want to take a look at it? >> we actually see that as a benefit for red hat in two ways. first off, we are heavily weighted in our government business to defense and intelligence, which i think conventional wisdom says we'll likely get more funding in a trump administration. secondly, you know, as you know, in the fact that we've had literally 59 quarters of increasing revenue growth consecutively, we do really well in soft markets. so we continue to grow well in 2008. so when budgets get tight, people look for value, and open source is generally seen as a
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lower cost alternative. i think a larger spending environment in general, especially on the defense and intelligence side and more pressure to get better deals is a really good sign for us for our business in the public sector going forward. >> all right. let's leave it there. thank you so to jump whitehurst. president and ceo of white hat. good to see you, sir, as always. >> thanks for having me. >> on a tough day for the stock, the ceo comes on. i think that that alone is a better sign. think a little longer term. red hat has got a great long term model. "mad money" is back after the break. >> announcer: coming up, grab a warm drink. pull on your favorite sweater and drop a line to cramer, whether it be call, tweet, or facebook message. jim gets cozy for a fire side chat when "mad money" returns.
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surrounding the possible destruction of the world's oldest bank, italy a monty depass ki, played a larger, more negative role? how can the potential collapse of a bank with more than 160 billion euro in assets, the third largest in italy, along with more than 45 billion euros in debt not create a far bigger ripple here given what we've seen in recent years out of europe and its interrelation to u.s. banks? are we just whistling past the graveyard of a storied bank that will wipe out the savings of hundreds of thousands of pensioners who rely on it for their income? in short, why on earth doesn't anybody seem to care about this? in the old dark days, we would have been down at least 2% to 3% in the last two days on the potential collapse of such a storied institution. why the shrug? i got a couple ideas. first, monty depass ki is indeed a zombie bank, and it has been
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for years. by some accounts, it's all pretty murky frankly. these guys have about 50 billion euros in non-performing loans. that's 38% of their loan bank. that's an unfathomable amount. in this kucountry, those number would have led to a seizure years ago by even the most brain dead of regulators. heck, a bank with 3.8% of loans not performing is pretty much incol vent. but 38%? i mean this one's a dead duck. it's been one since 2010. monty depass ki obviously is in much worse shape than italy's second largest bank, which is called uni credit because that one just completed a 13 billion euro rights offering, boosting capital while at the same time selling a huge book of bad loans. the radical actions taken by uni credit appear to have put that bank on much firmer footing, but i doernts think the same could be done at monty depass ki because their loans seem far more sour and their management less adept at dealing with its problems to put it politely.
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so there's no surprise factor to what's happening here. second, i think italy itself has been written off as an unimportant country in europe even as it has the third largest bond market in the world. once the eu decided to protect the bonds and the rates came down to where each issuance wouldn't break the budget, the whole affair became a yawner. that's a rather staggering development when you consider that five years ago, when italy's ten-year rates were at 7%, the highest of any developed country in the whole world, everyone was hanging on to each italian bond auction to see if italy would fail. n the country's banks have a staggering number in bad debt. as long as the sovereign debt is basically sured, individual bank debt attached those bad loans doesn't mean that much, including the subordinated debt purchased by italians in the last few years. then recovery can actually be begin. that's bullish.
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as we've seen elsewhere, the recovery can't begin in a country in the a crunch occurs and the problems are dealt with. italy's economy has been faltering for years and while we often here is because the country is uncompetitive as a labor force, i think the real issue is the total near -- well, let's say a banking system that doesn't work. it's just plain scary to do business there. if you think that the bank you're dealing with is going under, you don't want to take any risks. that's about to change, though, and i think that a state run monty depass ki would be a good thing for italy, except for the people who stand to lose their life savings. those people are going to want italy to leave the eu, but that could be a good thing too. remember, germany is the richest and most influential country in the eurozone, but have been unwilling to help their neighbors. a resurgence could force germany to spend some money so the rest
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can grow. finally the linkage between our banks and their banks, it's done. it's broken. our banks are now so big with so much capital and are so conservative that their numbers being thrown out of europe's ailing financial sector, as long as they seem, they're just a drop in the bucket for our banks here. none of the big banks in europe where it be deutsche or monty seem big enough anymore to hurt us. that's what happens when responsible regular lators demand better balance sheets and more equity, which is what we did in this country a long time ago, and it's what the italians are just beginning to do. brian in california, brian. >> caller: hey, how is it going, cramer? love the show. booyah. >> booyah, happy holidays. >> caller: happy holidays to you as well. i'm holding bank of america. do you think we'll see another boom in the financials for the new year and if so, do you think it will be a while till we hit
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25 on bank of america. >> bank of america had a move from 16 to 23. it was one of the fastest big cap moves i've ever seen. it's resting. probably trade between 21 and 23, maybe even for four or five weeks. but then it recharges, and it can run if we get four rate hikes, and that's a big if. europe's banking sector just doesn't have a strong hold on us anymore. wow. that's why italy's latest saga didn't have the ripple effect here that it would have niganyt in the last five years. much more "mad money" ahead. the weather outside might be frightful, but we're getting cozy on the set. then it's a private company that works with some of your favorite brands like starbucks, pepsico, nestle. it's an expert in all things consumer and culinary, and i got the ceo. and a very merry edition of the lightning round with a special guest you're not going to want to miss. stick with cramer.
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♪ >> announcer: and now, a fireside chat with jim cramer. oh, hello there. with the holidays approaching, we're all looking forward to quiet time, reflection. as you make plans for 2017, i'm here to help. that's why i'm taking your questions from the phones, from twitter, from facebook. send them our way at #madtweets or go to facebook. send "mad money" a message. so grab some hot chocolate or maybe something stiffer. pull up a chair like me. and let's get down to business. i'd like to start with my friend ann marie in new york. ann marie. >> caller: hi, jim. happy holidays. >> same tao, ann marie. getting your shopping done? >> caller: very little shopping this year because i'm saving for
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retirement. but i've been practicing gratitude this week since i have a lot to be grateful for. but i have a question about trimming my citi bank profits. >> ann marie, we're not going to do that. i'm cutting you off right there even though i know it's supposed to be a cerebral kind of solitude nus time. citi is going higher. its book value is 64. my charitable trust owns it. ann marie, i want you to take profits in something else because there's no way you should sell citi. we need that one for the long run. you okay with that? >> caller: perfect. >> all right. >> caller: perfect, perfect. thank you. >> all right. merry christmas. let's go to lynn in illinois. lynn. hey, lynn. >> caller: hello. >> what's up? >> caller: just a question. curious about ppg stock and how you feel about it. we've owned it for quite a while, and it just seems like in the last year and a half, it
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just keeps rocking back and forth and never really making anything. how do you feel about that stock? >> you know, it's funny, lynn. i happened to be going through some papers and was looking at a letter that chuck bunch sent me, the former ceo back in august of 2015. it was a really sweet letter about how he liked the fact that i looked at industrial companies, considered ppg. they got a new ceo who is doing a terrific job. the problem is the world got a little softer for them. you know what, i think paint is coming back. we know that from home defee. i think that the sherwin williams combination means there's less competition. i want you to stick with ppg, and if it goes down say, like, another 10%, then i think it is worth buying more. and when i say that to own it, i mean i just think ppg is a good company. there's no reason to just sell it here, none. >> caller: okay. good. >> all right? merry christmas to you. >> caller: and you too. thank you. >> thank you. you know what, what we're going to do now, let's take a few questions, say, from -- i don't
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know. i'm looking at my former stage director, kyle. from social media. our first question comes from a tweet @chris mampi, who wrote @jimcramer, what am i missing with smith a& wesson, beat and raise. listen, pal, you're absolutely right. i got to tell you something. this one is a political situation. a lot of people feel with the new president coming in, he's pro-gun, and there won't be this big rush to buy guns as there are if a new president comes in who is anti-gun. i say it's all noise. i think it's a great long-term hold, and i think that smith & wesson, another six months from now, is going to be higher. do we have time for another while i'm enjoying my yule log? here we go. next we got a tweet from @will. who asked, @jimcramer, what's
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your take on ollie's bargain outlet. i was in the store recently and couldn't leave. ollie's is real good because they've got a model that people really love. don't forget this is a company that has an army. most retailers do not have armies. i side with an army. i want to know how many divisions the other guys have. all right. "mad money" is back after the break.
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tonight, tonight is bittersweet here on "mad money." this is the last show our stage manager kyle will be with us. he's moving on to a new and very exciting assignment. [ applause ] he's someone you have all come to know. he's the commissioner of our fantasy league, and he is part of the heart and soul of "mad money." come on out here. come on. i want to dedicate the lightning round to kyle, and i survived ten years with kyle, and all i got was this lousy t-shirt. see you later, chief. >> are we hugging? we're hugging. thanks, jim. and now it is time! it is time for a special lightning round on cramer's "mad money." that's where i take your calls rapid fire. you tell me the name of the stock. i tell you to buy, buy, buy or sell, sell, sell. we'll play this sound --
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[ buzzer ] -- and kyle's last lightning round is over. are you ready, skee-daddy? it's time for the lightning round on cramer's "mad money." we're start with samuel in new york, samuel. >> caller: hey, jim. go skeer kus orange. >> what's going on? what's the stock? >> caller: i want to ask about southwestern energy. >> i like that because i'm a believer in natural gas here because of all the uses. dennis in california, dennis. >> caller: hello, jim. how are you? >> i'm good. how about you, dennis? >> caller: good. i own gilead. >> gilead right now is -- >> don't buy, don't buy. >> they've got to do an acquisition. they have no growth. jerry in missouri, jerry. >> caller: hey, jim. thanks for all your information. my question is about certaserne. >> it's in that nether world of medical. the only one i'm recommending is united health. i need to go to man sour in
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texas, man sour. >> caller: hey, how are you, james? >> i am good. how about you? >> caller: i'm doing fine, buddy. i need to know about ibn. >> huh? ibm? i like ibm. i think they're doing a good job. we need to see the next quarter. john in california, john. >> caller: merry christmas from out here in sacramento. we love you, jim. >> oh, man, i love sacto. i love the old city. what's up? >> caller: my thought is long term what of you think of loading up on cemex. >> no i like u.s. concrete. better buy. better balance sheet. chris in north carolina, chris. >> caller: hey, jim. this is chris. first time caller. thank you so much having me on the call. >> quite welcome. >> caller: i have a question on a stock bluebird bio. >> bluebird biois a very good spec, but it is a spec.
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remember, celgene is the more conservative of the line. sidney in new york, sidney. >> caller: yeah, i'm here. can you tell me your opinion of glax oh smith klein? >> it doesn't have growth. if we're going to buy a pharmaceutical, we want growth, and the one that has the most is the one that my charitable trust owns, which is allergan. we're not done. we're taking one more. we're going to sam in illinois, sam. >> caller: professor cramer, booyah and happy holidays to ya. >> merry christmas, what's happening? >> caller: cxw. >> no. we're worried about the private jails. we think they're moving up too much. we're going to stay away. but i do say that this one's a little cheaper than some of the others we've profiled. let's go to anthony in new york, anthony. >> caller: hello, jim. booyah and happy holidays to you and your family. >> same. >> caller: my stock is ash.
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>> people don't like ashland but i like it because it's international. it is very, very shareholder friendly, and that, ladies and gentlemen, is the last lightning round we will ever have with kyle. we'll do it again. >> one, two, three. >> stay with cramer! [ buzzer ] >> announcer: the lightning round is sponsored by td ameritrade.
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hey gary, what are 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.
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one of the biggest themes over the past few years has been the rise of natural organic foods. they've gone from a small nooesh to totally mainstream. given how health conscious the younger generation is like my kids, i got to believe it's here to stay. tonight i want to talk about how that happened.
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it's not like half the country woke up one morning and decided out of the blue that artificial ingredients are bad and organic is good. this theme had some help, including the help of sterling rice group, a privately owned brand building firm that helps food, health care, and consumer product companies create and launch new products including many natural and organic brands. for example, they've done work for white wave. thats with one of our best recommendations for this year. starbucks, campbell's soup, general mills. in fact, every year sterling rice partners with an outfit called new hope network create the next guide to where the market is head. they just came out with the 2017 edition a few weeks ago. what does the future of the natural organic movement look like? let's dig deeper with the ceo of sterling rice group, who has worked at both ben & jerry's. welcome to "mad money." >> thanks, jim. >> have a seat.
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tell me what 2017 holds because i think it's actually, from what i can tell, going to be different. >> it's going to be different. it's going to be exciting new year. >> okay. >> i do have to, you know, say this. one of the things that's going to be a hallmark, i think, of organic and natural this year is more than anything we're going to be seeing the mainstreaming of the category itself. >> okay. >> so it used to be if i dial all the way back to 1984, celestial seasonings, arguably that and white wave in its initial formation started a natural foods business in boulder, colorado. you fast forward to 2017, and we're really looking at the mainstreaming of natural and organic. and i don't mean that just in terms of a trend. i mean that in terms of hard numbers. so we're looking at 57% of all natural food products sold will now be being sold in the coming year through conventional
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channels. i'm talking about mass merchandisers, club stores, supermarkets. >> but that would be so tough and can explain a lot about why whole foods is struggling so much because there's their hallmark. if everybody is adopting theirs, i mean i went to a fred meyer recently, and the naturals next to the inorganic. let's call it inorganic, right. it's not in an aisle. it's right there with price compare, and somehow natural has come down in price. >> it is coming down in price. a lot of it has to do with volume. so as agricultural crops can grow more and more organic, you're getting longer plant runs, less expensive processing, lower costs, reflecting a lower price. >> if i can get a private label, therefore store label, natural and organic, i find those are cheaper than the old pantry brands. >> they are cheaper than the pantry brands and many of them are exceptionally good. >> right. >> so all of this is contributing to the growth of the category. >> will there be another theme? for instance, my kids are
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saying, look, dad, buying in bulk is now good because we don't like packaging. they don't like fruit that has to be perfect because they think that mean that uglier fruit is being thrown away. they're conscious of waste. can that become a mainstream theme? >> it's definitely becoming a main extreme theme. we're seeing, for example, the millennial generation far more conscious about food waste, food quality, natural, organic, and also the culinary aspect of food. so they actually have to be the most adventurous generation we've seen in generations in terms of their willingness to experiment with food. >> you take a company like general mills, which is a very good company. >> absolutely. >> but they're having negative numbers. is it possible to reverse a trend of an older product that is not natural and organic? >> yes. i'm convinced that it is. >> you do think so? >> i've seen it before, and it takes an eye on two things. and not everybody is doing it correctly. >> okay. >> so part of it is acquisition.
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>> right. >> and acquisitions, and general mills is a perfect example. you know, something that they did that's worked i think credibly well. >> old house farms and campbells if they can keep building on that. >> both of those clients of srg. >> that's what i thought. also at the same time, they have to focus on the core, and i think some of the mistakes that big food companies are making is they're focusing on the acquisitions. they're focusing on the growth there. >> but they're taking their eye off the core. >> they're not paying attention to how do we take out artificial flavors, artificial colors, hydrogenated oils? they're not atendsing to everything they need to to turn the ship around. >> i hope they listen to you because some of these stocks have been falling. i want to give them some growth. that's the ceo of sterling-rice group with a picture of the future for natural and organics. stick with cramer.
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there's way too much time fretting about retail today which i got to tell you, after a cold week, we may actually have some better sales. and not enough time spent talking about mu, micron. micron's quarter was staggering. it was incredible to hit on all cylinders and to see so many areas of the economy needing more chips, particularly the internet of things, the data center. these are growth areas. so before you decide the market is completely overvalued, go read the micron conference call. you might not feel that way. i like to say there's always a bull market somewhere. i promise to try to find it just for you right here on "mad money." i'm jim cramer, and i will see you tomorrow!
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>> welcome to the shark tank, where entrepreneurs seeking an investment will face these sharks. if they hear a great idea, they'll invest their own money or fight each other for a deal. this is "shark tank." ♪ with a new way to serve an old-fashioned dessert. are you guys ready for something good? are you guys ready for something new? [ laughs ]
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