never going to happen? >> odds are, it will never happen. >> clarify. >> select comfort. scss. >> thank you for watching. see you back here tomorrow at 5:00. more "fast money." in the meantime, don't go anywhere. "mad money" with jim cramer starts right now. my mission is simple, to make you money. i'm here to level the playing field for all investors. there's always a bull market somewhere, and i promise to help you find it. "mad money" starts now. hey, i'm cramer. welcome to "mad money." welcome to cramerica. other people want to make friends. i'm just trying to help you make some money. my job is not just to entertain but to put it in context. so call me at 1-800-743-cnbc or tweet me @jimcramer. sometimes the market rallies because bad things just don't happen. other times we rally because fears prove false. when stocks collide with negative news, they tend to go

down. but with this market, collision avoidance is king. and when we collide, we bounce back with alacrity, including today with the dow beginning 60 points, s&p advancing, nasdaq climbing 0.88%. a lot of action there. let me give you some concrete examples of what could have happened but didn't. let's comb the accidents that never occurred. first we need to parse some of the biggest fears being peddled by pessimistic prognosticators, perhaps designed to sow panic although the panic failed to materialize. for example, how often did we hear in late december that if the dow didn't crack through 20,000, we were doomed for a huge selloff. >> sell, sell, sell. >> i can't believe how loud that inane chatter was. we cracked through the 20,000 ceiling or we get thrown back into some sort of on liblivion. this or this. here we are. we didn't take it out. we got thrown back from dow

20,000, and the result, dow gets right off the canvas, makes another challenge. the prognostication here, just plain wrong. second, we heard that there would be big rebalances at the year end. i kept hearing that chatter that required institutions to sell a boat load of stock, we thought when 2017 began, there would be a gigantic wave of tax-related selling. i know i thought that could be. we got a little selloff last week, but it wasn't monumental. the rebalancing story is not working out. i think it was bogus. how about the heavy tax-related selling? i got to admit it hasn't happened yet. not today. not yesterday. maybe that's the end of the story. there's also been an astonishing amount of talk about how we're seeing peak psycycles in everytg from homes to planes to cars. peak cycles is bear talk for it's the end, okay? it's like the jim morrison song, the end, the end. so far, despite the dramatic

spike in interest rates, we haven't heard about a sbound from any home builders. if anything, there's the opposite. there's a housing shortage. i keep reading these scare articles about the collapse of high-end apartment values. come on, housing is a multi trill dollar market, and yet the med media babbles on. we're seeing a resurgence in home building. it's finally back to where it was before the great recession. so much for peak housing in a world of higher rates. how about peak planes? this has been one of the biggest can ards out there. it's true this incredibly important business is being stung with a surfeit of wide body airplanes. there are queues stretching for years to get those planes because as the developing world becomes wealthier, more and more people can afford air travel. it's a secular trend, not a cyclical one. today we learned that the biggest scare story of all, peak

autos, was just plain wrong. we got flabbergastingly positive numbers out of g.m. today, plus 10%. analysts were looking for plus 4. every single auto company reported better than expected numbers, in some cases like ford, the incredibly lucrative f series trucks led the way. not only do the car sales more the stock of g.m. and ford, but they're fabulous for car max, for auto nation, for auto parts companies, endless down grades by non-believers, and they're going to be wrong. it's even great news for much loved nvidia and call cough, which is buying nxp semi. i think auto sales are strong because you noeed a car to get o your job and jobs are plentiful. the conclusion of the election busted open the floodgates of buyers. december was just plane fantastic, off the charts. even tesla stock rallied despite the fact that it missed its forecast, helped no doubt by a

better backdrop and an analyst meeting where elon musk worked as usual magic. short sellers, it's too hard. what else? today we got minutes from the most recent fed meeting, and they indicate that rates are going to go up this year in order to keep the economy from overheating. the market paused, and then it rallied. six months ago, what would that same statement have done? well, i can tell you it would have destroyed this market. >> the house of pain. >> housing stocks, auto stocks would have been horrible. today they're among the best. talk about commission avoidance or maybe accident forgiveness. a little more than a month ago, we were aghast that the president-elect was tweeting a tax on individual companies like one for moving jobs to mexico. he started with an attack on united technologies, caused the company to blink, lay off 1,000 workers in indiana instead of 2,000 that would have been let go if the company had been following through its original plan to move the whole carrier

air-conditioning hvac mathry coo mexico. trump's next target, boeing, which he attacked in a tweet about outrageous air force one cost overruns. the stock was at 154. now it's at 158. buying opportunity. then the president-elect hit lockheed martin over the head with a two by four over the f-35 overruns. don't look now, but the stock is now more than one point above where it was trading after that tweet appeared. buying opportunity. what a chance you got to buy g.m. yesterday after h off still one more trump tweet, that one about the company making cars in mexico and mississippiishippingm here. sure, we got good superseding news today, but let's face it. when was the last time you made almost three bucks from g.m. in almost 24 hours. g.m. jumped more than 5% today. maybe one of those better be lucky than good buying opportunities. we know that deregulation is a major part of trump's economic

agenda but lots of skeptics have asked me repeatedly whats heck does deregulation mean? how can the president roll back regulations? well, buy executive appointments, that's how. the truth is the president and his subordinates have a ton of discretion in terms of how laws are enforced. take greg pruitt, the oklahoma attorney general. if he gets approved, he could roll back years of regulations. love it or hate it, he'll have a field day. it will be a field day for the utilities. a field day for the fossil fuel companies, for the refiners, for the pipeline operators, for the builders, although probably not so great for the environment. >> not a trump stock. >> or look at trump's proposed labor secretary. he's the ceo of fast food company. we had him on the show. smart guy. you think he's going to represent the interests of labor, which is historically what that department does? only theoretically. he opposed raising the minimum wage because he thinks it destroys jobs. how about this new appointment we heard today, jay clayton.

he's a corporate finance lawyer from s and c. you think he'll be creating a bunch of new regulations? think again. this is a job that's going to prosecutors or regulators of late. clayton a deal maker. he's going to look for ways to help business, not hurt it. hey, look, let's get right down to it. trump picked rex tillerson, the ceo of exxon mobil to run the state department for heaven's sake. you think he won't promote the interests of business, especialep especially oil companies. i say the stock's favorite form of government is one that is heavily influenced by corporations, has a lot of corporate mind share. remember, this is "mad money," it's not mad politics. then there's the recovery of stocks that have been blasted for not being cyclical enough to participate in the trump rally. we are now beginning to see large buyers of salesforce.com. we're seeing large buyers of facebook. we're even seeing buyers of red

hat which just missed the quarter. at the same time, some stocks that have been left for dead are rebounding, like the rails. have you seen the breakouts in disney? how about deere? they've been challenged. now, i'm not an ostrich. i saw the incredibly hideous poor numbers. i didn't want to look because it was a real collision. kohl's and macy's. just this evening, it's hammering the stock severely. all the bricks and more star stocks except for the ones that take advantage of these guys have excess inventory are getting hammered. i've said over and over it's an amazon holiday season. that's a secular negative for these guys. it's a collision that can't be avoided. bottom line, this rally is all about accidents that didn't happen and recoveries that happened like lightning. that's been the fuel behind the move. it can run out for a couple days for sure. but when that occurs, it's a

chance to buy, not a reason to sell. alison in maryland, alison. >> caller: booyah, jim. >> booyah. >> caller: so i have thousands of shares in class a underarmour stock and i'm not that far off from retirement. you've been a big fan of under armour, but it's fallen from grease rece grace recently. are you still a believer. >> i think kevin plank is a competitor. i'm sorry to interrupt, alison. but kevin plank is a competitor, and there's no way that guy is going to remain on the convas long. i think that under armour is not a sell. i think it down here is a buy because i trust kefvin plank. i'm been right to side step the decline, but that doesn't mean it isn't 9 right time to get back in. robert in california, robert. >> caller: booyah, jim. >> oh, we got a familial booyah. i always like those for the new yaerd. happy new year. what's up?

>> caller: i'm sitting here with my 5-year-old grandson, jack, and he is wanting to invest his piggy bank money in disney. as a first time investor, and we would like could your take on it. >> i think the kid's got horse sense. this is a good company with a good stock. remember when we were fretting every minute? oh, espn. hey, you know, everybody in the world wants to work there. i have to tell you i think bob iger has flexibility. he's got optionality, all those fancy words which says, hey, disney's got it in cards. this is about accidents that didn't happen and rapid recovery. any pull back, i'm calling it a chance to buy, not one to sell. on "mad money" tonight, the trump bump may have given you something to celebrate in 2016. but could the new year bring volatility? then something bizarre took place in the averages yesterday. energy stocks and oil prices

consciously uncoupled. i'll tell you what it means for your investments in the space. and a company that can help you stick to your new year's resolution that just announced a big integration deal with none other than google. don't miss my exclusive with the ceo of mind body. we'll get some mindfulness and some finance. 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. t&

ha os t tadirectv now. stream all your entertainment! anywhere! anytime! can we lose the 'all'. there's no cbs and we don't have a ton of sports. anywhere, any... let's lose the 'anywhere, anytime' too. you can't download on-the-go, there's no dvr, yada yada yada. stream some stuff! somewhere! sometimes! you totally nailed that buddy. simple. don't let directv now limit your entertainment. only xfinity gives you more to stream to any screen. have we become too complacent, or could this market have more room to run? given the incredible rally we've seen since the election, i think it's worth pondering whether there might be any warning signs that we need to take more seriously. don't misunderstand, i'm not trying to be a debbie downer, but after a big move, it often pays to hold your emotions in check, take a less emotional look at the situation.

one thing i always like to keep an eye on is the weekly investors intelligence survey of bullish and bearish newsletter writers. in the latest report, the number of bulls has moved up to 60.2%, only 18.4 bears, another 21.4% looking for a correction. why is it a problem to have so many bulls? think about it. because when everybody is bullish, it means there's really no one left to come in and buy. a healthy rally needs plenty of bears who can be persuaded to change their minds. that's how this rally started. otherwise it runs out of fuel. plus historically when the bullish percentage goes above 60%, it often means we're getting complacent and nearing a top. last time it happened, 2014. right before we fell off a cliff. now, when we're talking about com placency, i always like to watch the sebo volatility endix. that's why tonight we're going off the charts with the help of mark sebastian, the founder of option pit.com. he's also my colleague at real money.com. if order to get a read on the overall level of complacency out

there. sebastian is our go to expert on the volatility index. he's been right as rain, and that's the vix for short. it measures the level of volatility that traders are expecting in the near future. it's often viewed as a proxy for the amount of fear in the marketplace. needless to say right now the level of perceived fear, pretty darn low, right? i mean a picture tells a thousand words. vix currently trading around 12. is it too low? here's the thing. by itself the volatility index, it doesn't really tell us much. the fact that it's around 12 means things are calm. but do you really -- you don't need a weatherman to know which way the wind blows, right? when you look at the volatility index in the right context, it can tell you a lot. typically sebastian points out the vix tends to move in the opposite direction from the stock market. when the s&p 500 is rising, the vix should be falling. and when the s&p 500 is declining, the vix should be advancing. those are the signs of a straightforward, rational market. where are they now? take a look at this pair of daily charts, the s&p 500 and the volatility index. this is going back to the

election. according to sebastian, the vix behavior was very normal in the wake of trump's surprise victory as the s&p went off to the races, the vix dropped lower and lower. remember on wall street many people refer to this index as the fear gauge, and it's investigators embrace the president's agenda, fear dissipated. however, something changed last week. you can see that here in another version of the same pair of charts that something changed. as we approached the end of the year, the averages pulled back from their highs, okay? spf pulled back from their highs, and with the s&p getting clocked. a lot of you were on vacations. the worrisome thing here is the behavior of the volatility index. sebastian notes while the market was down about 4%, the vix spiked more than 20%, going into the lock weekend, during a period that usually tends to be pretty quiet. that's a big increase in the fear gauge for such a small

decline in the averages. this outsized move in the vix raised a yellow flag for sebastian. it had him wondering why the volatility index would spike so heavily going into a slow period. could there be something going on yaeth that we need to starting considered about? for a moment i know it felt like we should be chewing our fingernails if not tearing our hair out. but take a look at this. again, it's the same pair of charts but now we're looking at what happened yesterday. we came in, and the market popped with the vix falling again. it's something that continued today. you know what? back to normal. why does sebastian make of all this? putting it all together, he thinks the spike in the vix last week was a false fear symbol. rather than being a genuine sign that we should be more worried, not too com placent, it was more of a factor of -- however, that doesn't mean we should totally

dismiss last week's alarming readings. what would make sebastian truly worried? last week the vix made a dramatic move, but that move was in the right direction. it went up when the s&p 500 went down, just like it's supposed to. the time to be concerned is when the vix moves in the wrong direction, when it breaks the usual correlation. for example if the s&p hits a new high but the vixz fails to hit a new low, that could be a sign the rally is running out of gas. it's not just the action in the vix that makes him feel confident. i want you to take a look at this next. a little more rigorous. next pair of charts. this is the volatility index on top and the vivex on the bottom. now, we have talked about this before, but i'll go over it again so you know. just as the regular vix measures the volatility of the stock market, the vvix measures the volatility of the vix. maybe you took calculus in school. it's similar to taking the derivative of the vix.

the vvix measures the acceleration. for sebastian, the action in the vvix confirms what he's seeing with the regular volatility index. the vvix has been heading down since the election and is currently near the lows it made last month. at the moment, it's found a lower band around 80, okay? typically when the vvix gets this low, the market is due for a small pullback, but sebastian says it's important that the vvix moves first because it's the leading indicator. so if you see this index rallying, you might want to be prepared for stocks to go lower. still, in the past you know there have been periods of time where this index, this vvix traded consistently in the 70s and even in the 60s. and if we're entering a newfound era of good feelings for the stock market, then maybe it could be headed there. the lower this thing goes the better because it's like a more sensitive version of the fear gauge. put it all together, and while the latest investors

intelligence survey is definitely disconcerting, sebastian's read on the vix is a lot more encouraging. based on his analysis, he thinks it's unlikely we'll see a major reversal without a meaningful negative catalyst. all else equal, sebastian believes the s&p will continue to head higher because of his vix work. here's the bottom line. you may suspect we're becoming complacent here, but the charts as interpreted by mark kbas chan, who i said has been dead right, suggests this market probably has more room to run. much more "mad money" ahead, including my take on energy in a new administration. there was a bizarre move in the market yesterday that could have a major impact on your money. then a company bringing wellness straight to your fingertips. i'll tell you how mindbody could impact both your fitness and your finance. and 16 days until the presidential inauguration. what could the new administration mean for a domestic utility play? i'm sitting down with the ceo to find out. so stick with cramer. ote. 5,onot

i don't know if you caught it, but something very bizarre happened yesterday. something we didn't see in all of 2016. the price of crude went down, but the oil and gas stocks went up. that's right. we came into work with oil up a buck and change, threatened to bust through the $55 ceiling that's contained oil during the entire updraft from last year's bottom. the rally in crude was central to the strong opening in the overall market yesterday. but then something happened that we'd almost forgotten about thanks to all of the hoopla surrounding trump's election. oil reversed and took the s&p 500 down with it. when you surveyed the stock universe, the oils actually gave up very little of their gains, less than every other group i follow save the drug stocks.

today we had a rally in crude. why is that? how did the oils hold in or in some cases rally harder on days like yesterday where crude went lower? a couple reasons. first our oil companies with assets in the permian are making a lot of grumbles about how they continue to cut the cost of drilling so that anything in the mid-50s means production growth will exceed expectations. they make too much money at these prices not to drill. second, there have been signs of no cheating. no cheating in the recent opec agreement. that was something that was confirmed today by an opec survey. the best estimates indicate that the cartels actually controlling production far better than the skeptics thought. ird this, behind the scenes, m&a. in a little noticed story yesterday, an outfit called chapter 4 investors suggested in a letter that eqt corp., an integrated oil and gas company, consider merging with range

resources or entara resources. all right. chapter 4 owns 1.35 million shares in range. 765,000 in entarot. that's as of the most recent november files. obvious synergies and overlaps among the companies that could make for a powerful combination. you could make that same case for dozens of potential oil and gas mergers. finally and most important, the analysts who down grade these stocks and it happens every day including today, there were a ton of them. they simply aren't taking into account what a pro-fossil fuel president can bring to the oil and gas party. he can rein in the epa, which has been the bain of existence for even the safe ef drillers. he can help speed up pipelines that help make oil and gas more profitable because they're cheaping and safer than trucks. of course like him or not, rex tillerson, the former ceo of exxon mobil will most likely be our secretary of state now that he's divested his holdings and cashed out. one of his jobs will be to promote business overseas.

trump has taken this thing to a whole new level and he hasn't even been sworn in yet. let's not overthink this. the main takeaway is any decoupling of the oil and gas stocks from the actual price of oil and crude, one that sends these stocks higher even during a brutal reversal is especially good news for a goop that looked like it was going down for the count a year ago, but has become integral to the amazing trump rally. do not let the analysts talk you out of oil stocks or natural gas stocks, many of which were downgraded today because nat gas prices cratered yesterday. this regime is the regime that wants oil and gas companies to make money. so i think they will. alex in connecticut, alex. >> caller: hey, jim. this is alex. i'm 29 and just started saving for retirement. my stock is ete, energy transequity. i original bought it because of the large dividend. with trump being elected, should i hold or buy more? >> you can own it.

the guys who run that company, it's too much of a deal maker. i like a little more, let's say, responsibility, and that's why my charitable trust -- why i tell club members of action owners plus, magellan midstream partners. i'm not setelling you to sell, t don't put any more in. put it in mmp. daniel in california, daniel. >> caller: booyah from san francisco. >> fantastic. we hope to get out there soon. >> caller: long time listener. what are your thoughts on chesapeake energy. >> i like it. i'm a believer in natural gas. i think this company is going to make it. i think they've refinanced. the think the company is much better run. i believe that actually the ceo is about to be on cnbc with brian sullivan, which will be an interview you and i must listen to. what do you get when the price of crude goes down and the stocks of oil and gas companies go high or? great news for a group that wasn't so favorable just a year ago. much more "mad money" ahead, including a stock that's up 40% in the past year.

can mindbody continue its move? i've got the exclusive with the ceo. then what happens to the utilities under the trump administration? i'm going to the ceo of dominion to find out. and all your calls rapid fire on tonight's edition of the lightning round.

>> announcer: when the ball drops, will this company find a way to put fitness first? and can mindbody generate the rush to make this innovation work out? every now and then you'll find one stock that embodies not one but two powerful themes. take mindbody, symbol m as in mary, b. the cloud-based provider of

business management software that's specifically tailored to the health and wellness industry. two of the strongest secular trends out there. if you own a small yoga studio, mind body's plarm gives your clients an easy way to book classes, check your schedule. plus they also help you manage the business side of things. mindbody has gone from 500 subscribers to more than 58,000 in the latest quarter. 35% revenue growth. even as the company is not profitable. but the stock has rallied 63% in the last year. so can mindbody continue its terrific move? just yesterday it announced a new partnership with google that aims to help consumers easily book fitness and wellness classes directly through google search or google maps or a stand-alone website. let's dig deeper with rick stollmeyer. he's the co-foirnd, president, and ceo of mindbody to learn more about his company and his prospects. o welcome to "mad money."

thanks for coming on the show. i was talking to a friend of mine who owns a couple of gyms in new york. she said -- i did not know mindbody. she goes, it is a necessity. you couldn't operate successfully a gym, a studio or a spa without this booking platform. >> these businesses, they have a scheduling problems. they're running classes or appointments that are koj assistantly varies. they tend to manage anywhere from eight to 30 part time teachers, trainers and therapists, so they have to manage them. they have to determine who is scheduled when, how much they're going to pay them to deliver the service. the payment is variable. it depends on how many people show up for the class or how much money was collected at the door. then they have a crm opportunity. they have thousands of customers that they want to track more proactively. there's a payments challenge as well, and then there's the online booking and point of sale. so what we do can be thought of like an erp for these businesses. >> meaning that basically it's

too expensive for a smaller proprietor to ever build this themselves. >> oh, absolutely. it would be millions of dollars. i mean a handful of companies have built their own. >> ulta, for instance, has one. the biggest. >> that's right. soul cycle did. but that costs several million dollars. >> at the same time there are outfits that started small or actually have hundreds of units that still use mindbody. >> pure bar is running on our software, over 460 locations. bar three. core power yoga, about 200 locations. our system can start with the small single location and scale effectively. >> why can't i and a couple of guys from stanford open up a minder body? >> i started this business in my garage 16 years ago. prior to that i was a nuclear submarine officer, and this is the most complicated thing i've ever done. it is. >> fair enough. >> it is unbelievably deep.

the deeper you go into it, the deeper it becomes. there's a never-ending level things that our customers warrant to see us do. we spend 28 million on r and d just to in creptly improve what we're doing. >> is that why under armour went with you? we think they're a technology skp that sells apparel. >> they've got some exciting things going on. we can surface to any member or mobile interface the ability tore consumers to quickly find, evaluate, and book and fay for whatever wellness service they want. >> google obviously liked that about. they could have gone with anybody or could have built it themselves, but they chose not to. >> for google to do that, they would have to get behind the desk of those businesses. right now you can search on google and find a list of yoga studios or fitness studios. you can see them depicted on a map. but if you want to see the schedule of classes this

afternoon, if you wanted to compare reviews, wanted to see pricing, read descriptions, you'd have to click through to every one of those websites. so aggregating that in to major consumer portals have been a long term goal. >> why should someone buy your stock knowing that you're not making money? >> as a matter of fact, we've said to the street we're going to be profitable no lightater t the first quarter. >> clearly you want to get in ahead of that. that's what i always tell people to do. >>. we've committed to the street we'll be profitable no later than this quarter. and on adjusted basis to be clear. free clash flow positive would follow not long after that. >> how big is the total addressable market for this? >> it's really huge. there are literally millions of businesses worldwide, and when i say millions, we did a study. we found over 4 million brick and mortar businesses in our currently addressable markets. we currently have customers in over 100 countries.

so the bigger challenge isn't the size of the market. it's choosing the best portion of the market to go after next. >> and that's because that's the most lucrative for you or most necessary? i think people want to know at home since it's your first time on, how does mindbody make money? what do you charge? how do you do it? >> first and foremost, we have the subscription fees. >> that's like a cloud-based business. >> so there's monthly subscription fees that are relatively modest. our least expensive price point is $75 a month and our most expensive is $295 a month. after that are the payments. so we ran over $6.2 billion in payments trailing 12 months through our system. >> so you take a percentage? >> we do. we are an iso. we're a visa, mastercard, independent sales organization, so we are a reseller of payment services. we're intermediating some other service, so they're getting a good price and a great service for their payments. they're getting it integrated.

so if i walked into your fitness studio and you sold me on an annual membership, i'm going to hand you my credit card. you're going to swipe it, charge me for the first month. it's going to store and encrypt that credit card and automatically charge it for the next 11 months. our system manages all of that. >> so the customer may think it's the gym that does that, but it's actually powered by you. >> that's right. >> but you can still build on particular apps if you want to. >> absolutely. so you take something like orange theory fitness. they have some exciting technology plays. they have a band you wear around your chest that measures your heart rate. they have used the apis to link that to the data in our system and are able to give their customers a very unique view into their fitness experience. it's always been our goal to be an api platform. out of that, there are literally hundreds of startups that have built solutions on top of us. we bought two of them in recent years. in 2015, we bought fitness mobile apps, which is a branded mobile app experience. if you go to pure bars, for example, mobile app, it is being

run by that. we bought them in '15. and in '16, we bought heel coat, which is a brand-new web experience. >> which looks very good. i've got to tell you this is a very exciting company, and you're obviously the man to see about this kind of software. that's rick stollmeyer. he's the co-found ir, chairman, president and ceo of mind body, which my people tell me is a necessity. "mad money" is back after the break. ÷

>> announcer: lightning round is sponsored by td ameritrade. it is time! it is time for the 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 -- [ 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." i'm going to start with jason in new jersey, jason. >> caller: jim, welcome back. >> thank you. >> caller: you're welcome. advanced micro was trading like someone knows something. what are you thinking? >> no, i don't think anyone knows something other than the fact that the company is doing much better than people think. it does have kind of a difficult agreement that may cause some profit taking, but i will tell you that amd is back, and i

think it can still go higher. i'd like to go to laura in new york, laura. >> caller: speaking. >> there you go. >> caller: hi. i'd like to know i've had merck for quite a well. should i hold it or sell it? >> merck, i think, is a hold. i believe in the work that ken frazier is doing, and i would not sell the stock. don't forget it also yields 3%. how about adrian in alabama, adrian. >>. >> caller: booyah, jim. i need your insight on hudson technology. they just won a five-year, $400 million contract. what do you think? >> it's too small a stock for me to know off the cuff. i've got to do work on hudson. i know that it just kind of jumped a lot this year, and i thought it was interesting because it's about contamination. we'll do some work. we'll come back. richie in florida, richie. >> caller: hey, jim. thanks for taking my call. >> you're quite welcome. >> caller: i purchased

kimberly-clark at $135, and i bought it as a core stock. i'm wondering why it's down so much. >> okay. it's down because it's not the kind of stock that -- it is a -- >> not a trump stock. >> why? because it doesn't do better with a stronger economy. that said, i am never going to tell someone to sell the stock of kimberly-clark, a great american company, with a 3% yield. if anything i say, buy more. rose marie in illinois, rose marie. >> caller: thank you for taking my call. i big castle cor-- crown castle have two questions. can you comment on that industry from an investment perspective, and is cci a good investment? >> i think wireless towers is terrific, but i always tell people that amt and sbac are the better ones, and i'm going to stick by that. particularly with american tower. how about phil in new york,

phil. >> caller: yes, cramer. my question is about costco. what is a good price point to buy into costco stock? >> we're going to get some numbers from costco. it's probably going to get hit. my club members know that i think costco is a membership play conthe cost going out. paul in florida, paul. >> caller: happy new year from sunny florida. >> same. >> caller: my wife and i listen to you afn. >> thank you. >> caller: we're looking at son. >> stop looking. start buying. that is a company that i have liked since 1989 when my father did some work for them. that, ladies and gentlemen, is the conclusion of the lightning round! [ buzzer ] >> announcer: the lightning round is sponsored by td ameritrade. frhamot hily

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what are we supposed to make of utilities now that donald trump is just a couple weeks away from the presidency. this is one industry that could benefit from deregulation. on the other hand, these utility stocks are all high yielders that many people own as bond market alternatives. that makes them a lot less attractive where the fed is set to raise interest rates multiple times in 2017. the way i see it the utilities are caught in a tug-of-war between the president-elect and the fed. take dominion resources. it's got a bunch of additional businesses that should be bolstered by the trump administration beyond the fact

that the utility side of facts will have an easier time once the epa crack down on coal plants ends. last year the company spent $4.4 billion to buy quest star. which then dropped down to its subsidiary last month. i think 2017 could be the year of natural gas. on top of that, dominion's proposed a pipeline to take gas from regions in pennsylvania and ohio and bring it down to the carolinas. now, dominion stock rallied 13% last year, but it's got a notoriously big dividend, yields nearly 3.7%. you have to worry income seeking investors might sell this kind of stock in order to buy bonds as interest rates continue to rise. can the stock keep climbing? let's check in with tom farrell, the chairman and ceo of dominion resources to get a better sense of how his company is doing and where it's headed. mr. farrell, welcome back to "mad money." >> happy new year, jim. good to be with you. >> same to you. are we finally at that moment where really well run utilities

that are also doing many other things that could augment their bottom line will be able to do better in a political regime that makes it so we should stop thinking of them as just simple bond market equivalents? >> well, that's very possible, you know. we're a little bit different than most of our peers because we have a very large gas infrastructure business. when we build out, you mentioned our co-point l and g facility which will be finished later this year. the pipeline, the atlantic coast pipeline we're building with a couple of partners down in the carolinas will be done in '19. gas infrastructure will be almost half of the cash flow earning stream that dominion resources, which makes it quite unique in this space and allow us to grow our dividend faster than most of our peers. we're a little bit different as we go into this, deregulation will help all of us. just the cost of regulation will

go down. and there's tax reform coming, and that's sort of an open-ended question for utilities as well, exactly how that will work itself through over the next six to nine months. >> i was looking through -- talking about the atlantic coast pipeline, the ferc notice of schedule. this president is pro-pipeline, okay? and i wanted to know whether you think -- because you're a man in this industry who really knows things. does it matter that the president of the united states is pro-pipeline and wants pipelines to not be blocked by constituencies? >> i do think it helps, but i would say in this particular case, our particular case with the atlantic coast pipeline, you know, this is handled at a very -- at an independent federal agency, ferk, who actually issued the permitting for center state gas pipelines, which is what we're building here. it's a very professional organization. the staff have been dealing with

pipelines for decades, and they've done a very good job of processing this application through. we got our draft environmental impact statement at the very end of last year, which is a very good sign that we're going ahead with progress. we expect the final permits this summer, and there will be construction in the fall and be ready in '19. but overall, it certainly helps to have a pro-energy infrastructure administration. >> right, i mean ferc, if you look at dakota access, it's a good pipeline in terms of versus trains. but there are obviously people who came out against it, and the current president is certainly no fan. let's put it that way. that can change. how about this? epa, we got attorney general pruitt from oklahoma coming in there. he has sued the epa. 18% of your 2015 generating capacity by fuel is coal. would you think that under, say, a hillary clinton regime, you would have had to phase that out much faster than under a regime

that is led by donald trump? >> well, we'll have to see what happens with the clean power plant, which became final. it's in the courts right now. it's not a simple thing to change. it's not like some of the other executive orders. i'm sure your viewers don't want to hear a long discourse on the difference between rule makings and pure executive orders. >> administration law judge, that's right. >> there's a big difference. the clean power plan is not by executive order. it's by regulation and rule making. it's not quite the -- you can't snap your fingers and change that. so there's a lot of time actually that -- a process that will have to be gone through. we'll have to see 0 how that comes out. >> you're the lowest cost producer. we have lots of different data farms. they want to be in your area. can you lower the cost of electricity, which does make everybody's life better? it's how you -- it's a way to be able to bet ur yourself.

will you be able to lower the price of electricity more under a trump regime than you could otherwise? >> well, the big change for us are these new gas -- the new technologies around gas-fired power plants. they become very, very efficient, and natural gas particularly at these prices where they are now, when we finish our greensville county power plant last year or in '18, it's going to be the most efficient power plant in the united states. gas-fire the plant in the united states. and it helps produce billions of dollars of savings to customers over its 40-year life. so you will definitely have lower prices, but a lot of it has to do with technologies and the low gas prices, making sure that you have access to low-priced energy is a key to low prices for utilities. >> let me follow up on that. i know that for generating capacity, oil is much bigger than your actual output. but do you think that opec is real? do you think that oil can go up?

>> yes, i do. >> you do? >> we burn very little oil at our company. very few utilities actually use oil these days to produce electricity. but i do think you're going to see a firming of prices in oil. but i don't think you're going to see it back at $80 or $90. >> fair enough. >> i think it will be in the $50. >> excellent. tom farrell, chairman, president and ceo of dominion resources. doing so many things right and making so much money for shareholders. good to talk to you. >> thank you, jim. >> this is one i've been liking forever. i can't change my mind. i think it's getting better. stick with cramer.

as macy's goes, as kohl's goes, nordstrom will do the same. don't own that group. department stores, no thanks. 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. i will see you tomorrow. bugs... -(theme music playing)

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