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tv   Mad Money  CNBC  December 19, 2024 6:00pm-7:00pm EST

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cheap here. >> unlike underperforming sectors like healthcare, energy has some legs. >> karen? despite yesterday's hawkish cut, i thought wasn't anything bad for the banks. in fact, you have a chance to buy the lower. >> i think you wait to buy nike until it has a six handle. >> thanks for watching. mad money starts right now. my mission is simple, to make you money. i am here to level the playing field for all investors. there is always a bull market somewhere, and i promise to help you find it. mad money starts now. >> hey, i'm kramer, welcome to mad money. i am just trying to help you make a little money. my job is not just to entertain but to try to explain days like
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today or yesterday, put it together. call me at one 807 43 cnbc. don't make a forecast if you cannot make the forecast. i know that sounds silly but in wall street if you make a prediction you better beat it, or else your stock is going to get clobbered. that is what drove this selloff. expectations to aggressive, promises dashed. it is why we struggle to bounce back from yesterday's hideous action. dow gaining 15 points today, nasdaq dipping from 1%, even as we have much higher prices over the decade. let's start with the fed. open hand i think jay powell is doing a fabulous job at what he does, the only fed chair since paul volcker in my lifetime who knows he has to take control of a difficult situation and do the right thing no matter what. powell has been true to his word . when he says he will do something, the markets believe him. that is because he has a lot of credibility. yesterday, i thought that he had a setback. he didn't tell the news ahead
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of time. it was a tough call to raise my 25 basis points only because he made it a tough call. i think he felt that the fed had to cut rates because he believed that would help bring down mortgage rates and loan rates, solving two of the most intractable sources of inflation left in this country, but immediately after the first cut in september, long-term rates went up, not down. that was a sign big bondholders weren't buying the need to cut rates, they were more worried about inflation. that's fine. the fed can defy the bond market for a spell that powell should have pivoted after the second rate cut and told people he needed to see more weak economic data and data before making another move. instead powell consistently signaled there would be a third rate cut, even as the data did not justify it. if the fed is supposed to be data-driven, they have no business cutting rates yesterday. but powell was trapped by his own prediction. sure, the market got crushed yesterday because a huge number of people were shocked that jay powell now wants to wait and see instead of making more cuts.
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the big cost is people questioning the credibility of the fed. the fact that we saw a huge spike told you that powell overreached and could not deliver on inflation numbers. of course he will recover, so will the stock market. long-term rates stay high, homebuilders will build fewer homes but we will see a shift. cars break down and need to be fixed or traded in. now powell is playing for time, an has gotten out of the prediction game. the independency is back, but we saw the failure of the institution when its protections aren't met. the fed did not need to forecast a third rate cut loudly or without data to justify it but don't make the forecast if you cannot make the forecast. now, micron, commodity chipmaker, anyone who knows sung-jae knows that he s a cautious industrialist who never wants to let anyone down. maybe that is why i like him so much. he never encourages you to get
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ahead of a stock but he has tried to rein me in on occasion. but first, if the a.i. data business would be stellar and second, the a.i. pc business would be strong and need a lot of chips. unfortunately, the latter didn't come true. it's wrong. the aic has turned into a bit of a bust because there is excess chip inventory in the system. sung-jae tried to make a prediction and failed to meet it. very disappointing. so traders skedaddled, stock fell 60%. from the looks of things there were a lot of traders in micron and they don't want anything to do with it because they don't know what it does. stocks now to reset level but much lower. contrast that with more technology which has similar exposure to a.i. and personal conspirators. neither were predicting good things for the personal computer or cell phone businesses, at best they were willing to predict a gradual recovery in the markets, that sanja had said would have good numbers. marbella sword because there
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a.i. business is on fire and the other businesses that brought back down were no worse than advertised because they made no claims that things would recover. or at least, would start going up in the recovery phase. had micron been more muted about the pc business before hand, had they not gotten too excited, the stock would probably still be down, but definitely not down double digits. you would think everyone would be on their toes after the fiasco at intel, when he became one of the most radical overpromise and under deliver ceos i've ever seen. my hope is that the u.s. government gets its money's worth from the subsidies paid to intel. so far it has done so to moderate success, but never stopped reassuring you right to the end. now worried about the balance sheet. i can't believe it. people have lost fortunes because of the reassurance that yeltsin made. one thing is for certain.
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infamously called an inflection point where's luxury cosmetics would return to growth, that is back in february this year. stocks soared 12% to 150. business looked like it was stabilizing, but then we learned the problems were structural, leading to number cut after number cut after number cut until the stock fell to 62. 62 at its lowest on november 12. one of the worst stocks in the s&p. sometimes it cannot be avoided. lenore, the giant home grower, we knew they would go down because the week before the got reported a mild miss, nobody in the housing business can defy higher mortgage rates but nobody. other names like nuclear power, space wonder drugs and quantum computing, the company's themselves are hyped, and disappointment inevitably hits unless the people who own these stocks took something off the table, i got to tell you. >> cell.
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>> but the bottom line, companies and even the fed should not make predictions unless they know that the predictions are well within reach. no one ever held it against you for being too conservative with your guidance. if you don't have the visibility to make good predictions, just say mom. we will know exactly what you mean. let's go to richard in california. richard? >> hey, jim, how are you? >> i am good, how about you? >> pretty good. seems like a great time to be picking up some stocks, especially healthcare ones. >> i talked about that today at my meeting for the cnbc investing club, which a lot of people said went well, but what i know. >> just released its own a.i. informatics smart technology workflow. a.i. has already been built into two of the largest mammograms of ultrasound producers and machines, and is now being sold in machines for the first time
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this month. both stevens and ge company joint press releas rad net a.i. is a game changer in the field. jim, is there any way to get the ceo of rad net on your show? >> let's just say that rad net stock has been good. it's up 105% for the year. it has done a good job, i wish that ge healthcare, which i talked about in somewhat disparaging ways today would join the crowd, but rad net has the intellectual property it looks like, they have got the earnings growth, and that's what matters. perot's in california. >> hey jim, thank for taking my call. happy holidays. >> sent to you. >> i want to talk to you about, as we move forward towards an economy putting a higher value on asset business models during sand out with a 42% annualized revenue growth over the past
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five years compared to starbucks at 7% with high potential investment, we are seeing upside in the coffee industry, are you a believer like i am? >> i have, i would probably say i am the foremost, earliest god who has been on board with dutch brose. everyone knows that. why? because i love the product. they are doing a lot of growth, it has just had a big spike, so we want to be careful but i have been on the dutch brose chain for a long time. ever since i had that annihilator, i didn't even have to go to sleep and when i left on sunday it was like fine i couldn't believe how much time i got to spend with my daughter. dutch brose. daniel in california. daniel? >> jim, i've been a club member for over a year now. >> that's what i want. >> help me beat the investing last year. >> thank you. that make me feel good. thank you.
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>> a few months ago, you hit the buy button on e-commerce stock in the 60s. since then it has doubled i wasn't able to get as big a position in the stock as i would have liked, but it has pulled back recently after a good earnings report, so do i buy more? hold on to what i have, or do i sell this stock on shop five? >> i got to tell you, i couldn't believe the stock went down to the 60s. it was a good quarter, so i went hard on it and now redouble it so my take is when you get a double, you got to take something off the table even though i think they are a great company, that is not mean necessarily that the stock had just had a big move is not capable of going down, so let's take something off the table. a note to companies, and to the fed reporting earnings and making statements, be conservative with your guidance, no one will hold it against you. conagra reported earnings, so what is ahead for the maker of
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birdseye's insulin gyms? i've got the ceo. than a report about the fed's latest cut and what it means for small business, and later, the fed delivers some big news, i can't believe we got the story on our show. i'm talking delivery giant ceo to map out the red ahead stock is climbing after hours. stay with cramer. don't miss a second of mad money. follow jim cramer on x. have a question? tweet cramer , hashtagmad mentions. send an email to mad money at cnbc.com or give us a call at one 807 43-cnbc. miss something? go to mad money.cnbc.com.
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environment what are we supposed to do with conagra brands? the houses packed with brands you know, like birdseye and slim jim, they reported a solid quarter with growth but the management had to cut earnings forecast for the 2025 fiscal year because they had not been able to get the inflation relief we are all hoping for. the stock got hurt early morning down by 5%, peg abbott 2%, so it's a stock with a 5.2% yield gotten too cheap to ignore or is the backdrop still so difficult for these food stocks that you have to wait? take a close look with sean connolly, the president and ceo of conagra. welcome back to mad money. >> jim, happy holidays. >> sent to you. so the market has decided that even though you are definitely back on your growth path which i thought was terrific because he said he would be, we have to worry about this sticky inflation and how it impacts you, almost as though what you
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do doesn't matter, when the price of protein does matter. how do you reconcile this? >> about a year ago, jim, we said the single most important thing in our mind, in terms of longtime shareholder value creation was pushing volumes back to growth. you know, the inflation supercycle put a heck of a burden on consumers, consumers became stretched, they started trading down, and we said that the most critical thing that we can do is invest to get back to growth. we have been doing that for about a year now, we have made steady progress in this quarter, we did return to growth, which is excellent. the question now is, with inflation being more pesky than we hoped, do we keep our foot on the gas in terms of topline momentum or do we backup investments to prop up the bottom line and we chose the former. we are continuing to prioritize having a strong business with consumers and keeping the momentum on the top line. part of the reason for that as well, we ducey relief on the horizon in terms of inflation, because
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our inflation is concentrated heavily in our animal proteins, and it is not going to happen as early as we expected. so, we will continue to push to build our business with consumers, our market shares are a really strong, our frozen business is rocking, as is our healthy snack business, and we think it is mission critical to keep that momentum on the top line. >> let's talk about something that is going well. permissible snacking has always been yours, and your snacks are meat snacks, which are actually what is permissible, and your volumes are quite positive. but, your growth did seem to drop from 1.1% in the first quarter. something we should be concerned about? >> snacks business performed really well in the quarter. are soft spot in snacks is swiss miss hot cocoa which is tied to winter starting lake but if you look at our core snacks businesses it is about protein and it is about fiber. meat sticks is our biggest business, our largest, slim jim
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grew 5%, seeds business grew 9%, our popcorn business grew 4%. snacks remain very strong and increasingly, this $80 billion snack space, you are seeing consumers prioritize healthy or, as we call it, permissible snacking over sweet snacks and high carb, high fat snacks, and that is where we play and we have got brands there that provide great choices. >> you guys have some fabulous frozen, you have the best snack franchise, at what point do we say to ourselves, you know what, those are the growth ones, i don't want to put money behind some of the others, i want to put money behind growth, because you always want to invest in what is doing well, not in what is not doing well. is that something that your board might consider? >> the way to think about our portfolio is, we have two
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growth factors. frozen and snacks. frozen gray 3% in the quarter, i just mentioned snacks performance, those businesses are going to be reliable growers moving forward. our third business is what we call staples. utility products, cooking ingredients, things like that. that is really not focused on growth, it is focused on cash flow. so, the strong cash flow that comes out of our staples business funds of the innovation programs in our growth business as a frozen and snack and we like that trifecta. >> we want to talk about points, you don't need to be worried because you built a portfolio that is a tailwind for you not a headwind. >> when you think about glp-1, or even people who aren't on glp-1, just about everybody you talk to these days is in pursuit of helpfulness and they want to be healthier. for those consumers that are on glp-1 it is pretty rare what they want and what they don't want. they want portion control. they absolutely want protein to protect against the loss of muscle mass, they are trying to avoid sugars, carbs, things like that, but they also need vegetable nutrition. so, when you look at our portfolio, areas like frozen where we have words i
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vegetables, we've got our meals business, we can offer all those things and in our snack business, it is heavily focused on protein and fiber, which fits externally well. but, for as many people as are on glp-1, there are a lot of people who drop off glp-1, and those folks need an offramp. they get to their ideal weight, but they want to maintain it when they go off glp-1. healthy choice is a brand of ours that works equally well for glp-1 user, or somebody who is coming off of glp-1 and is looking to maintain that weight. so, our businesses are very on strategy for anybody who is pursuing healthfulness, whether it is on glp-1, or just through working out and managing their diet. >> people here that come you got a snappy business and you've got frozen, they will say okay, what is this inflation? here it is, you talk about in your conference call, the biggest driver for us has been protein. it is meat and eggs, things like that. how does the country bring down meat and eggs?
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>> it depends upon the type of protein. beef takes the longest because it takes a long time to rebuild a herd, but that is underway. poultry can be affected by things like avian flu, other things like that, but poultry and pork can come back pretty quickly. so, we see progress on the horizon here, and it is usually pretty protectable, you know, these animal proteins go up, they come down, it is just a question of when do they inflect. so, we do still see relief on the horizon which is one of the reasons why we are betting on the consumer right now. we think the single most important thing we can do it is continue to keep prices in a place where they appreciate what we are doing and keep the momentum, and avoid these trade downs that we saw a year ago to more scratch putting. at the end of the day, consumers love convenience, they don't like meal planning, they don't like meal prep, they don't like meal cooking and they don't like cleanup. when you got convenient product like our frozen meal business, it is just a great utility for consumers, and they can avoid it for a bit, but now they are coming back in droves. >> that is a growth of 3.2%
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last quarter, we don't get muc , let's say low, mid single digits from food. i expect one, three is very strong, and that must mean that you are taking share within the aisle, to. >> we have the best share performance, really in the food industry, jim. if you look at our strategic businesses of frozen and snacks together, we maintained or grew share in 87% of that portfolio that is well above our peer set and gives you a sense of the strength that we have, and frankly, it's a result of the investments that we pledge to make one year ago, they have worked steadily since then and it was fantastic to break through the absolute growth this quarter. >> i want to congratulate you on being a man of your word, you said there would be growth, some things are beyond your control but i think a go your way, and people have to be patient with a 5% yield which is not so bad, sean connolly, president and ceo of conagra. have a good holiday, thank you for coming. >> thanks. >> mad money is back after the
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break.
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♪♪ well would you look at that? jerry, you've got to see this. i've seen it. trust me, after 15 walks, it gets a little old. ugh. i really should be retired by now. wish i'd invested when i had the chance... to the moon! unbelievable. stop waiting. start investing. e*trade ® from morgan stanley. baffling fed meeting yesterday, any clues from the economy, this morning we got results from paychecks.
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payroll processor focus on small and medium-sized businesses with human capital management outsourcing division. these guys have the best read on small business in america. what did we learn? paychex reporting earnings modestly higher-than-expected sales. in response the stock you. it was a really big at one point. yesterday losses with a lot of stocks but i think this was a really good one. and take it from me, john is the president and ceo of paychex, could be a real businessperson in there, mr. gibson, welcome back to mad money. >> happy holidays. as always it is great to be back with you. >> i'm so glad you're here, john. i got to tell you when i was reading your conference call is a thing of joy, because you are doing so well, and i wanted to ask you, how much of that is because we are alive and well in this country with small businesses, and how much is the incredible things that you offer that are taking some time
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to share? >> jim, i think we are blessed right now to have a bit of both. what i would tell you on the macro side, what we see is continuing modest growth in small business employment, we see optimism on the rise, it is the highest it has been since june of 2021. we see our clients wanting to hire, and wanting to grow. i was really happy to see a recent report that the u.s. economy is getting more productive, that is critical, given the labor challenges that we have. so i am excited about it, then when you add on top what you said, we have been developing some very innovative solutions, that really are resonating with small and medium-sized businesses, because it is helping solve real problems they have like attracting and retaining qualified workers. trying to figure out how they deal with the rise in healthcare costs they are facing and frankly, they are trying to compete against larger firms, they generally don't have the benefits packages that they need, and we are doing a lot to fix those problems today. >> seems like they also have
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the data, so i can call and listen say, i want to get this guy in this area and you can tell whether i am within reach or not, you can tell me whether i've got the right benefits packages versus others, and that would be really valuable because small-business people are not clued in as much as they would like to be. >> no question, jim, we have launched a series across the hr spectrum of a.i. enabled capabilities. you mentioned a few of them, with the copilot we got over 20 million workers in that that we can proactively give you a list by you just telling us what you are looking for. we have over 14 billion data elements we collected last year alone. so come on top of that, we now have compensation, a survey tool with access to 20 million employee records, so now you can ask yourself the question, am i paying enough to attract that qualified person, or am i paying too much. when you go across the board, recruiting, compensation, benefits, we are offering a host of a.i. enabled products and making it
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easier for small businesses to compete with larger firms. >> when you go up against anybody else, who has the breath of knowledge in data? any company that is against you? >> there may be a couple of companies out there who claim that they have a similar sized data set. what i would tell you, when you look over 50 years of gathering data on small and medium-sized businesses, you look at all of the millions of interactions that we have with prospect and with our clients and our clients employees, and then you look at the amount of time that we have been doing this over a decade of really making the data clean, jim, that is a critical. i really think that we have the biggest and cleanest data set on small and medium-size businesses, and i think it is one you can trust when we tell you what is going on with small and medium-size businesses in the u.s. >> i'm taking about all these good things you are saying, and i want to put them in context with the federal reserve.
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i mean, i think that j powell would have expected that the economy might rebound a little bit if he cut rates but i think that he expected there would be so much optimism, either because we got finished with the election or because they like the election results that they should have been looking more at small and medium-sized businesses and realize the level of optimism could create, let's say some bidding wars for talent because you want to get bigger quickly. >> no question, jim, i think this economy is a difficult thing to redeem, i've been talking about that since the covid days and it really boils down to this, what you said. small businesses drive the u.s. economy. 99% of businesses are small. 50% of all workers work for small businesses. and when you go back over the last decade, 63% of all the net job gains are happening in small businesses, so it's not about chips and bit corn, we are talking about main street, barbers and electricians, we are talking about everyday people who are out there, and
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what i think that we are missing today, we have been talking about this, is the labor market challenge of finding qualified people for small and medium-sized businesses, so, when you look at the employment numbers, i think it masks the bigger issue, which is that small businesses want to add people but they cannot find qualified people to hire. so i think that masks what the real growth is. i think the policymakers, i'm not sure there's anything the fed can do about that but i do think that policymakers need to start focusing on, how do we upscale the workforce, and it will be interesting to see from the new administrator and, how they begin working immigration as a positive way to add workers to the workforce. >> what i am hoping is that, i don't know what kind of role you can assign to the federal reserve but i don't think there's anyone with the breath of knowledge that you have and it's quite obvious they need it, because i think they are missing what is the bigger picture, which is, the backbone
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of america is small businesses. >> jim, i am honored to be asked to serve on the new york fed advisory board and have an opportunity to lend the voice and insights that we have to offer. we try to be strong advocates for small and medium-sized businesses, both in washington and now at the fed, and i tell you, if we can get the optimism of small businesses matched with access to capital, it is not just the cost of capital, it is access to capital, and we can get a labor supply of qualified people, i think small businesses in america will really continue to lead the economy forward, so i am very optimistic as we go into this year. >> i am glad you are, i am not as worried about every little bit of inflation as i am about keeping people employed and starting new businesses, because that is what our country does best. john gibson, president and ceo of paychex. >> happy holidays. >> mad money is back after the break.
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coming up, has cramer finally cracked the code behind consumer habits? he is sharing his findings and the names that are benefiting. next. (♪♪) (♪♪) (♪♪) everyone has goals and dreams. and everyone deserves a way to get there. wherever you're going, getting there starts here. state street invest in your future with dia, the only etf that tracks the dow. (♪♪)
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we always get confused about the economy, because we act like there is such a thing as the consumer. but we don't have just one class of consumer. with everything going on out there, how do you make sense of the consumer? i think i figured it out. one consumer is going out and looking for absolute bargains. the other consumer is looking for what i call premium value, value-added price. more expensive but you get a great deal relativism offerings. that is my determination after listening to all this retail and restaurant conference calls pequino that i don't like to focus on aggregate retail
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numbers, i prefer to look at individual companies and put them all together into a pastiche or mosaic, get my own sense of what is happening. so, what do i mean by absolute bargains and premium value? take a look at the pair of olive garden and one steakhouse up 15% of these places are not cheap but the never-ending costs of one of my favorite are not cheap, longhorn is not cheap, new york strip is 27-29. ribeye at 3329. poorhouse $35. blood remarries, out of this world. despite the prices, the gardens numbers are outstanding because all these prices i just mentioned represent premium value. $14 for an endless pasta bowl is a good deal. 35 smackers for a dynamic porterhouse cut sounds like a lot but compared to other steakhouses, you will find it is a steel. williams-sonoma, ralph lauren, lulu lemon, all had great numbers. also goods that cost a lot of
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money, yet in each case, consumers recognize that the product is worth every penny. that is why i call it premium value or value at price. if you are willing to pay up for quality but you are still cost-conscious, the have you covered. at the same time, there is another consumer who only seeks absolute bargains. the under $11 meal at chili's, and texas roadhouse, the same deal. incredibly attractive. texas roadhouse overwhelms you with fabulous food at a price that seems like they forgot to put one of us on the bill and the cinnamon rolls, allows. the bargain crowd shops at t.j. maxx which is offering bargains, good name for the place by the way. i got this belt there. you can't tell it wasn't expensive. so many people are volunteering for the army, any officer or grunt can get outstanding prices with closeouts. also enjoying going to walmart you cannot believe how low the
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prices have become. cheaper than dollar stores and many places now that those places have broken the buck. can't be beat prices but there are some stragglers that seem to please everyone like costco and apartheid but maybe that's why their stocks have such price earnings. costco appeal to anyone with enough space at home to take advantage of its merchandise. chipotle straddles because everyone knows you can take a chipotle meal and split it into two, one for lunch and went for dinner. i think these kinds of consumers have confounded wall street. we used to just have one kind of consumer and either spent or didn't. know we have two and they spend at different places. stop trying to figure out if the consumer is cash-strapped. forget the headwinds. what matters is choice. consumers are lapping up absolute value at the lowest price or premium value, meaning better stuff that is a good deal versus the competition. but everything else? maybe not so much. hence why the aggregate numbers just don't tell the story. mad money is back after the break.
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lightning round is sponsored by charles schwab. trade brilliantly. it is time. lightning round, and then the lightning round is over, are you ready? lightning round, we start with james, james. >> hey jim thank you for taking my call. >> my pleasure. >> jim, we've made some great money on the stock markets, can
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you please get a boo yeah? >> boo yeah. >> okay jim, my question is, we love walmart. what are your thoughts on walmart? >> walmart is the same, james. i like walmart. as long as we go there we cannot believe the buys, we love going to walmart. a lot of rich guys in new york don't even know what walmart is that's how we got the edge on them. jack in north carolina. jack? >> hey jim, how you doing? >> i'm doing well. how about you? >> i'm living the dream. i've been an investor for a while, rtx? >> disappointing stuff, i can't believe it. in i don't know what to say, i don't know what gets it going. it's healthcare with a great earning stream and it just does not seem to matter. i want you to stick with it. i would not get rid of the
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stock. they are too good of a company. let's go to dale in louisiana. dale. >> glad to have you on the show. >> hey, i'm thinking i may have the next american video for you >> you read my book, my dad lost everything he had on a company called national video. >> partner, what i've got for you, a stock that i bought about three years ago, i bought it when it was down 40%, near five year high, i bought it for 65 over the last 2 1/2 years, it hasn't treated me good. it has gone down to $41. $40 billion company, 4.5% dividend. do i sell it and take the tax write off this year? do i hold onto it.
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>> the stock is what? >> magna. >> i got to tell you, the orders are the worst place to be. there's the auto and housing economy and everything else and you are in the heart of the bad part. i would not want to own that stock. i just do not want to own it. i am seeing terrible things going on in the auto industry. let's go to gary in my home state of new jersey. gary? >> happy holiday, jim. >> same to you and your family. >> i got a question about a stock i'm heavily invested in. it's a bank stock. with feds dropping the rates recently, this stock is 18% off its 52 week high in the last month. dividends of 3%, what do you think about mtb? >> mtb is a very good company. i would be buying here. i don't have a problem with that. i actually like them. and that, ladies and gentlemen,
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the lightning round. the lightning round is sponsored by charles schwab. coming up, how is fedex gearing up for the holiday shipping rush? cramer is catching up with the ceo, fresh off its latest earnings report. next. the boot maker. hee-ha. but many do have something in common. we all trust schwab with our wealth. thanks to our award-winning service, low costs and transparent advice, every day, over a million multi-millionaires, trust schwab with more than three trillion dollars of their wealth. ♪♪ ehh... hmm. oh, that's very, uh... - right? - mmm... this store doesn't have agentforce, so an ai agent didn't tip off the stylist as to what i might actually wear. - yes. - oh. that's a commitment. [glass knocked] hey bud! whaddaya think? you know, people can see you out here. ha ha ha ha, yeah, yeah, right, right, ha ha. love you, too. agentforce helps retailers prevent fashion fails.
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look at the stock of the fedex go. after closing this report, let's call it a mixed quarter, but because fedex also announced that it would be spinning off its less than truckload freight business as a separate company the stock caught fire, fantastic news for shareholders but this is a huge move. president and ceo of fedex, welcome back to mad money. this is very exciting. tell us why. >> hey, jim, great to be on your show again.
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>> raj, i've got to tell you. i was looking at your less than truckload separation, the value that you will bring out if i look at all the comparative companies that are in the industry is extraordinary, it is not even reflected by the move in after hours. this is a gem that you are spinning off. tell us why people should want to own both entities. >> i think that's a great question right there, and i think the decision that we made, here, is basically because it has the potential for creating long-term shareholder value for both companies. fedex and fedex freight. let's talk about both of them. in fact, i will start talking about fedex. as you know, we have gone through a significant transformation over the last couple of years, and in a very muted b2b demand environment, we have improved our market position and we have improved our operating margins in this environment but just imagine when we get some tailwind on
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our industry production. now, at the same time, we also look forward, this announcement is a catalyst for us to create value with fedex. there are ways for us to move forward in the next couple of years, whether it is restructuring in the united states, there are opportunities in europe, or the share we are taking globally on international air freight. but i think there are two things that i want to point out that are nablers to this. the way that we work, we built a fantastic execution engine. the second thing is the innovation we have on technology that powers everything. you know, if you think about the boardrooms these days, supply chains have become a topic of conversation in every board room, and we think we can bring a lot of value here. fedex creates supply chains that are smarter for everyone. we are sitting on global supply chain insights, so not only do we want to be a leading
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transportation network provider, but also a global supply chain technology provider. now about fedex freight. fedex freight is the largest shipping company, we have the broadest network, the fastest, and it is, as you call it, a gem. we have an increased focus, offense on revenue, and we make sure we grow our customer experience, and, i do want to point out that fedex freight benefits a lot from being connected to fedex. so, we will make sure that there are linkages on the commercial side, the operational side and on the technological side as we go forward. >> i think that it is remarkable, because i don't know if people realize how much the market is willing to pay for ltl, they are scarce, hard to-find, and when they are good, people pay up for them. your main business, now you say
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fedex delivered operating process despite several headwinds including the continued week u.s. domestic demand environment. all day today, i heard that the economy is too strong and the fed should not have cut. in reality, you are the economy, and it would seem like it wouldn't be so bad if interest rates went lower. >> i think when you look at the economy, especially in the united states, we have to split it up into the b2b and b2c on commerce. it's stunning to me that the index for manufacturing has been in contraction mode for 24 of the last 25 months, and the e-commerce site on the other hand has reset post pandemic and starting to grow. 60% of our package business, and 80% of our ltl business are really driven by the b2b side of the equation. so that's what it is and the fact that we were able to generate income expansion,
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particularly in the fec segment, with neutered demand is a very good thing for us, because as you know, when demand comes back, the there is a significant leverage going forward. >> now, you have got a situation where so many things are in flux. we have china, that was a fabulous market for fedex when i was growing up. 20 years ago when i said of the show. you got terrace, nobody knows what is going to happen, so things will be put forward but you don't know if that is what will happen either. do you think that people don't want to take a chance at the terrace go up? >> well, you know, i think we are actually seeing better than expected demand during this month of december, and part of that is because consumers are feeling more bullish, and part of that is perhaps we just saw that the december might be a record month for the los angeles board for example, it is too early to tell, but i
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think those are the initial indication. china represents roughly 30% of global manufacturing today. and the good news for fedex is that our network is global in nature. we serve 99% of global commerce. so, as supply-chain patterns change, we are here, there, and everywhere. it is easier for us to move, to adapt and move capacity around, connect any node in the network to the whole world and the whole world to that particular node than any other company. that is something people sometimes miss. the fact that we have a scaled network in place provides us an advantage in these dynamic times. >> we got to this because we called with fed smith, and he gave my wife something -- are there any countries you are not in? >> the only countries we really are not in are the ones by law
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that we cannot go into. so, literally, we are in 99% of global commerce. you can see this now because as the supply-chain patterns change -- for example, vietnam is going strong right now but india is going very strong right now. all those businesses, we are there. and of course, we are here in the united states. to the extent that the u.s. is growing, there is opportunity for us here, too. >> short holiday season, what are you seeing in terms of freight every single day? there have been times when other freight companies were overwhelmed by this period , and we know they did not do a good job. how are you handling the huge amount in a contracted period of time? >> oh, i could not be more proud of the fedex team right now. we are just really doing very well at delivering an outstanding service to our customers, doing this very tight season.
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i speak to the team every single day, and we are just doing a bang up job. you notice we are getting close to christmas here, only a couple of days left and i believe santa claus is working right now. >> one last question, is santa claus a robot? i understand you are putting robots in that are actually unloading at the save a huge amount of jobs. really, you cannot find people who can work, are the robots replacing santa? >> not yet, but as you rightly pointed out, working on robotics to make sure there are opportunities, especially on the truck loading and truck unloading, that is a really interesting problem for robotics. i think with the latest moves in a.i., this is now a solvable problem. they will work hand-in-hand with our team members. that is what is coming up tomorrow. >> will you let us go to where you are doing that, where you have robots load and unload?
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i want to see that. >> we will welcome you. i will join you when you get here. >> fantastic. making so much money for shareholders tonight, thank you so much for coming on the show. so much for coming on the show. it's great to see you. narrator: it's been 10 years since "shark tank" >> thank you so much, jim, ood to see you. >> excellent. i got to tell you, i love when money is being made instantly bringing out value and that is what happens with fedex. i like to say there is always a bull market somewhere and i will find it for you right here on mad money. i'm jim cramer. see you tomorrow. . this is sick. narrator: ...by thinking big... sharks, you guys ready to cool off? together: yeah. narrator: ...and chasing their dreams. there is a tenacity that i have, and i am going to break through any obstacle ever. your revenue is what? $7,000. o'leary: oh! this is a very special business. are you crazy?! i don't want to have to put you in time-out. you lied to us. -- captions by vitac --

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