citi bank, too cheap. >> dan? >> yeah, qqq. hit a resistance level. >> guy? >> tay-tay? >> yeah. >> embarrassing. unh after they report tomorrow. >> all right, thank you for watching "fast money." thanks for having me. "mad money" with jim cramer starts right now. me, guys. "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 save you some money. my job is not just to entertain but to educate and teach you. call me at 1-800-743-cnbc or tweet me @jimcramer. 'tis the season to get clobbered. i'm talking about earnings season. and this time it already feels like it's going to be a rough one because the market seems to

be nauseated by the companies that have already reported with the sole exception of tech, which is once between getting a pass. we could have more days like today where the dow lost 174 points, s&p tumbled .62%, nasdaq shed .63%. it was much uglier at one point during the day. what makes me so sure earnings season could actually be so difficult? i think it's because we're rooting for lower inflation and less wage growth. but so far we just aren't getting that scenario. oh, yeah, we had a one-two punch today of a hotter than expected consumer price index coupled with a government bond auction of 30-year treasuries that fell flat. causing the bond market to get crushed while the yields soared. what the heck is the government even doing offering a 30-year treasury right now? >> they know nothing! >> it's the birkenstock of bonds. to reference an ipo that smelled like dirty feet. pricing 46 bucks just before falling to $37 and change after the first two days of trading. another day like today and it will be buy one get one, bogo. so much for barbie's shoes.

the market will come up with a negative interpretation for whatever comes their way and the pain -- >> the house of pain. >> -- tends to lass for more than one session. now, i don't believe in trying to game earnings because it's just too hard. but post-earnings i am flabbergasted how tough this market's become. we do have a sneak peek of how it reacts to earnings, though. pepsico, the true starting gun of earnings season, and it reported an excellent set of numbers two days ago. not only did pep crush the estimates, they gave you a glorious forecast and uncharacteristically they also gave you a forecast for next year. what a confidence booster. ♪ hallelujah ♪ >> that was easy. >> except today the stock's down hideously. not just because no one believes pepsico will be immune to the new weight loss drugs but because it's now seen as too expensive. you aren't going to he get a win in a stock that sells for over 20 times earnings especially when the underlying company makes fattening foods even if they promise to change their stripes or make smaller packages. these new weight loss drugs are still roiling everything in the

food and beverage space. there's a lot of denial and it's a conundrum for food companies that haven't seen any decline in their businesses like pepsi. pepsi actually saw an acceleration of sales. i thought the quarter was terrific. if they begin to say they adjust to these drugs, i don't know, maybe smaller packages, they don't seem to know it's not the size of the package, it's the fact that these new weight loss drugs make snack foods seem repulsive. they take away your cravings. and without the craving a greased up potato chip is no longer appealing. even if you still like them you'll eat three and then you'll be full. given that possibility, shouldn't pepsico's stock trade at a much lower price to erin aings multiple? it's a subject of business. should pepsico trade as low as the stock of conagra at ten times earnings or maybe calnova? general mills at 14 times earnings? good company. these food stocks were all way tooexpensive going into earnings season and now we're finding out how people really feel about their suddenly not so safe business models with three and change dividend yields versus the 20-year treasury

safety blanket at just over 5%. and that's really the reason why the stock of pepsico can't catch a break. speaking of stocks that are too rich in value, hormel, a stock we've liked very much over time, did an aristocrat. it ran into a buzz saw today at its analyst meeting. it was a pincer move, higher costs and hidden worries about the glp-1 drugs because they have plenty of stuff in their product line that could make you obese, if you really went to town, that is, unless you were taking wegovy or mounjaro. we're now at a moment when people don't know anything about these drugs other than the fact they're vultures picking the liver out of the pro meetingian packaged goods companies. i always wanted to use prometheus in the show and i just managed to work him in. now, you shouldn't fear everything. you can always come into the earnings season derisked and ready for upgrades. this morning walgreen's, you've been there, i've been there, reported a suboptimal set of numbers. carl quintanilla asked me about it. i tell him it was time to -- >> buy buy buy buy buy buy buy!

>> you see, there's a new person running walgreen's, a knowledgeable health care industry veteran. exactly what is needed at this company. and he will reinvent it. soon i'm betting it will no longer be what i call a theft machine. when i was in san francisco a couple of years ago i saw the person in front of me at a now closed walgreen's rob the register using a knife. no one seemed to think anything of it. it was just another day at work. and then i was in del rey i saw a thin man stuff his sweater to the point where it looked like he needed wegovy. i mention td to the woman at the register. she said that's okay, he's in here all the time. never thought of that. now, i don't think that the new ceo tim wentworth will zone out like that. i don't think he's going to tolerate having his stores get robbed so easily. more important he'll be the person who steers walgreen's toward being not just drugstore but your health care company. i've been thinking about this. i'm going to come up with something. it's a brainstorm. stay tuned. focus. it's hard to shoplift health

care. i hate that a nearby walgreen's pharmacy where i literally spent thousands of dollars sent me some stupid form letter that it's closing this week. it's bad enough i can't get anyone to help me open a lock to buy some gillette razor blades which of course i now have on an amazon subscription. i don't know if wentworth can truly change the stores. maybe the whole place should just be one endless line of vending machines! anyway, the health care business is not an afterthought. that's why i think walgreen's is a good buy even though i can only wonder how the -- do not forget, walgreen's wholeheartedly embraced theranos before it was revealed as a total fraud. now we're on the eve of the banks reporting and i think these companies are already defrocked, derisked, whatever you want to say. bank of america which sells at eight times earnings slink down to seven? i'm not sure. but i know it has more room to run if the reports say anything good. we're partial to wells fargo for the charitable trust which is coming in at a blistering eight times earnings. with a 3.5% yield.

if ceo charlie scharf can say anything positive at all i think the stock can jump. the problem is that pesky yield curve. we know the bond market wrecks the banks at every turn. clubbing them like -- you know what i say. that's it. we have to be wary of being too negative. if the bond market behaves like it has the last couple days, if there's no new issuance of long-term paper by the treasury -- >> they know nothing! >> if we get some less hot economic numbers then we will stabilize. but right now the combination of higher rates and these drugs that impact diabetes, obesity, renal failure, heavy drinking and strokes and even high blood pressure, not to mention sleep apnea, have been anathema to the stock market. especially the overvalued packaged food plays. bottom line, when the price to earnings multiples are too high and the yields are too low, you'd better deliver a perfect quarter or else your stock's going to get pancaked. the problem is pepsico did report a perfect quarter and hormel had a pretty darn good analyst meeting. but when we were finished you were digging into a can of spam

with some doritos and i think a market fueled by wegovy and mounjaro is not ready for that particular combination. hence why i'm worried about earnings season and i'm saying it could be a pretty rough one if the backdrop makes things more difficult. unless a stock has already been hammered into oblivion. randy in california. randy! >> caller: hi, jim. how are you today? >> randy, i am in good shape. how about you? >> caller: i'm great. i'm trying to diversify for my grandchildren and i want a stock that i can sit on for 10 or 15 years. and i'm looking at caterpillar for two reasons. the past decade it's doubled its stock price. and we've got all the infrastructure money that's going to be trickling down to the states. so your opinion -- >> randy, you've got what i call horse sense. i think jim appleby is an amazing ceo. he's turned caterpillar around.

i'm not kidding, they're about trying to make money. i know that sounds like a shocker, but believe me, the old caterpillar, ha. now, here's the thing. the infrastructure money's coming. the dividend's going to go up. there will be a buyback. i think you should buy it right here. my charitable trust owns it and we're really proud of it and we're going to buy more if it comes in. how about we go to tyler in california. tyler! >> caller: big boo-yah from california. how are you doing, jim? >> i'm doing well. getting over my quadruple hernia like it was yesterday. >> caller: nice. i wanted to ask you about instacart. what do you think? >> instacart. they also call that thing what is it like cry baby or something, maple tree? here's what i think about instakart. >> they know nothing! >> sell sell sell! >> the house of pain. >> they know nothing! >> going back on that one because i like if. did i miss -- oh. how about this? [ boos ] and finally -- i'm throwing this

one in because i like the bull. uh-oh. oh, my. and i did a 140 with a bad elbow. brian in pennsylvania. brian. >> caller: hi, jim. thanks for taking my call. >> no problem. >> caller: i do want to mention that even though i'm a mets fan i am rooting for the phillies in the current series. >> yes! yes! and it's tonight. and i'll tell you, bryce harper stared down that shortstop. i mean, what the heck? making fun of h.o.f.? not on my watch. what's going on? >> caller: jim, my question is over the summer i bought some shares in t-mobile and they recently announced the intention to pay a dividend but they haven't declared the x date or the official amount per share yet. i want to know what your feeling is on that and if i should buy more. >> let me tell you something. this thing is run by a guy i am by the name of mike seaver. and he is about as good as it gets. and they've done a fabulous job.

it's the only one of the three telcos that i am recommending, and i think you can buy more t-mobile. my hat is off to them. they're just phenomenal. okay. right now the combination of higher rates and high multiples is setting us up for a little more dangerous earnings season than i'm ready for. look, it never pays to be too negative. but it's becoming clear that the bar has been set a little high for a lot of companies. on "mad money" tonight i know the street shows its love for the jobs report, but i've set my sights on something new. the stealth contender in the data realm that you need to know about. i'm sharing why i think the cpi may soon see its star rise as the age of inflation anxiety continues to unfold. it is not like the age of aquarius. remember that play? i don't have it. then yesterday we hosted our monthly meeting for cnbc investing club subscribers and we couldn't get to all of your amazing questions. so we decided to keep the momentum going with another round tonight. you don't want to miss it. and delta airlines, symbol dal, released earnings.

the stock fell in response. we've got to figure out what the heck happened. so stay 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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i always tell you that the labor department's monthly non-farm payroll support is the single most important set of economic data we get from the government. last friday we got a good one.

strong job growth. paired with lower than expected wage inflation. that number ultimately allowed the averages to roar and fueled this week's rally. the fed's making real progress in the fight against inflation. but if the jobs report is the most important economic indicator the consumer price index, cpi, has become the second most important, at least in this era of concern about inflation. i call that, by the way, ecai, era of concern about inflation. that's an acronym that i just made up. ever since we realized that inflation was a serious problem, really for the first time in decades, this -- remember it was too high yet better than fared cpi reading on october 13th of last year. last year, that's when the averages bottomed. a year ago. more recently the august 2023 cpi reading delivered on september 13th came in high, up 3.7% year over year when wall street was looking for 3.6%, with the biggest month over month increase in over a year and that's been disastrous for the stock market.

a sign that inflation remains stubborn and the fed will need to lower the boom on us. a week later they started talking about keeping rates higher for longer. in response the averages got steamrolled. for weeks it was the cpi that did it. and that's why we were paying such close attention this week when we got the cpi. we had a pool going for september 2023. and what did we learn? first, this is really important. the so-called headline numbers were a touch too high. the overall consumer price index reading was up .4% month over month. and up 3.7% year over year. both about ten basis points, that's what we call them, that's that little number at the end, points higher than what wall street was looking for. in slightly better news, core cpi reading, which strips out food and energy costs because they're so variable, was in line with expectations. that was good. up .3% month over month and up 4.1% year over year. it was good, not great. but it was the too hot overall cpi reading that controlled today's action. the yield on the benchmark

ten-year treasury which was at 4.51 and tame just before the report came out, spiked to 4.65 and vicious just after 10:00 a.m., before moving higher in the afternoon after a bad treasury -- and closed the day at 4.7. this is a very big move. stocks take their cue from the bond markets particularly when you have big moves like this. so the averages did roll over. in premarket trading the dow actually looked like it was going to be up 150 points. but once we saw these numbers the whole market gradually rolled over. as it just looked more negative. that's the surface level story here. but the cpi report's chock full of information. let's dig deeper. the overall consumer price index number can be broken down into four subgroups, food, energy, every other commodity and services ex-excluding energy services. ever since inflation peaked last summer there's been real progress in all categories except for services. for the sixth cpi reports before today energy inflation actually went negative. food inflation's been declining

steadily. and inflation from every other commodity has also pretty much gone away. so how did the september numbers turn out? let's take a look bucket by bucket. the first energy came in negative for the seventh straight month thanks to the big decline in fuel oil that was down 5.1% year over year. and especially utility gas service, which was down about 20%. having said that, energy's been helping less and less for the past three months. in september energy prices were only down .5% year over year thanks to the run-up in crude. second, commodities ex-excluding food and energy didn't hurt us either. that category was almost perfectly flat year over year. while we had low single digit price increases in apparel -- we also saw an 8% plunlage in used car prices. that specific mix seems vulnerable to me. with the oil strike getting worse and new car prices already going up, used car prices according to car percent, you can't expect used car prices to keep falling, right? going forward, we might need to

see prices to cool off in these other categories to make up for that. for the time being, though, this bucket isn't the issue. as for the food category, it could have been worse. food inflation tbz to decelerate. probably don't know it if you go to the supermarket it seems like it's still high, up 3.7% year over year, mostly driven by restaurants with a 6% increase in food away from home. not great. but if food was the only problem this would have been a very encouraging cpi report. the real issue here is services excluding energy. and that was up 5.7%. year over year. way too high. that's thanks to a 9% uptick in transportation services and a 7.2% increase in shelter price, meaning rent. medical care actually got cheaper, down 2.6%. that offset big spikes in housing and transportation. that's what powell cares about. while these numbers are not good, it shouldn't come as a surprise to anyone plane tickets are more expensive, ride sharing services have raised prices and rent's too darn high. that said there's a case to be made that we're likely to get?

relief on both fronts going forward. the airline stocks are healthied right now because investors believe consumers are increasingly tapped out while many airlines have added capacity creating more competition. meanwhile, as the job market cools you'll see more lyft and uber drivers, which might help tamp down those prices too. as for shelter the stickiest of all, look, average mortgage rates are marching steadily toward 8%. you'd better believe that's going to impact the price of homes, which will eventually filter down to rent. even before the cpi report came out this morning there was an important report from appraisal firm miller samuel prepared for the big real estate brokerage davis hellman. they say median rents actually slipped in september, industry rates rose and new lease signings went down. now, one month does not a trend make, but it's encouraging. despite the marketwide pullback today i don't think many people will overreact to the cpi. according to the cme fed watch tool which measures the likelihood of a fed rate hike based on fed funds futures.

we'll likely have a rate hike at the next meeting barely changed. now only at 11.8% up slightly from 9.1% yesterday. still down significantly from 20% a week ago. in the end the cpi report wasn't great but it wasn't that bad either and investors kept their composure taking the slightly too hot inflation number in stride. at one point it looked like stocks might end the day in positive territory. the rally started too late as far as i'm concerned. it really put the kibosh on the rally with that bad treasury auction of the 30-yearing offering by the u.s. government. that caused an increase in long-term rates and that was hideous. bottom line i'm just glad we've gotten through the two major economic reports of the month without any major issues. now we can finally move on to earnings season which uno unofficially kicks off with a handful of big banks reporting tomorrow. at last we can make our buy and sell decisions based on what individual companies are saying, not based on the latest macro developments. personally, i can't wait. >> announcer: coming up -- delta's profit took off after a

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what do we make of the airlines? i know you care about them very much. after we heard about what delta air said this morning. it's been a wild ride. as the world recovered from the pandemic the airlines soared on the back of a post-covid travel boom. that was that long on money short on time thesis that i talked about constantly. the boom got rolling in the spring of last year but by the end we got to the end of the summer and i've got to tell you something, it started hitting some real turbulence. >> sell sell sell! >> worried about the health of the consumer, who's also still feeling the pinch from inflation. doesn't help that student loan payments came back last month -- actually this month. at the same time the price of

oil has rebounded hard from its lows. meaning airlines will be squeezed by higher fuel costs. since the highs in july, the jets, j-e-t-s etf, which tracks the group has fallen 28%. in part that's because we've seen a bunch of negative preannouncements from the airlines. just last month spirit airlines and frontier both lowered their third quarter guidance. spirit blaming heightened promotional activity. frontier talked about operational challenges. these two budget airlines are heavily weighted toward lower income consumers, though. whereas the larger airlines tend to have more exposure to premium customers. maybe spirit and frontier can't tell the full story. but we also heard from american airlines. we get a call on that every week. who despite raising guidance on available seat growth lowered their forecast to total revenue per available seat mile as well as cutting their operating margin and earnings per share

guidance. american blamed fuel costs. fair enough. the one airline that we're really interested in, though, is delta. this has long been my favorite. since 1982 i started recommending if you wanted an airline stock you had to do delta. last month delta preannounced third quarter results in an industry conference. they actually raised the mid-point of their forecast in revenue and revenue per available seat mile but they also cut their earnings guidance thanks to fuel costs. in response the stock tumbled 9% through the preannouncement through last night's close. this morning we got the full results from delta. what did we learn? let's go over this. starting at the top delta delivered 13% revenue growth. in line with the preannounced outlook. and actually slightly above what wall street was looking for. the small revenue beat was driven by slightly hirer available seat miles which is industry speak for capacity. while delta's total revenue per available seat mile was down 2.5% year over year. that was also in line with their guidance. overall the company still managed to cobble together an eight-cent earnings beat off a $1.95 basis. that's 35% earnings growth year

over year. that's not shabby. yet the stock ended up falling more than 2% today. because after the big preannouncement we cared much less about the results, much more about the forecast of the conference call commentary. similar to what we heard in delta's preannouncement last month, they saw strength in hiring customers in the premium cabin. by the way, these are not business. premium cabin for the most part is travel-related. up 70% coming in an oppressive 39%. first class and business class are doing fine. no wonder transport costs were up big in the cpi report, right? this is real bad news for low-cost carriers like frontier and spirit because it means that there's been a split between the high-end travel and low-end travel with high-end holding up much better. in an interview earlier today with cnbc's very own phil lebeau delta's ceo ed bastian noted he's seeing some softness in certain segments, mostly on the lower fare side of the industry. but also he stressed delta's very different from those low-cost carriers. listen to this.

>> we got premium, which is continuing to drive the strength of the business. we've got international, which was gangbusters. international revenues were up 35% themselves in the quarter. we've got a tremendous amount of businesses starting to return. we talk about post-labor day we'd see a takeout. we see a lot of it starting to come back. >> i like that. i thought he had a lot of good things to say. what about the health of corporate travel? lebeau also posed the question -- he noted the airline's seen ten more points of market share return the last 30 or 40 days luckily driven by all the companies that have mandated return to the office of late. that means no more zoom, got to go see the customer. of course if everything's so great why did the stock get hit today? it was the guidance. while delta raised its full year revenue growth forecast to 20% that was the high end of the previous range they also cut their operating margin growth, their guidance 50 basis points. slashed their earnings guidance to the low end of the prior range. delta had been talking about

making 6 to 7 bucks a share. on top of that the company cut its free cash flow forecast from 3 billion to 2 billion. that's terrible. higher fuel and maintenance costs. if delta was going to cut its full year growth and maintenance numbers they -- when they preannounced to the down side last month better just to rip off the band-aid. what do we do? despite the guide down a lot of what i saw from delta actually makes me feel more sanguine about travel rather than an end to the travel boom we might just be experiencing some turbulence. of course this doesn't apply to the entire industry. we think that low-cost carriers are going to struggle. but delta's going increasingly high-end. that business is holding up fine. how about the cost side of the equation? well, management's done a good job of cutting costs that they can control. the airlines are still hostage to oil prices and with another war in the middle east it's hard to argue that fuel costs are going to come down too much from these levels. here's the bottom line. the most important airline has reported. delta's results tell me that you

need to get a lot more selective if you want to own any airline here. if you're willing to stick your neck out and own one and make no mistake about it, that's what you are doing, sticking your neck out, it needs to be like delta with a high percentage of premium seating and a big's international business because that's what's working here. given the stock's already down nearly 30% from its highs in july. but remember, you've got to be prepared for turbulence. >> sell sell sell! >> buy buy buy! >> joseph in new york. joseph. >> caller: hey, jim, how are we doing? >> joseph, i'm doing fine. how about you? >> caller: fine, thank you. i'm a senior here. i'm sitting on the.com having a cocktail and i thought i'd call you for some insight. >> can i join you? can i just join you? i have right now -- i would like a -- i'd take a tanqueray and tonic. a slice of lime, please.

>> caller: i listened to the ceo of a company there. he sounded very optimistic. he has some good plans. i see there's a lot of insider buying. a lot of the officers have bought shares. what's your insight on lyft? >> i went positive on david risher because i think he's so good. a couple people called me and said jim, you know, he's rusty, he doesn't have it. i don't know. i think he's terrific. and we need two of these. we can't just have uber. my betting is on -- i am this with rish. you can't see it. but i'm taking all the chips and going in on rish. how about mary in idaho? mary. >> caller: hi, jim. nice to talk to you again. >> my grandma's name is mary. so you make me feel good about this. nana mary. >> caller: great news. i do feel better about it. due to the uaw strike continuing and expanding and the pullback

it seems to have on the manufacturers' stock prices, i hold a position with both stellantis and ford and i'm wondering what your recommendation is, to buy more, hold what i've got, sell what i've got and -- >> you've got to hold. the price to erin aings multiples are so low it tells me the estimates are too high. i thought ford was good to put ought the best and final. my charitable trust owns it. it's a horrible chart. and the union i think -- i have to call now. i think the union's got to do a deal because it's going to hurt the whole country. delta's results are in. it's time to get more selective in the sector. but if you want to stick with an airline here you have to pick one with a business model like delta. much more "mad money." one of my favorite analysts in the show is getting to talk directly to cramericans. we're taking questions from you cnbc investing club members. if you're not a club member, what the heck are you waiting for?

then yesterday we got news that excel was buying pioneer natural resources 60 billion. the ftc watching all of mows megamergers like a hawk. should there be concern when it comes to getting a deal done? i don't know. we own pioneer. and of course all your calls rapid-fire in tonight's edition of the "lightning round." so stick with cramer! when you're looking for answers, it's good to have help. because the right information, at the right time, may make all the difference. at humana, we know that's especially true when you're looking for a medicare supplement insurance plan. that's why we're offering "seven things every medicare supplement should have". it's yours free, just for calling the number on your

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you might have missed it. yesterday we held our investing club monthly meeting where my colleague jeff marks and i go through the thought process for the club, discuss our current holdings, and take some member

questions. it is one of my favorite things to do because i love answering the questions from club members. and we always have more questions than time to take them. so that's why we thought maybe we'd do some leftover ones tonight and give you a taste of what our monthly meeting looks like. it's a different part of me, a little different -- you get a little mix it up here. and if you're not a part of the club and want to be, and i want you to be, well, you can be a member. you can open the camera on your phone and scan this qr code. i even know how to do this. you do it by the one behind me and then you become a member or go to cnbc.com/investingclub. see this? i have this on my shirt and like i have one of these. you hold your camera up to it and it tells you what to do. but you have to get the little yellow things. my daughter told me to wait for those. and she was very angry once when i couldn't figure it out. but now i'm good to go as i've figured it out. so can you. like a menu. you know? first up we're taking a question from brian, who's from hawaii,

who asks what do you think about the direction of the oil as an investor? is it time to exit oil before it heads farther south? i rely on technicians on this and also rusty brazil from rbn.com. my technician's carly garner. they both thought it would stall out between 95 and 100. i shared that with you. it was like an exact bingo call. and i think that these stocks -- you know, we had a huge home run in this pioneer. huge. because we got the exxon deal. i think you should always have one or two of these. we have a natural gas stock called coterra. we've interviewed the company a couple times. it's just fantastic. why don't we take a second question? this one is from jim who says, "jimmy, everyone when i was growing up in philadelphia, they all called me jimmy, "i need some love for sofi. i know you said earlier this year this is it. what's up with sofi." sofi was at 4 we were at the big ceo council. and he came on and said listen,

i am not in trouble, the bank is fine, we got no real bad loans, we're doing terrific. i asked if we needed to do equity. he said absolutely not. and then we proceeded to get a run to where i can't even reach, that's how high it is. now, we then got hit with a wave of profit taking. and then if you notice right here, this is where all the banks went down, including sofi. now, all the other banks, though, didn't go up like this. they're all still down. so i think we have to think twice about being critical about anthony noto. i think he's doing a very, very good job. all right. now let's -- just the bank stocks, they're horrible. now let's go to wesley, who asks, i'm watching the food sector stocks crater. conagra, campbell's, dar, which is like -- i don't know. you really don't want to own that. it's more of a rendering company. they're at the 52-week lows. their p/e values are near single digit. why are they so out of favor? should i take a small position? is there a leading indicator of a change in direction?

yields tended to buoy them and keep them up because treasuries were so low. now treasuries you can get a 20-year piece of paper which is my fave for 5%. that's risk-free. you get your money back, 5%. you don't get that out of a conagra, which also has 5%. campbell's has a little bit lower than that. then the second thing is this glp-1s came along. now, these are very specific drugs. wegovy and mounjaro. and these are drugs you take them you shoot up -- sorry, i shouldn't say shoot up. it's like an injectable. that's what they call it. injectable. and it's 1.0. and you put it in your leg or put it in your stomach, wherever you want and then you start losing weight. and if you start losing weight you know what happens, you're eating less because you don't want the food. so you have these companies like campbell's soup. and let's say you would have -- this is a good example. let's say you have the chicken gumbo. i like the chicken gumbo very much. you put a can, then you put a can of water in and then you put

it in a microwave. you would only feel like after you had half of it like man, i'm done with this. whereas you probably would have just scarfed it up before. and that's the problem. the volumes of these food companies, you just don't need as much. and that's why their stocks are going down, because people feel as these things become more mainstream and maybe the insurance companies pay for it you won't need the volume of food. that's why the food stocks are what i call in flux. let's go to another question. another jim. we've got a lot of jims here. boeing stock continues to slide. what are the factors for deciding it's an opportunity to buy? david faber used to make fun of me because we owned it for the trust. he with finally gave up. it was too horrendous. the problem is boeing is very specific. i think that it is not run as well as it should be. i think you need to be hands on, you've got to be in the factories every minute, you've got to be talking to people, building coalitions, you've got to be knowing your workers. you've got to figure out what's going on, make sure there's no errors. and boeing i don't think's done

that. if i were to run boeing -- don't put anything out. i'd like to run a big company before i'm done. i would be on that factory floor every day going to the south, going to northwest, because that's what it takes to build a plane. okay? boeing builds the best planes but you need that help. next we have a question from robert in florida, who asks do you think nee is a good long-term buy at these levels after the big price drop? the answer is no. and i'll tell you why. because i can't figure out why this one fell so deep. and i've made a ton of calls on textera. it is acting so funny i can't get in it. i have to make a lot of calls to figure out what's going on and then forget about it. that means it's way too hard for everybody because i've got contacts everywhere and i can't figure it out. you want to join the club? let's say you're regina gilgan, she's my executive producer, she should take the cell phone -- oh, she has the flip phone. never mind.

"mad money's" back after the break. >> announcer: coming up, cramer takes your calls and the sky is the limit. it's a fast-fire "lightning round." next. this is spring semester at fairfield-suisun unified. they switched to google tools for education because there's never been a reported ransomware attack on a chromebook. now they're focused on learning knowing that their data is secure. ( ♪♪ ) hi, my name is damion clark. and if you have both medicare and medicaid, i have some really encouraging news that you'll definitely want to hear. depending on the plans available in your area, you may be eligible to get extra benefits with a humana medicare advantage dual-eligible special needs plan. all of these plans include a healthy options allowance. a monthly allowance to help

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from california. chargepoint. >> no, that's losing money. we're not going to touch it. tibs in indiana. >> caller: i'm wondering what you think of phathom pharmaceuticals. >> gas troe's very tough. i -- mike in nebraska. >> caller: how are you doing? >> i'm doing well. how about you, partner? >> caller: i'm doing good. lazr. >> losing too much money again. auto related. we have to say no to that too. how about we go to john in illinois? john. >> caller: hi, jim. in 2024 we've got amd, intel, google and microsoft putting out ai chips. what is the effect of this on taiwan semiconductor? >> i like taiwan semiconductor very much. my only risk there is china and

i am concerned but i think it will be okay. let's go to george in arizona. george. >> caller: hi there, jim. this is george from green valley, arizona. >> good to have you on the show. >> caller: wondering what you think about exxon. i've been trading -- >> i like exxon very much. very well-run company. they do a lot of great things. i think it has been one of my longest-standing recommendations and you should buy the stock. let's go to mark in wisconsin. mark. >> caller: dr. cramer, thank you for taking my call. >> my pleasure. what's happening? >> caller: okay. bought this semiconductor stock as a spec. develops cutting-edge technology using gallium nitrate. also they've just been certified carbon neutral. the first semiconductor company in the world to be so certified.

so should i be buying more ticker mvtf? >> so many semiconductors are making a ton of money here. we're not going to buy one that is actually losing money. we're going to have to say no to navitas. now we want to go -- not sure who we should go to. maybe we go to smitty. smitty, what's up? >> caller: hey, jimmy chill. i am fourth time caller, very long-time and a very happy club member. >> oh, thank you. i hope you liked yesterday's club meeting. we tried so hard, jeff and i, to put together a good narrative. hope you liked it. >> caller: it was awesome. jimmy, the company i'm calling you about again is -- there has been a lot of insider buying to the tune of about 2 1/2 months ago a director bought $41 million worth of stock. two weeks ago another director

bought $10 million worth of the stock. and then i believe the ceo even bought some. the company i'm calling about is biohaven. >> oh. okay. this is -- this is vlad chorch. and i think vlad is -- oh my god, the stock just had such a big move. i don't know. you know vlad. he did nurtech. fantastic. american migraine foundation chief spokesperson. and he developed it so i've said good things about him. what can i say? let's go to kevin in ohio. kevin. >> caller: cramer, what's happening, man? >> i don't know, big guy. you tell me. >> caller: all right. so the street told me this week that there was a lot of love for defense contractors out there, right? >> correct. >> caller: let's mix it up a little bit. all right? who has been getting a lot of love out there? rtx corp. >> that's because of their commercial business has gotten very tough because they had a problem with that one engine.

i don't think we can touch it still. i like your spirit but you wouldn't to be in northrop grumman or lockheed martin. and that, ladies and gentlemen, is the conclusion of the "lightning round"! >> announcer: the "lightning round" is sponsored by charles schwab. coming up, is exxonmobil enough to steer this merger past an adversarial ftc? cramer has more. next.

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if your company isn't big enough to sustain itself why not merge with a larger operation and make more money together? for me that defines exxon's acquisition of pioneer natural resources, a big charitable trust name where pioneer shareholders like the trust will get almost $60 billion worth of exxon stock. but what if the federal trade commission is against it? what if the government says it's anti-competitive or argues it will stifle innovation? that's certainly the reaction many of us rec from the ftc. pioneer, while exxon's got 6%. together that's 15% independent past regulators would never have a problem with one oil company having 15% of a particular shale play. but our current ftc director lina khan she's more ideologically opposed to mergers than her predecessors.

if you look at the deck for the merger exxon emphasizes that by combining their technology they'll give a great return to pioneer shareholders. they talk about generating double-digit returns by controlling costs and the deal should be immediately accretive to earnings. the best outin the permian basin. there are $1 billion in synergies by the second year, even better by joining forces they'll produce 150,000 more barrels per day than they could do separately. that's what a merger's supposed to be about. winners on all sides. and yet you know what i heard instantly from a lot of people who follow mergers, the federal trade commissioner, lina khan, will try to block it. i don't know if that's true. but given the ftc's recent track record of making specious arguments to block large deals i could see them going there. maybe they'll hold pioneer is such an important supplier for gas stations that the buying entity is going to foreclose its rivals for its own economic benefit to consumers' detriment? which is the argument the ftc used when they tried to block microsoft's takeover of activision. they claimed it would enclosing

competition. maybe the ftc will say there will be less competition because drillers won't want to work for the combined entity for some reason. maybe bundling clauss also known as synergies that includes many firings with workers paying the price. the usual litany of anti-business charges. because lina khan sees all mergers as anti-competitive attempts by the richer to get richer at the expense of everyone else. like it or not capitalism is legal in the united states. that's why the ftc might try to block this deal on the thinnest of pretexts. although when they do this they tend to get challenged in court and lately judges have begun to shoot them down. no competition would be stifled here their market share's too small 15% of one particular region that's nothing rockefeller standard oil had 100% of the entire market. now, that's concentration. if the ftc does block the deal they'll be keeping 150,000 barrels a day off the market at a time when the whole country's desperate thrower the price at the pump. i think the deal will also keep

the cost of drilling down bay creating an excess supply of labor that knows about the drilling. america benefits from exxon acquiring pioneer you benefit but lina khan's ftc has such a dogmatic hatred for all merge merzers they might try to fight it th anyway. if that's the ethos i wish they'd come sxot say it. right now lawyers are telling companies do not make any acquisitions because the ftc will try to block it no matter what, they say wait for i anew chairperson. that's the state of play right now. the current ftc may be divorced from the laws they're supposed to enforce. here's what i have to say to lina khan either do your actual job or own up to your anti-business agenda and simply announce that all deals will be blocked no matter what. does it matter that capitalism, the law of the land, not to this ftc, not to lina khan. unfortunately the biden administration doesn't seem to have a problem with khan. presumably they could rein her h.e.r. in if they wanted to. they must like the way she thinks. fortunately the judiciary hasn't gone crazy. so they have overruled khan's

ftc in some cases but fighting them in court makes the whole process of merging a lot more complicated the ftc stands to have a huge chilling effect. and that is bad i would contend not just for business but for everyone. i like to say there's always a bull market somewhere and i promise to try to find it just for you right here on "mad money" i'm jim cramer. see you tomorrow. "last call" starts now. right now on last call, doubling down controversy around the israel-hamas. stomach uaw strike hitting the automakers and profitable plants. the union leader at the center will join us. stomach a knockout blow for sam bankman-fried? caroline ellison rubbing her explosive testimony, the lead prosecutor who took down bernie made off with a reaction. the end of power outages. a proposal shaking up the energy industry. breaking china's grip. a u.s.