In today's Daily Rundown, Jim Cramer discusses the markets, Morgan Stanley (MS) , Wells Fargo (WFC) , Advanced Micro Devices (AMD) , NortonLifeLock (NLOK) , Salesforce (CRM) , Crown Castle (CCI) , Ford (F) , and more.
JEFF MARKS: Happy Thursday, everyone. This is the Daily Rundown. I'm Jeff Marks. Standing on the floor of the New York Stock Exchange with Jim Cramer. Jim, we got-- we're seeing a little weakness today in the markets, but Morgan Stanley reported earlier, I know the first initial reaction was down, but we're seeing it trading higher today. What do you think?
JIM CRAMER: It's about flows. The flows are magnificent. And when you think about Morgan Stanley, you should be thinking about E-trade. E-trade versus Robinhood. I think Morgan Stanley is unique in offering now kind of initial beginner product than a medium product, the 41K product, and then ultimately for traders. Maybe one of the best that there is. And what we're seeing is Morgan Stanley's risk light model, I call it. And I think that core is doing simply a remarkable job. I think stock goes 100 very quickly, and then I think they're going to be buying back stock hand over fist. So Morgan Stanley is-- and Wells Fargo, we miss things. I'm going to talk about some things we've missed. We've missed IPOs too early in win, too early Nucor, but I'm going to be-- we're going to be right about those. But these two, Morgan Stanley and Wells Fargo are the two best in show
JEFF MARKS: So if you didn't buy Morgan Stanley yet, say you were waiting for the quarter, get in today, buy today.
JIM CRAMER: Yeah. I guess they're going to be buying back stock so aggressively. And I think you'll get catched.
JEFF MARKS: Good yield still.
JIM CRAMER: Yes. You're going to get some people raise numbers. And they-- I know it's more than twice book, but it isn't. Like I said, it's not a risky company. It's gotten away from a lot of risk. I like it more than Goldman, most certainly.
JEFF MARKS: Yeah. And you know, Wells Fargo, they were another standout yesterday. Rallying almost 4% after their earnings release. Why do you think Wells Fargo rallied so hard, because a lot of the reactions to the banks, besides Morgan Stanley and Wells Fargo, have been muted?
JIM CRAMER: Well I think Wells Fargo, Charlie Sharp is adamant it's time to play offense. Net interest income unchanged, which is pretty good given what happened with the Fed. Expense control, magnificent. He said all the hires now start to play offense. I think people forget, this used to be a juggernaut. And then it got, obviously went out of control. Charlie has now brought it under control. He did talk about how hard that was to do. But now it's offense for Charlie. And everybody knows from the days when he was at Visa. Look out, this man is cautious.
JEFF MARKS: All right. Next let's talk about AMD. A long time bear upgraded AMD to a neutral rating. Increased their price target to 95 from 17. What do you think about this upgrade? Finally convincing. At least to go to get a neutral rating on this side. Accelerating share gains in the server.
JIM CRAMER: If anything, I fear there'll be a backlash. And people say buy Intel and sell AMD. Selling AMD before the Xilinx deal is silly. I was trying to figure out why Chris picked this moment. It was almost like there's going to be good news AMD and he felt like he had to get ahead of it. That's what I hope.
JEFF MARKS: Right. Now what about Norton LifeLock? It was reported yesterday by the Wall Street Journal that they were interested in talks to acquire Avast, which is a European cybersecurity company. Now, there's talks have since been confirmed. So we know they are interested. This looks like a pretty good deal from a consolidation standpoint.
JIM CRAMER: Because we want to know what the arbitragers are going to do. But to get-- now we understand how they're going to get the $3. They're going to get the $3 by consolidating the industry, by being very shrewd in terms of the-- I mean, there's going to be some layoffs here. I know that Europe may not like that. So it could be problem with the deal. But I love it because now they have 40% of the market. And if they get that, they can raise price.
JEFF MARKS: Yeah. It's interesting. When they had that tremendous analyst day and we saw the stock rise from the low $20 all the way as high $28 $29, part of the reason why is they said they wanted to-- their plan was to double earnings per share from $1.52 to $3 and five years. And that this type of acquisition would get them-- that would accelerate that timeline, I would think.
JIM CRAMER: I mean, it's why I think that once the terms are in, we don't need to buy it. And we bought a ton much lower, but we can push it very hard.
JEFF MARKS: So don't sell on this news, is what--
JIM CRAMER: No, please don't. Please, don't.
JEFF MARKS: And we'll have more to say about this deal later. Now, Jim, I do want to talk about some other stocks that we were just talking about as we were chatting.
JIM CRAMER: Can we buy Salesforce or we are restricted?
JEFF MARKS: I'll have to check the list. But I would definitely say Salesforce is a good buy.
JIM CRAMER: It's down 5. I just buy it. I mean I know that that's violating our basis. Violating our basis we see with Honeywell. I was good. But Salesforce down 5 must be ploid. And I feel like that if we are-- let's say we are restricted, maybe we can buy tomorrow or Monday. But we do need to mend fences. Anyway, we got to buy some.
JEFF MARKS: And I don't want to sound like a broken record, but that Slack deal is expected to close this month.
JIM CRAMER: Oh my. You know, look, it's not like Outlook is that good. I hated Outlook. And Slack is very collaborative and really perfect for a hybrid market. So I think people don't understand that Slack's value is going up during this period because of how people are going hybrid. And will Mac will integrate that just as well as he did of ExactTarget, as he did MuleSoft, and as he did Tableau. And Marc is-- people-- somebody was the other day was saying that Macr is not that engaged. That's a lie. And believe me, I know it.
JEFF MARKS: And if you want to define a source of funds to buy this, to buy some Salesforce, we were just talking Crown Castle might be an interesting term here. It's really going up because interest rates continue to go down.
JIM CRAMER: Yeah. Crown Castles has been just one of our greatest. Win is now at 160. I got a lot of mail saying that we didn't know what we're talking about. And that feels a lot like Win at 110 and Newport 92 You're starting to buy those. But I will say this, I think that Crown Castle was a great win because of our patients. OK. And I'm going to give you another great win because of our patients. Walmart. Walmart is at 142 now. Now, we're talking about our bases. It's right here. Maybe lower. But Walmart I think is going to start using its buying power to do things like drugs. I think that that Novo Nordisk deal for insulin, I think that's just the beginning. I think if you sign up for Walmart plus, you get the lowest price for all drugs. Not just generics. So I think Walmart got a plan. And the plan that they showed you-- they showed you their high carb with Novo Nordisk and diabetes. But there's much more behind.
JEFF MARKS: Yeah. The action in Walmart has been getting better recently. It continues to hang in.
JIM CRAMER: Every day. Every day. It's just moving up. And I think it's ready to roar.
JEFF MARKS: All right. And let's talk about Ford. Now, you were on the Taiwan semicon. You said it's at midnight. And what are they saying about the chip shortage?
JIM CRAMER: What we were worried about is Taiwan Semi had been really doing work for high performance computing. And remember, that's the customers. But it seems like that they made a special exception and really went aggressive in trying to get enough automobile chips. And that's really great for Ford. It's probably been the most constrained. Remember, they were saying they could lose as much as $2 billion in sales. And I think that what I felt after losing to Taiwan Semi call, and I know global foundries going to be similar, that the chip shortage is over. A lot of people thought it's just going to go on forever. Now, when you're Taiwan Semi addressed it directly, believe me, and you see used car peaking, you should start believing in Ford again. We sold some of the hype 15's. It's at 14. Maybe that's two trading oriented. But if you don't own Ford, don't own Nucor. If you don't own Walmart, if you don't Win, if you don't own Salesforce, everyone right now. Everyone is on sale as a buyer. And Morgan Stanley down on sale, but it's about to.
JEFF MARKS: And just very quickly here. So we do have a two rating on Ford. But you think it's time to upgrade that back to what--
JIM CRAMER: Because look, I've been waiting. I mean, you know, facts are changing. I mentioned, like Disney. Facts are changing. You heard Taiwan Semi saying point blank, listen, we're going to give you enough auto chips. And some of them, by the way, is just a recognition that the customer is always right. I mean, Ford needs these full featured chips. And they're going to get them. And that says buy. I've got $14 bucks. That company is a huge amount of earnings power if they can make everything they need. They're sold out. They have $150. And by the way, it doesn't hurt. I mean I don't want to cash. I happen to like Mary Barra very much, but the news that they have on their electric car is suboptimal. You have to watch it. Must be charged. I think that Ford is uniquely going to have the right pick up. That lightning. You buy Ford now for next year. You even buy Ford for next quarter.
JEFF MARKS: All right. That's all the time we have for today. I'm Jeff Marks. That's the last show for the week. We'll see you Monday.