well done. >> home runs >> exactly look at you. valero energy is working here, sarah, come on. >> there you go. thank you, everybody thank you for watching "fast money. "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 make you a little money my job not just to entertain but to educate, explain days like today. call me, 1-800-743-cnbc. tweet me @jimcramer. every day i wake up, 3:45 a.m.,

and i look for that crack, that chin in the armor, the first sign that a recession is really upon us. or at least it's right around a corner i mean, somewhere, right some address dow advances 141 points. s&p inches up. nasdaq gains .73%. after all, we know that this, it's got be to be happening somewhere, right a recession is all that anyone seems to talk about anymore. i get it can you really have the largest tech merchant bank go poof and not think it will be a knockout blow for the next generation of start-ups? with credit suisse -- i went to work there almost it's a major operation and it just went under can a couple of crypto banks vanish with no impact to the economy? is it really possible that the relationship between the inorganic two-year treasury and ten-year treasury can be defied by reality

seriously. shouldn't the eve of destruction, shouldn't those signs be everywhere? i mean, isn't the credit crunch all around us? shouldn't we be able to reach for, it look for it like the purloined letter like this? tasty. well, let me tell you a little story. i pulled up with the salesforce people the other day and all i could think of is how bad it must feel to be the owner of that giant salesforce tower in san francisco that boston properties owns, by the way. think about it you have this massive headquarters built just before covid hit and then the ohana bails and starts everyone working from home just at the time when it was one of the safest streets in the country. now you've got to cross to the other side of the street to avoid the san francisco panhandlers who don't seem to take no for an answer. sounds awful, right? epicenter of the recession center of the credit crunch? but then i read an interview with the head honchos of boston

properties they're the rulers of the tower. are they choking on vacancies? it's the opposite. they've got multiple inquiries to get into that building. they have many people who want to lease it. maybe more than there is space and that's just one of several cities where boston properties has incredibly low vacancies we're talking millions and millions of square feet of what are supposed to be ghost towns, aren't they? in reality they're anything but. sure you can say because they have the best properties class-a buildings that's why it's happening. i say if we were truly heading to a recession there wouldn't be a class-a property they'd all be flunking still maybe we should look at -- i don't know lower end real estate. maybe that's too high. what's something commercial or residential that might be bagging if the economy deteriorates dramatically? hey, how about time shares nobody buys time shares. they have to be sold and sold aggressively and financed. always incredibly difficult when times are tough. and there is a credit crunch

trust me so i go to the premier -- tasty credit crunch. so i go to the premier time share company -- never talk with your mouth full. marriott vacations worldwide and i'm ready to see how bad the time share industry's doing, right? who the heck is going to buy a timeshare in this environment? i mean, business must be dead in there, right wrong. marriott vacations just racked up 12% contract sales growth for the quarter. they're predicting a very solid year for 2023 too. just now in the last quarter business is about as robust as it has ever been if things were truly weak, why would they bother to even put out guidance instead of giving out great guidance they're clearly not worried. but how about those 10s and 2s don't they know about the 10s and 2s don't they see the credit crunch all over the floor p what if marriott vacationsize some kind of outlier maybe they're really great let's go down a step, travel &

leisure company, the old wyndham destinations, largest in the country. they're tightening up their lending standards but when asked if they're seeing a slowdown management said in lower close rates, and the close rates are strong of course they're wary but we're all wary but their business is fine the billionaire hedge funds say we have to be wary but the business is good you know what? i found myself saying ain't these folks ever heard of a yield curve inversion? how about retail isn't retail just -- retail's got to be -- are you in there retail i can't find it. got to be ground zero for the company collapse where are the banks besides party city which frankly wasn't worth the helium it peddled. somehow the deeply troubled bed bath & beyond is still alive the stores are still open even

as they continue to lay off employ yeeds and they'd be better off as bowleros wasn't gamestop supposed to be next remember them? they just had the most profitable quarter in years. gamestop simply decided to focus on brick and mortar and it paid off. must be all those nfts perhaps but there's got to be severe retail weakness somewhere. really right? i mean, when we get -- i mean, when you get to the detritus -- i can't go in the national real estate investment trust because i fear maybe in there, maybe the credit crunch is -- national -- i listened to the federal realty conference call. this was the largest shopping center reit in the country business may be the strongest i can ever recall, and i followed this company for 15 years. in the q&a session tried to create some controversy about one of their properties out west that might not be leasing as well as they thought numbers were extraordinary

they own 532 of the scripps shopping centers you don't like so much. 96% occupancy. i don't call that recession. how about 97 for kanger? that's the biggest owner of all price outlet center. although that's more of a trade-down play. this credit crunch is supposed to be everywhere i've got to tell you but one broom and it's gone. there's actual weakness in auto retailers. i'm not a fan of lithia motors, giant car dealerships. it is true that carvana may be the weak link here and i saw it was like -- what was that one -- kind of toy in there. that wasn't a credit crunch. that was something else. i don't think anybody else is going to be taken down by the pin action of carvana. it's just one less competitor. who cares? again, though, the question has to be how can aught-nation and lithia not be cruising for a bruising their buyers need financing

that's hard to come by everyone needs financing there's got to be a credit crunch in that industry. they're making less per vehicle too. if you own a car and you want to buy a car, you need to finance, right? and it's going to be at a much higher interest rate unless you pay cash that's why rate hikes tend to crush new and used car sales but the dealerships themselves are very bullish they're not seeing the credit crunch even as their balance sheets aren't great but if we're on the verge of a recession because of a credit crunch, their business should be crumbling now and no one should be giving anyone credit, not the dealer, not the buyer. it's just not happening. next, how many articles have you read about the big e-commerce companies pulling back aren't they giving up? i keep seeing these analysts speak about how there's a retrenchment that's wrecking the warehouse industry fine but why is the largest owner of this warehouse real estate, prologgis at 97% occupation? that's about as good as it gets.

all these portholes in the economy could be clouding up quickly because of silicon valley bank, signature bank and silver gate. but the fact is we haven't seen them yet not in this. we've not seen this. and my information is fresh as the day it was sent, which is not that long ago. now, some -- like what we heard last night from john gibson he's the straight shooting new ceo of paychex, the largest payroll processor for small and medium size businesses in this country. the weakness isn't the weakness from main street companies are still competing all over the country inflation, jay, inflation. although paychex is worried about the mini banking crisis, they're saying that the actual pay, the actual pain has to do with the group that can take the most pain. >> the house of pain >> the rich. whether we're talking people with gigantic bank accounts, brimming with cash in previous venture capital deals or the ones with broken spacs that just

crushed it the people holding o'back on the rh furniture or the low compensated engineers and programmers being laid off by faang and friends. not the most sympathetic crowd but hurting nonetheless. sure, we can say it's just a matter of time before this surfaces, before it jumps off the shelf. the recession's inevitable, right? it has to be we keep hearing that pay no attention to the data behind the curtain the great and powerful yield curve has spoken can we please just agree on one thing, though? at this very moment unless you've been laid off by a tech company that gives you months of severance, or you work at party city or bed bath & beyond you're probably doing pretty darn well right now. bottom line i keep searching for signs of recession and what i find is nothing better but nothing worse. at least for now i promise to keep looking. and i always will. it increasingly feels like a visit to the proctologist. something you can only do so many times a day before it just plain exhausts you, to be euphemistic about it maybe the recession's coming

maybe the credit crunch is right upon us. but you know what? until then i think it's pretty invisible. let's go to jack in ohio, please jack >> caller: hey, thanks for taking my call, jimmy. >> my pleasure, jack what's happening >> caller: hey, with the recent pullback in energy, and it looks like it's trying to rebound some, do you think it's a good time to add more dvn, devon energy >> well, as we said the other day on our conference call for our charitable trust, for the investing club, that was the one we didn't want to add to they missed the quarter pretty badly. you're going to hear ab energy company later in the show that i think is going to distinguish itself as maybe the one you should buy let's go to david in florida >> caller: boo-yah, jim. >> boo-yah, david. >> caller: so let's talk railroads. i'm particularly curious about whether to invest in union pacific right now. what would you say about that? >> i think union pacific is very cheap. it got put down because the last quarter wasn't that good and then it was subsequently -- the

east palestine situation with norfolk southern drove it down further. but i think you need something that represents some value here. i'm not nuts about it. i need to see the next quarter but i think you're okay. look, i keep searching i look every day for the inside -- inside for the credit crunch and i'm just not seeing it what i find is nothing better, nothing worse. at least for now natural gas prices pulling back from their highs what should you make of a company like b2t i'm getting the latest from the company's top brass. then rh got crushed after earnings rh, where are you? but is it time to plop back into the stock? i'm seeing if the different could be a buying opportunity. what could this mean for the whole crypto co-hoert? i'm discussing with former cftc chair tim massey so stay with cramer.

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at this time last year oil and gas prices were becoming aggressively higher first in the wake of russia's unprovoked invasion of ukraine. we figured there would be a huge energy shortage in europe given that they've got so much natural gas from russia. that conclusion was very right, until it wasn't. energy prices peaked last summer much higher than here but since then they tanked in part because we had a pretty mild winter all

over the world crude and natural gas fell to 52-week lows down 80% from its highs. what the heck do we do with the companies that produce, move and export natural gas given the surprising underlying weakness in the underlying commodity? do we have to give up on the entire group in maybe there's a reason to buy. take e2t corp., the number one natural gas production company in this country. focused on the marcelus shale, the appalachian basin. good company let's check in with toby rice, he's the president and ceo of eqt. welcome to "mad money. >> thanks, jim >> so toby, you generated almost $2 billion of free cash flow you achieved investment grade credit rating. your stock is on the s&p 500 and we have one of the worst natural gas prices we've seen. how is this possible >> gas prices have come down

simply put because the weather did not show up. we've had one of the warmest winters since 1950 and as a result that's left about 500 bcs in storage all said on a bcf per day that's about 12 bcf a day demand destruction we saw as a result of lack of weather ten bcf came from weather, another two bcf a day came from freeport being off line. freeport's back on line and i think we're going to see operators adjust their activity levels and hopefully thegas markets will balance to a price that's probably closer to the cost of supply in this country which is probably closer to $4 than it is 3 and that's where we'll see the balance of more sustainable pricing in the future >> that's freeport which is a giant facility being able to export and move natural gas. now, obviously you have to be pretty proficient at how to hedge when you're at these levels you were actually able to craft a price of natural gas that was profitable, weren't you? >> yes and you know, the name of the game in a volatile commodity

world which we will be experiencing as long as these pipeline delays, permits and blockages take place, the keys to success are pretty simple to be successful, be resilient as an energy producer you need to have a very low cost structure, which eqt has unwith of the lowest cost structures in the industry you need to have an investment grade balance sheet, which we have one of the only ones that can claim that we need to have a balanced hedge portfolio which we've done, caring about the floors but also making sure we care about the ceilings we're putting on our business and on top of that you need to have really solid discipline capital allocation all these things are going to lead to more durable free cash flow stream. and unlike peers where you've seen the free cash flow deteriorate in a lower commodity price environment than we're in today, eqt has been durable and we're still going to be printing high single-digit free cash flow yields and even in no low commodity price environment we're

forecasted to produce over $12 billion of free cash flow over the next five years. that amount of free cash flow is going to allow us to retire the entirety of our market cap so even athese suppressed commodity prices a lot of things to get excited about with eqt, and all of this is to give investors the best risk adjusted exposure to natural gas pricing. >> how about this tug hill acquisition? which sounds like immediately it's going to make money for you. >> absolutely. in addition to your generic financial accretion on cash flow per share one of the things we look for in our m&a strategy is to find deals that will actually lower our cost structure that low cost structure we claimed today is only going to get lower with tug hill. our break even cost for our business will drop about 15 cents. that's over 10% cost reduction there. and when we find these synergies that will have an impact of improving the cost benefit from this another four cents. and jim, every penny at our scale translates to $20 million

of free cash flow. so we're really excited about having these assets become a part of the portfolio. >> well, we also know, i mean, if you're bullish, i am, on 2024, in natural gas, you're set up to make money it's not like you decided to write this industry off. you put on positions that will make it so if natural gas goes up which you have to expect if there's more export, you will profit big >> yeah, absolutely. i've been in this business since the shale revolution started and i've never been more excited about the future of natural gas specifically what we've seen in this industry is a clear differentiation from gas, from fossil fuels, you know, natural gas. i think the world is waking up and recognizing not only the decarbonizing impact natural gas can have on the world, that's important as the world's thinking about transitioning to lower carbon fuels, but also understanding the energy security benefits you get from natural gas. you know, key lessons learned in '22 is that energy security

matters. without energy security you cannot transition. just look at what happened in europe and the key to energy security, look where the world turned in '22. they turned to american natural gas in the form of lng it is going to create a tremendous opportunity for natural gas in the future. >> you mentioned an area in germany which definitely shot itself in the foot there's another area not that far from where you and i live and that's called new england. and i think they've shut down far more than they can produce at what point do they recognize that you are -- actually, really eqt, their only major hope >> jim, the crazy thing that's happening around -- it's happening around the world but specifically in places like new england. you're seeing the extreme disconnects in the market because of the lack of pipelines. you know, it's remarkable that new england gas prices correlate higher to europe than they do in pennsylvania, which is only 300 miles away the answer is very simple and one of my life goals is to give

my mom, who still lives in boston, the freedom to be able to lower her energy costs by over six times by getting rid of that oil tanker in her basement to heat her home and get her cleaner, cheaper, more affordable, reliable natural gas. >> i couldn't aagree more with you. i know this is an issue that our show has championed since the very beginning when we first saw what you're doing and recognized that the hope for energy independence is actually not hope at all, it's a reality, if giswe just let it occur. eqt president toby rice. thank you so much for coming on "mad money." >> thank you >> we'll be be right back. >> announcer: coming up, this company has furnished plenty of profits. but should a soft quarter have you flipping the kitchen table find out next

- psst! susan! with paycom, employees do their own payroll. - what's paycom? a magic payroll genie? - it's a payroll app. - payroll is way too complicated for the average person. - paycom guides them through it. missing or duplicate punches, pending expenses, unapproved pto, on and on. - why would employees wanna do all that? - this could be a stretch, but i think it's 'cause they wanna get paid correctly. i like getting paid correctly.

last night there was one earnings report that was very quizzical. we were focused on it like a laser, though. it's called rh that's the high-end furniture retailer formerly known as restoration hardware here's a stock that had been a real dog for the last year and a half it was so great for so long. and it's never been able to mount a sustained recovery but rh is important because ceo gary friedman was very early and very right with his dire predictions for what would happen with the economy and more important for retail almost exactly a year ago rh reported a not so hot quarter but more importantly the conference call was incredibly downbeat friedman hammered on about how they'd seen a major softening of demand after russia invaded ukraine and worried that inflation was becoming engrained and disruptive i'm not exactly in a position to criticize other people for being melodramatic, am i at the time friedman's diatribe was met with mockery were we really supposed to

believe that the war in ukraine far off in europe was causing rh's well-heeled customers to stop buying expensive sofas? it sounded nuts. but he was right he turned out to be at the vanguard within a couple of months we started seeing hideous shortfalls from a wide variety of expensive retailers it became clear there was a huge shift in consumer spending habits people stopped buying physical goods. instead they want for experiences or services. they turned out to be long on money but short on time. in retrospect friedman was right to be downbeat and that's why we were paying close attention to rh's results just last night even though the stock's been in a no go zone for a while now so what did we learn nothing good let's start with the actual numbers which were suboptimal. small revenue shortfall with sales down 14.5% year over year. big gross margin decline never want to see that major earnings miss. while they had preannounced some of these numbers in early february they still managed to

disappoint wall street's already lowered expectations worse the guidance for the current quarter came in much weaker than expected both on the sales front and the margin front. the four-year forecast was also pretty darn grim >> the house of pain >> so the numbers were not good at all and yet somehow gary friedman's initial commentary in the conference call was even more negative than the numbers. in his prepared remarks friedman said the persistent inflation was having a very hard impact on the luxury housing market which in turn impacts rh when you throw in the damage from stock market declines and the recent banking crisis he expects the industry and i'm going to quote, "likely gets worse before it gets better. in difficult times like cheese is when the cheat is separated from the chaff so to speak he said companies are tempted to adopt short-term plans that lead to mostly similar outcomes sxep made it clear that rh would not be doing this. instead he plans to forge ahead with the grand luxury ambitions that the company has been communicating for the past

couple years that 17th century estate in england. luxury hotel -- luxury guest houses private planes, yachts and eventually the sale of fully furnished luxury homes, condos and apartments friedman said it's not for the faint of heart but also acknowledged they got ahead of the situation by issuing $2.5 billion for the debt when interest rates were incredibly low. he's also conducted a recent round of layoffs to the point where rh doesn't have to worry about frund funding its long-term plans even in a short-term environment in explaining why rl guided so conservatively friedman again got started on the diltiesies for the current moment he talked about how scared he was to see the banks running california where rh is based. he said in many words he was expecting some additional bank failures compared to the time span between the fall of bear stearns and the fall of lehman brothers. friedman also said quite canned eddly that rh had no idea what this economy's going to look like he talked about the '70s and early '80s when the fed said

they had inflation under control ult m ip'll times only for it to flair up again and again leading to another round of aggressive rate hikes this was a big point of emphasis for friedman unlike many other ceos we've heard from who now want the fed to back off, in some cases because they're struggling under the weight of higher rates, friedman wants the fed to go all scorched earth and make sure we defeat inflation for good. he even said jay powell should be president if the fed wins the fight against inflation. it was a different kind of conference call. in the end the conference call did get a tad repetitive friedman kept talking about how bad things are right now, saying he's got no idea how the rest of the year will unfold but also insisting rh won't deviate from its strategy what were the takeaways at least for us first the near term does remain insanely difficult to plan for banking crisis of the past three weeks seems to have really spooked wealthier customers and some luxury furniture ceos inflation still needs to come down and at least at rh specifically the near-term numbers are going

to keep being ugly as the company cuts back on spending as it increases its expansion plan. it's a little counterintuitive what he's doing but while acknowledging you have to take friedman seriously because he was is so right early and so right last year. do you know what i came out of last night's conference call feeling a bit more sanguine than friedman himself. and i never like to get ahead of a ceo. but i think he's in more of a funk than i am first while i agree that beating inflation is the top priority i actually think we've made a ton of progress toward that goal already. and as much as we don't want a banking crisis it will definitely help in the fight against inflation. we've certainly got to keep monitoring the banks too but i wouldn't be surprised if the government has the crisis under control, at least in the near term. as for rh in particular, call me crazy. i want to buy this stock, buy it rh moved lower today and how could it not after that miss and lowball forecast. but after listening the to conference call and understanding the forecast already incorporates friedman's

many concerns about the economy i'd be willing to bet that if things don't turn out we will not have a lean-in moment and grim guidance was frankly too grim let me give you the bottom line here for a man i respect, gary fried naan, pressure yept when he started worrying about the economy a year ago, we've got to take his ongoing concerns seriously but i think he got too negative last night. i expect to be pleasantly surprised here short term though friedman could be right about the high end. he's got the order book. and the high end is where the pain is most visible even if as lenin once said if the rich are unhappy it is indeed their own fault let's go to ben in new jersey. ben. >> caller: jim how's it going >> bern, it's going well how about you? >> oh, man, he couldn't complain beautiful day. phillies opener. black rifle coffee company i've read a lot about them they're partnering up with a

contract in walmart. and especially with the dallas cowboys. i want to know with their coffee sales growing should i continue to buy hold or -- >> there's only one coffee company we're recommending we're recommending starbucks it's not a political situation i know that sure enough, howard schultz, former ceo, back on the hill there but i just think we want consistent growth. we want china. we want europe we want well-managed enterprise. we want a program of loyalty that's good. and we want to be able to have cold coffee when we want it. starbucks. charitable trust name. i do expect to be pleasantly surprised by rh. short term i expect the pain because there's no way friedman doesn't know that's going to happen but long-term the man's gotten too negative um canning up my exclusive with former s.e.c. chairman tim mathis the crypto craze has hit a few road -- speed bumps from the cftc i'm going to go straight to the

source to find out what the heck is going on here then our dependence on the yield curve has gotten nothing short of insane. so how have schyou really be sizing squeezes in this market i'm going to give you another way to look at it. and of course all your calls in tonight's edition of the "lightning round." so stay with cramer. you'll always remember buying your first car. and buying your starter home.

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last wednesday coinbase the largest cryptocurrency exchange in america got a wells notice from the securities and exchange commission which is typically something that happens right before the s.e.c. files formal charges. then on monday the cftc filed charges against binance, the largest crypto exchange in the world along with its founder ing this could shake the crypto

ecosystem to its quarter but coinbase up 81% for the year meanwhile bitcoin reached its highest level year to date so why is this industry full of scams just keep on trucking? the former chairman of the cftc, currently a research fellow at harvard kennedy school and also an adjunct professor at georgetown law more importantly he's our go-to expert on cryptocurrency regulation welcome back to "mad money." >> it's great to be with you again. >> thank you, tim. we need your help here we know coinbase just got this wells notice we know you're a classmate from law school but regardless we know a wells notice is not something you want from the government same time binance, another organization cftc used to run is really coming down hard on them. can you explain what these mean and whether people should understand that there is a gravity to what's going on here? >> well, there absolutely is

the case against binance is incredibly important it's the biggest trading -- crypto trading platform. and this is a very powerful complaint. it alleges that binance and its founder basicallydeliberately and systematically violated the law by cultivating u.s. business when they weren't registered in the u.s., by ignoring requirements pertaining to knowing your customers, preventing money laundering, complying with sanctions and so forth. and the complaint itself is quite detailed it appears to be based on a lot of inside information. so it's very, very important case on the wells notice with coinbase we still have to wait to see what the ftc is going to do we don't know whether that's going to be an enforcement action that says they really should register as a securities exchange or perhaps it's going to be focused on their staking business we'll just have to wait and see. but these are very important actions. >> well, tim, i myself -- i'm

very -- i'm concerned the many talks back and forth with coinbase i myself think that what they're doing is creating securities all the time but tim, eem beginning to wonder whether i've fallen behind, whether there aren't people who just say look, if you can have something like silvergate, if you can have something like silicon valley bank it's more secure to actually have what coinbase is selling. i guess there can be a case that the law's out of date when it comes to what's a security >> one can make that argument. everyone feared a run on stable coins and the run almost happened in because we had a traditional bank fail in which the usdc had put a lost its money. to me that just says again that we've got to create a framework for regulating stablecoins i don't think the bank regulators -- i think their strategy of trying to limit connections with the traditional

financial sector, you know, in the long run it would be much better to try to bring stablecoins within the regulatory perimeter but on the he request of what's a security, what's not, i mean, the crypto industry thinks it deserves a whole new set of rules. the s.e.c. isn't going to be willing to do that i don't think there's enough support in congress for that my attitude toward this is it doesn't really matter whether a token falls in the bucket of a security or a commodity. what we need are just some basic investor protection standards regardless of what you call it and there are ways that we could get there that i've argued for and that would involve the s.e.c. and the cftc getting together really and creating some common standards. i think that would be a much more reasonable incremental way to go. and later on we can sort out exactly which ones are security. >> should the different organizations be able to create a new coin every day i mean, given the fact that i

see -- look, there was a lawsuit just yesterday, s.e.c., someone created a lot of coins and stole a lot of money from people i don't think that this is the right way to run a banking system >> well, we can't prevent people from doing things like that. look, we want to encourage private innovation i've always said in my comments on this industry we need a regulatory framework that allows for innovation as long as we just ensure investor protection and transparency we shouldn't be trying to shut this down. we shouldn't be trying to tell people exactly what they should and shouldn't invest in. we should let people make their own choices. but we've got to have much better investor protection, much better transparency, and just compliance with the law, which is what we're seeing at least in the cftc's allegations binance wasn't doing >> well, why is -- why aren't they closed today in america why are you allowed to deal with them why isn't it just shut >> well, you know, it's an

offshore exchange. the argument in the complaint is basically that they should have been preventing u.s. persons from accessing the platform but not only were they not preventing that they were actually helping people access the platform and that's what makes the allegations so strong. you know, they were systematically cultivating u.s. business, helping people, you know, use vpns, to get around restrictions they had all other sorts of programs to do that. so that's why it's kind of really a shocking complaint. >> let me ask you, just the last one to wrap things up on coinbase i'm from the school which just says you don't taunt the s.e.c., that the s.e.c. is hallowed ground, that the commissioner works hard you don't make fun of them you don't tweet. you don't just call them basically just fools who don't know what they're doing. is that out of date? am i just too old school >> no, that's not out of date. the coinbase folks will say they've tried. it's kind of hard to know, you

know, where the truth really lies they said they tried to work with the s.e.c. on a number of things i think, again, the challenge for us is that the existing frame workds, the crypto industry don't think they fit. the regulators think we're not going to make new rules. somehow we've got to just have more of an incremental approach here to get in some basic investor protection standards. and you know, i've written about ways to do that. but we haven't gotten there yet. >> well, look, you're common sense. i think common sense wins in the end. or i sure hope so. thank you so much to tim massad, former chair of the drchlt ftc it's great to see you. thanks for come back on the show >> thank you, jim, for having me >> "mad money" will be back after the break. >> announcer: coming up, what's on your mind, cramerica? give us a call the "lightning round" is storming the nyse. next

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♪ so you can rise from pain like a pro. icy hot pro. it is time it's time for the "lightning round" play until you hear this sound and then the "lightning round" is over. are you ready, skee-daddy? time for the "lightning round" on cramer's "mad money." i want to start with eric in ohio eric >> caller: jimmy chill, a big buckeye boo-yah to ya from cleveland, ohio. >> bring it on come on, hit me. >> caller: thanks for all you do for us retail investors. my question is about a company you've liked before. their last quarter was good with

an earnings beat they got a p/e of 32.06, dividend yield of 4.91 is crown castle a buy? >> i read the piece. took a really long time. it shorter but i like it here you're right it's finally keeping up. can we please go to brent in california brent. >> caller: hey, jim. brent here first time, long time. hey, i recently took a small position in zim integrated shipping net income's up. profitability's looking good and the free cash flow -- >> no. net income's not going to be up. and it's losing money. and i don't want you to be in it i've been right about the shippers for a long time and i'm sticking with my negative view i'm sorry. can we go to betsy in california, please betsy! >> caller: hey, jim. i love all your books, by the way. especially "confessions of a

street addict. and i'm a member of the investing club >> yes thank you. >> caller: anyway, today i'm calling you about a company that almost looks on the chart like estee lauder and the reason i'm interested in it is i listened to the rh call. and what occurred to me was people aren't interested in dressing their houses, they're interested in dressing themselves, including their skin and jim, a long time ago you and i both made a lot of money on inmode and right now i checked to see exactly what is the growth, what is the profit margin and what is the p/e and the growth is 12 1/2%. >> you're right. we've got to go back and look at this thing this thing's gotten too cheap. you know i like this company i'm going back to inmode we're going to do some work on inmode betsy is owed that and thank you for being a member of the club. how about brock in north

carolina brock! >> caller: hey, jim. boo-yah. >> brock boo-yah. >> caller: hey, man. wanted to ask you about helix. ticker hlx >> no, we're going to stick with halliburton. it's come down so much halliburton has been developed into a -- it's much cheaper than yours. how about steve in connecticut steve. >> caller: jim my grandma adores you. it's her 90th birthday next month and she's watching could you give a -- >> tell her jimmy chill says happy birthday >> caller: i will. >> rosie what's up? >> caller: she'd like to know about affirm with -- >> here's the problem with affirm okay if the economy does turn down this stock is going to go lower. you're now kind of -- i like max. i think he's terrific. but there is an issue here and the issue is that the economy has to stabilize and too many people think things are negative so therefore i'm going to have to say no to rosie

okay i don't want her riveted to affirm [ rimshot let's go to andy in pennsylvania, please andy >> caller: hey, jim. thanks for taking my call. >> no problem. >> caller: intervisual communications >> oh, my god. that one it's still kicking around? look, it's real cheap. it's fine. >> don't buy >> and that, ladies and gentlemen, is the conclusion of the "lightning round"! >> announcer: the "lightning round" is sponsored by td ameritrade coming up, trouble with the curve? cramer cautions against the danger of having too much interest in the fed. next

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here goes my theme again we all spend too much time talking about the yield curve for treasuries and not enough time talking about franchise value. i don't blame anyone for focusing on the bond market when i got to goldman sachs 40 years ago we were quizzed about the most important determiner of stock prices and the answer always came back the 30-year treasuries, the so-called bellwether bond. we were in a high inflation world and this bond told us whether inflation was going to come down or not had a huge impact on what wall street was willing to pay for stocks i get

that but there are situations in which the yield curve genuinely obscures the story and you've got to resist the tempt aix to give up on companies just because the bond market says with one voice that we're likely headed for recession for example, situations where a company's franchise value vastly exceeds the stock price. frankly our dependence on the yield curve has become a crutch that supports very lazy thinking do you think the chinese many could nift party checked out their yield curve when they decided to let alibaba split into six companies sending that stock up 14% in a single day was nvidia's triumphant introduction of graphics cards need ford generative ai dependent on the 10s and 2s? i don't think so these endless abstruse treasury references have become oblivious distractions and they're beginning to drive me nuts because we have plenty of alibabas right here and you can often gauge a franchise by figuring out what it would be worth in the event of an alibaba style break-up but you know what? we don't even try. because of a bond market relationship that's kept you out of some of the best action in years. take meta platforms.

here's a company that has a platform called facebook, a platform called instagram. it's a competitor of the most successful app of our time, tiktok $53 billion up for grabs there it has whatsapp messaging. nascent metaverse which is maybe a bit of a reach but what would happen if mark zuckerberg decided on his own tomorrow he was going to break up meta the way alibaba split into six separate businesses even without the support of the people's republic of china i think his stock would go up 20 points maybe even more regardless of the action in the bond market that day or how about two sudden neerdwell outfits -- a company that delivered fresh groceries, a company that dominates e-commerce advertising company separate online streaming service with nfl games plus something that tells you jokes as it mentions your package is at the door named alexa. do you think this would be stuck at 102 bucks if amazon spins off those businesses i bet the stock works no matter what we're seeing in

the 10s and the 2s of that day or that year one of the most successful media companies and they've all got these side hustles like self-driving cars. and you can close the dead last other bets that are scratches in the money derby finally there's disney this morning a very prominent analyst laura martin from needham suggested that apple should buy disney. that's not going to happen except the fact it was a great way to call out the franchise value of the company that is disney is the -- they'd break off the theme parks and have the people's liberation army build lots more of them, build as many disney characters as possible using degenerative ai, maybe create a whole sports business around espn spin off a merchandise business while developing a hotel chain and of course employing -- you need to think of stocks like this. one reason this week's rally took so many people by surprise is that the action in the bond market said it can't won't and

didn't happen that's called maturity of dogma, people not the creativity of capitalism do not let the yield curve blind you to opportunities because there are some tremendous ones out filip if only you're willing to look. if the chinese communist party bull market somewhere. i'm jim cramer see you tomorrow "last call" starts now ♪ hi, everybody, i'm brian sullivan we begin tonight with breaking news a manhattan jury's vote to indict former president donald trump. let's get the latest right now with amon jaifers. eamon? >> it's a first, bribe a former president of the united states under indictment. the former president issued a blistering statement this hour, saying, quote, this is political persecution and election