JIM CRAMER: Hi, I'm Jim Cramer. And we are back. Yes, this is our August monthly club call.
You know how much I love these calls. I've got right here, of course, Jeff Marks. We're going to talk a great deal about the market.
But let's get going with some thoughts about what is happening right now. Every time this year that I sit down to start one of these calls, every time, I'm reminded that the market simply hasn't had a sizable decline of any way, shape or form in 15 months. Yet, individually, the opportunities and pitfalls are extraordinary.
So let's get on with it as there's never been an up day in ages. That's a better mindset for stock picking, isn't it? Remember, newcomers and old timers alike, it's not our job to buy stocks for you.
We are giving you a recommended list of our favorites, so that you can figure out what works for you, what you want, when you want it. And then we can help you do the homework. You take care of your taxes. You decide when to buy or sell, but you know that we're with you.
As always, though, I want to give you a sense of what I see, what I like, and what the notion of flexibility means to your portfolio. First, so often you hear that, if we haven't had a big decline, doesn't that mean we are due for one and we should wait for it?
Sure. I mean, look, I did a piece just last night about how rates could head higher and that could drive stocks down. That's always a possibility. I'm with that. That was with my friend Larry Williams, who's been one of the greatest technicians of all time, if not the greatest.
Now, we are starting to see that with the utilities and the consumer packaged goods place rolling over. And today, the drug stocks join them. Why is that?
Because we are, once again, on one of those reopening jags that has everyone all jazzed about how good things are going to be now that the FDA has blessed Pfizer with a real approval or maybe today's news about J&J and how a booster could help you there. I think that I want to take the other side of that trade, as some of you who might read Real Money this morning say. I want to take the other side, but not yet.
Let it run, OK? Let it run. Because what's going to happen is this is the same way I've been telling people not to sell the Chinese stocks till they have a little more run. Because you get runs, and you don't want to quit immediately. The pattern in this rotational market is that the drugs, or then the foods, or the fins, the steels, the semis, the retailers, the health cares, they will run, and then run again a little bit more than you thought, always overshooting where we thought they would go.
And then they will crush you, crush you if you hop on too late. Think Nucor at 110 going to 89. Think about the last call we made.
I think it's going to happen again, but not yet. We're going to get all balled up about the cyclicals, whether it be Boeing or DuPont or Honeywell or Nucor. And they're going to be taken too high to which we will have to do some selling, some trimming, especially with DuPont, more on that in a moment, while they will crush the safety stocks of which we have very few. Because they don't represent good value. Hey, maybe they won't represent good value if they go down too much.
It's our job to scale out of what we can for the trust, so we are ready to buy down when the situation emerges. Because that's been the real pattern during this pandemic. What will make it turn back down? I think we're going to learn, in the next two or three months, that these vaccines were only good for six months. And when you get to the six months, their efficacy drops dramatically.
The problem is that somehow the FDA, the CDC, won't tell us the truth. The breakthroughs begin to occur in month five. They accelerate from six to eight. If you haven't had a vaccine booster yet, it's been six months, go get one. Yes, you might need a script from a doctor. It's worth it.
I am sure it is the usual garbage that they are hiding behind, these federal authorities about medicine. We don't have enough shots to go around. Or no one will take it if they only last six months.
They always have some BS excuse, but I fear we won't know this for at least a month. So we might have a bit of a run here until the cat is out of the bag and people realize that the great reopening part two didn't happen.
Now, what is the rhythm of a run? Well, it starts with what we saw Monday and Tuesday, rotation out of the soft and into the hard, and the financials with tech leading the way first-- that was yesterday-- and then financials today because they represent great value. They represent the best value. And the companies are buying back stock. And maybe I'll be right on the yield curve.
It then goes on for another week. But then the bond market sniffs out strength usually because the commodity complex led by oil threatens to break through the highs notice where it threatens. Then we get to September jitters, and the relentless rally in cyclicals goes bad because we get a strong employment number and Fed fears crush anything with economic sensitivity.
It'll be the last straw, because the employment benefits are cut back. But no one's going to think about that at the moment. They're not going to say, wow, wait a second. Rates are going to come back down when people realize that salary is going to come back down. No, because that regards the market to have more of a memory than a mayfly, true.
Interest rates move up perhaps back to 1.6% from 1.3% on the ten year. And then ultimately, everything goes down, including even the financials, because the inflation numbers run too hot. There, there's the next month for you. There's the rhythm.
How can I be so sure? Because that's exactly what has happened over and over and over again. And I don't think this market's coloration will change. It's been that way ever since the bottom when the pandemic was raging.
Now, you do have to hand it to the buyers that are oblivious to pretty much everything from the stunning collapse of Afghanistan to the egregious handling of the virus and vaccines. But beyond that, remember, like real estate, it's rotation, rotation, rotation. So in that market, what do you do?
Let me talk about three different use cases that I think can defy the ups and downs that I just described. What you look for in this kind of market are special situations, high quality stocks where the facts have changed. And you can buy them when the time is right because you're flexible.
Actually, I should say that this time is right, but we did screw up one of the three. And I can only blame those darn restrictions on what happened. That's why I always say you got to check your bulletins.
Let's start with the one that's the most likely to participate in this phase of the rally that we own, Wynn Resorts. Now, if you recall in the last conference call, I talked about two stocks that I couldn't have been that wrong on, Wynn and Nucor. What can I say? The latter proceeded to rally 30 points, nice work if you can get it.
The former Wynn, it hasn't performed as I'd like, hasn't panned out at all, frankly. But I think that's about the change because the facts have changed, and you have to change with those. John Maynard Keynes said it, and I always echo it.
The stock got socked, one-two punch by Delta and by the People's Republic of China putting restrictions on Macau. Now, of course, we just learned that the restrictions are off. They still have a seven day, but not a two day for testing. And we are back in wide open mode because of this notion that the Pfizer approval has changed everything.
I think people will be looking for stocks that are not Chinese-based that can still capture the Chinese rally as well as for travel and leisure stocks that haven't moved that much yet versus when they traded pre-Delta. And of course, here I'm thinking about Vegas. And that's Wynn.
Next is the one I missed. And these things, they just hurt. I'm talking about Disney. I wanted to buy this one so badly in the downturn last week because the facts have changed. And you knew this. I know that we do all these calls and daily, and you might not have time to listen to them. But I talked with Jeff about how much I like Disney.
Two quarters ago, the CEO of Disney spent too much time talking about Disney+. And I feared we were about to go down the same path as we did when we talked too much about ESPN and, before that-- believe it or not, I'm so old-- ABC. This is a one-trick metric story that I didn't want the company to be beholden to especially near the end of a pandemic.
We don't want to just say, oh, there's all this other stuff, but look at this plus number. Sure enough, the next quarter, the one just announced, the CEO Bob Chapek told a great story about all of the good things that can happen with Disney, no matter what. That's what I wanted to hear.
It came back down, but we just couldn't pull the trigger because of our restrictions. Although we told you to buy. What do you do when you miss something? Do you chase?
No. You say, darn it. I missed it. But my discipline says, I have to wait for a pullback. Well, forget it because we are too close to the high. And so it remains on our watch list.
Finally, there's one stock that I think can be bought as I speak the one that I think is going to be one of the biggest for 2022, one we've gotten right the whole way, and that is the Ford Motor Company. We are about to be into September. And in that month, we no longer care about 2021 and the semiconductor problems and the high commodity prices and Delta or no Delta.
We know that we're going to stay hybrid. We know we need new cars. The average age of the fleet is 12 and 1/2 years. We know we like electric vehicles if they don't catch fire or crash.
Therefore, we like Ford. I think that Ford's Maverick, Bronco, Mustang, Mach-E, and Ford 150 Lightning make up the strongest lineup I've ever seen from this company. The CEO Jim Farley may be the best they have ever had.
No, who am I kidding? Well, how about the best since Henry without Henry's bizarre political proclivities? Yet the stock, let's think about this. It's down sharply from its highs in June, $16 down to 13 now. And it was up a couple of percentages yesterday.
I believe that people are underestimating what this company can make off these cars. Farley has spent yeomen's time trying to convince people he could make money on each, especially the electric 150 with reservations exceeding expectations dramatically. And about 3/4 of the customers are new to Ford, which is exactly what must happen if this company is going to grow.
Can I just say for a moment the only problem may be battery. They may not have enough batteries to be able to meet the demand for the 150. But they're going to move it up, so the deluxe 150 gets the batteries. That's where the gross margins are.
As I look things over, it might be my favorite stock in the portfolio because it can handle reopening or reclosing, whatever the fates throw at us. Next year will be a monster year for Ford. And I think it will take out that $18 high that it registered a decade ago.
Do I want you to just go by it right now while we're talking? I don't know. Maybe you can multi-task?
Now, we are intensely interested in your feedback, as always. And that means going over every single stock in the portfolio and then handling some questions for you. So without further ado, let's go over the 1s you can buy now, the 2s where I want you to wait. We have no 3s that we can see.
And I wish we had more room, but we just can't cover more stocks than we currently have, stretched, just stretched too thin with our small team, Zev Fima and Jeff Marks. I mean, you don't understand how tough it is to follow all these stocks.
Anyway, so let's give the 1s. Last time, we did them by category. So this time, we're doing them alphabetical. Maybe next time we do it by category.
Apple, what can I say? Own it, don't trade it. We're beginning to get signs that I'm going to be given my wish. Every quarter I talk with Tim Cook and his CFO Luca Maestri before their earnings call.
I used to bug them endlessly to break out the service revenues. And when they got too big to hide, they finally did. Ever since then, I've been pushing them to give me a lifetime value, LTV, of a phone owner, given the 99% customer satisfaction and all the bills we pay-- you do, I do-- every night. It comes out. It's just a little note from Apple.
I got the sense last quarter we are close in on this one. When we do, here's what will happen. The stock will go much higher. Because it will be much less episodic, which means a much higher price to earnings multiple. Yes, that can happen. It's a big reason why I don't want you trading the stock even as it flirts with all-time highs.
Later this week, here's a great one. Friday, Abbott Labs is going to reveal the results of a very special congestive heart failure study, the largest ever conducted by the company. I think it's going to show the efficacy of a device implanted in the heart that can save hundreds of thousands of people's lives every year. Put it in the heart. It beams a signal to the cloud, then goes back to your doctor analyzing exactly how bad or good you are at that very moment. It's going to save a lot of lives.
In the meantime, we are looking at the possibility of a colossal beat and raise because of Binax, the only real worth over-the-counter test for COVID. I bought eight of them today. Abbott's a must own. Stock could come down here because drugs are rolling over, if you're just joining the club, by a little more under 120.
American Eagle's been at this point, including today, versus a bunch of retailers this season, notably Ralph Lauren or Macy's or TJX. Today, it's trading with Urban Outfitters. Well, that's not good.
We're not in this for one quarter, though. We want to be in one of the great growth stories of retail, perhaps the only one in the mall-- I mean, sustainable-- the one with the Aerie brand that is as coveted as Lulu, but for more people. I call it mass Lulu.
I think this one could have a multi-year move and can be bought right here. Yes, am I upset with myself for not having Best Buy? No kidding. Do I kick myself about Dick's?
I mean, I speak with the CEOs of both those. And it drives me crazy. You can't win them all.
Amazon-- OK, Amazon's done nothing this year. I get that. It's been strong in previous years, and there's no real edge to it at this moment. But I think it will continue to have strong web services performance as well as amazing ad revenues.
Retail, as I said last night on Mad Money, there have been many retailers that have caught up with it. That's why the stock stalled. But no one has caught up with the bargain that is Prime.
I think you can wait for a dip to buy it, though, just not an imperative name for the moment. What can I do? Not everything can be bought at once.
Did Boeing finally turn the corner? It was trashed again yesterday, still one more FAA investigation into wrongdoing by employees or CEOs, whatever. And alas, this time it didn't go down. I was heartened by that, but it is a big cyclical rally.
And there's no way to necessarily tell that it's done. It's off $0.05 today. I can take that. I am waiting for Chinese certification-- they've got a Boeing plane that they're out there testing right now-- or some positive story about reopenings and the need for planes. Yeah. We need them.
I think the next big move is up, not down. If China certifies, we can sell some at 275. Ahead of when and where, I think the company does an equity offering to quiet down its ailing balance sheet. A guy I know very well from Cowen did say that China won't certify until the end of the year. Was he a member of the PRC? I mean, was he a close confidant of President Xi?
Anyway, Salesforce CRM reports tonight after the bell. It almost always sells off even when it reports a fantastic quarter. And you can tell because its closing in its 52 week high that it's come back after every quarter.
So if you don't own it, I'm urging you to wait until after we see the number. And initially, it trades up, and then it gets hit pretty hard as I do my interview with-- probably in the middle of my interview with Marc Benioff, it'll already be down $8. That's the way it works. So let's be patient.
Now, this will be the quarter where we get the Slack vision. And I think we're going to be surprised to hear how well Slack is doing. I want to hear about big deals and the big integration.
I also want to here, by the way, how they fare against Microsoft. Because they are now polar opposites. Then I want to see if the stock slides, as it always does, so I can tell you to buy more for the trust.
Cisco just reported a quarter that may be the best in 10 years. It didn't immediately register with people, including-- I was talking to Chuck when I was doing Squawk on the Street. I was like, wait a second. What's this being down?
But that's because people don't understand that Cisco is historically, and always been since I first started trading in 1992, an order story. Every single sales line was extraordinarily positive. As I said earlier, we are now squarely looking at 2022 because of the calendar.
It's going to be an amazing year for this company, too, with so many divisions on fire and 5G beckoning on the-- look at that. It's through 60 right now. And 5G beckoning for the enterprise-- Cisco's all enterprise, remember.
Cisco remains a very inexpensive stock, even up here. Now, I have known CEO Chuck Robbins a very long time. I have never heard him be this bullish.
Even when he went out with me to The Longshoreman, the place my wife runs, she's like, hey, things are good. He's actually a poker player. He never talks about Cisco. He talks about the Falcons.
Here's a tricky one DuPont. Remember how I always say that I don't like buying a painting without selling a painting first? I think that, if DuPont's stock keeps going higher, and we're getting a little bit of move today. Let me just check real time.
If the stock keeps going higher-- $0.30-- I think it's got to go. I think it's fair to say I've had enough of it. So then you can say to yourself, Jim, wait a second.
Last time we heard that, wasn't that what you said with waste management? I've done enough of it. I know a critic could say that.
I would say that waste was simply my bad. I got worn down with negative analyst support after negative analyst support and couldn't hang on for the big win. That was my bad.
Here, I don't know. We got a big win, first of all. But DuPont, when it's all been sorted out, what's left-- a mélange of cyclical segments that I can do without if it goes higher. I know that you could say that's hardly a ringing endorsement.
I'd have to agree, but I go back to what I said at the outset. I think we are in one of these cyclical upswings. You need a stock like DuPont at this moment, so you can sell it higher. And that's what I think we will do.
So, Jeff, my suggestion-- Jeff, of course, to my right here-- is maybe we take it to a 2. I felt uncomfortable keeping this a 1 on the call, but I want to be consistent.
JEFF MARKS: Yeah. I mean, if you're ready to sell in a couple more dollars, I think making it a 2 now makes sense.
JIM CRAMER: Good.
JEFF MARKS: That way no one's buying it today. And then maybe we turn around, and we get that cyclical upswing as you talked about. And we're selling it two days later. So I think that's exactly right.
JIM CRAMER: Good. Now, just so you know, everybody and particular new people, this is what we do all day is we talk. We email. We talk. And it's just this kind of conversation. And it's done for your benefit.
So it rallies. It should be no surprise to you now if we exit. Fine company-- just not special enough versus others. We need to find a space. It is too hard to continue to do this relentless task when you have 34, 35 companies.
All right, now, how about Alphabet, the strongest of the FAANGs? Well, the stock hit another all time high just yesterday on the price. And yet, here's my issue with that, why we're - all-time high again today.
It's the multiple. That's right. The price to earnings ratio, which we care so much as Action Alerts, as the runners of the trust, it remains one of the cheapest of the FAANGs at 28 times next year's earnings. I can't see how you can sell it here.
There could be a better entry point, for certain, on a wicked down day if rates spike, as I said. There will be a better time. But I like the parent of Google more than I ever, now that I like-- you know, YouTube's being monetized. Waymo's close to being monetized. Cloud is on fire.
Honeywell is such a good company, and it's undergoing a radical transformation, just radical. I can as easily call it a software company as I could call it an aerospace company or a climate control company or even a logistics company. Conglomerate discount-- not at all, 28 times earnings.
What can I say? I like this one and hope to like it for many years considering the direction with Darius Adamczyk is taking it. By the way, I am friendly with Dave Cody. And Dave also does want to talk about Honeywell, but what a good choice to pick Darius Adamczyk.
New name in the portfolio, let's leave Mastercard out of things at the moment. And let's hop on over to Marvell. Now, Marvell is a very difficult one because it's about to report.
And if history is any guide, obviously just that the traders among you sell something, buy it back. We can't be that nimble. Because the darn thing is so misunderstood.
Matt Murphy, the hard-charging CEO, has turned this company into maybe the best pure plays not on one, but both 5G and High Performance Computing, HPC, that everybody cares about. Now, Pat Gelsinger, who's-- oh my god-- the Intel guy, can't make that supercomputer. When are they going to do something right?
Well, I'm telling you, Pat, if you listen. Just go bid $80 for Marvell because Intel's bereft at both HPC and 5G. All right, that said, this story is a story that's not understood until days after the quarter is reported.
I'm not nimble enough, again. And we're not a hedge fund. So I can't take it to a 2 and then back to 1 and 2, 1, 2, 1. But understand that chaos awaits us no matter what the company says on earnings. Just buy it if it gets hits.
What a painful stock to own on earnings day. What a great stock to own any other day than earnings. Let the moron sellers have their day.
You know how you hear people say that, I wish the stock would go lower, so I can buy more, and then they're usually desperately fearful of that? And they're just saying that for show. Do you know what? I actually wish Morgan Stanley's stock would go down because we do not have enough to make a difference.
We just didn't get in enough. We were too cherry. It's $1.82 Why don't they rub it in for the call? It's just too darn small.
When that happens, I am more inclined to sell than buy. I just wanted to have a couple of quality financials, and I was going to buy Morgan Stanley all the way down like we did with Wells Fargo. But then it took off like a jack rabbit after we bought our first tranche. So why keep it at 1?
All right, go back over my opening scenario. When we get a rate spike out of fear, at first the stock will rally because it would do better with a higher Fed funds rate. With me, right?
But then it tumbles with the rest of the market because people say, whoa, Fed raise, Fed raise, Fed raise. They start talking about three Fed rate increases. And that's when I'm ready to buy more.
Say, 300 down might compute to about 7, 8 points down. Yeah. Oh, man, that thing's on fire. Anyway, you get me?
I don't want to buy too much to hurt my basis. New members of the club, we like to buy without really mauling our basis. But we got to get more meaningful in size or else it's just not going to be enough to move the needle.
Why own it at all? Because management's the best in the fin business. And it's now an advisory firm with sticky money that still sells like a plain old bag. And that's just ridiculous. It's an insult to CEO James Gorman, whom I like very much.
You know I like Apple so much that I say, own it, don't trade it. But I had never seen a stock like Mr. Softee, Microsoft, because no one else will even get near or suggest downgrading this one. The darn thing is well beyond all recognition, which typically is the kiss of death, but not this time.
It's been rallying because they put through price increases for the first time in a decade. And it was a reminder of how much pricing power this darn thing has. Its gross margins are enormous. All cylinders are firing.
I expect another upside surprise. There is no reason to sell only than to play the market. And that's not what we do with the trust or the club.
Nucor's stock, how we doing here today? Nucor, yeah, it's down 1. That makes sense. It was up 3 yesterday.
Nucor's stock is a poignant reminder of how crazy this market really is. We bought the stock all the way down. And about midway through it, some jackal went on Twitter and printed a scatological cartoon of me and savaged me for being so stupid for buying Nucor at $0.99.
Lo and behold, I check my Twitter feed this morning. And you know what? There was no apology now that the stock is at $1.22. I guess the guy forgot to apologize, amazing.
All right, I don't think Nucor's done. We will have to go into severe recession for this one to not have pricing power. And with this infrastructure bill, it is in the catbird seat because almost every firm's earnings estimates are too low. If you don't own it, remember, you have a wild trader on your hands. Wait until it dips 2 to 3 points, not this 1 point decline. And then swoop down and get some.
PayPal is one of the most doggone confounding stocks there is, isn't it? It is unless you know that it has periods of underperformance that allow you into it, but no one seems to want to take. This company is going to be the biggest bank in the world, OK? It is.
But right now, the quarter is being hurt by the final separation from eBay. Remember, eBay owned it. It's been long-awaited.
And I knew there would be people who would fear it, which is why we got back in it. Consider this one a gift before people realize the separation made no difference whatsoever except for maybe even in a positive way. I like that UK initiative into crypto. You know I'm not against crypto.
Here's a stubborn one. And I mentioned it on our Action Alerts call today. And it's Union Pacific. It's starting to bug me.
It has fallen behind the other rails, and yet is having a good run of the joint off of West Coast ports. Just because they're congestion doesn't mean they aren't doing business. The company's buying in shares.
It's a fantastic play on commerce and the reopening. And I would buy it aggressively. I think it can start catching up to Norfolk Southern.
You know, Jim Squires is really good at Norfolk Southern. That's up 9. Union Pacific is only up 6. I think Lance Fritz is a fantastic CEO, too.
I know that he probably wants to boost the dividend. Obviously-- CSX up 10. So up 10 CSX, up 9 Norfolk Southern, up 6 Union Pacific, we're in the cheapest.
United Parcel, all right, this stock is ridiculous. Can I just say that? The company's just standing there buying it in all day the way that Home Depot used to do with Carol Tomé. The UPS CEO was the CFO of the despot. She just would stand there and buy it.
This stock was at $2.16 not that long ago. And here it is at $1.93 for no real reason, which is right, $2.16 or $1.93. Considering the cash generation and the improvement the company's putting through, $1.93 is wrong. The price tag should be $2.16. That's right, buy it.
I don't know what to say about Walmart. How much is that down today? Sons of-- we talk about selling it.
Remember, we talked about selling it a couple calls ago. And I was worried, the moment we did, it would run up 10 points. So we didn't, and it did.
Now, it's stalled, which is pretty ridiculous given how great the Q was. But this is a stock that trades in spurts. And we just had one. Some stocks just trade that way. I say you have to hope the stock comes down a couple of points, and then you pounce.
One of the things you get from the club is the benefit of the fact that I've traded Walmart since 1983 and know how it trades. It trades just like it's trading. All right, Dow's moving up here, got to get to NASDAQ going.
The 2s, let's go over the 2s. Let's start with AMD, Lisa Su. You know, Lisa Su's from five blocks from my wife in Queens.
AMD is first of the 2s. And I know that I pushed too hard on this to buy it in the '80s. I just didn't understand how anyone could let Intel scare them out of their stock, but that's what happened to all the club members.
Now, this runs so high. And it also was adopted as a meme stock on August 4th, took up the $122. It's at $107 now. It runs so high that I do hesitate to tell you to buy it at this moment.
But it will be the first I tell you to buy on a downturn because the Xilinx deal will soon close. And we will get a rerating upward, rerating being a term for the analysts will like it more than they do. It is $130 billion company. When I first met her, it was under a billion.
Now, I base the idea that this is the one that's going to get rerated on the fact that the Chinese just blessed the Analog Devices-Maxim deal. And this one's just a few months behind from when the two applied for approval. So in other words, I figure the agency that looks into these things will wait the three months and then approve it.
So consider yourself warned. This becomes a 1 as soon as it descends into the 90s. Who knows? Who would have thought it would revisit the 80s after trading at 95?
AbbVie is a tough 2. Man, do I like this company. It's a drug company. They're rolling over, remember that. It's up 1 and 1/2 points, interesting.
I liked this one in the 70s, then the 80s, then the 90s, then the 100s. But here, I don't know. 120, that's pretty high. But it still yields 4%.
And it has some terrific numbers coming from Botox with the reopening and from its Rinvoq, RA drug, which I think will be approved by year-- I mean, maybe-- let me just check. Maybe someone knows something now. I'm really up on the story, so I don't think so.
Oh, here we go. It's the European Commission just approved the JAK inhibitor. Jeff, we knew that they were going to approve Rinvoq.
JEFF MARKS: Yeah, I don't think that was a surprise.
JIM CRAMER: Yeah.
JEFF MARKS: Because one of the Europe-- they recommended it for approval a couple of months ago.
JIM CRAMER: Yeah.
JEFF MARKS: But hey, look, if it's approved in Europe, why shouldn't it be approved in the United States?
JIM CRAMER: Yeah.
JEFF MARKS: That's what I would say.
JIM CRAMER: Exactly. And this is for the atopic dermatitis, which is a very big indication.
JEFF MARKS: Yup.
JIM CRAMER: People don't know that, but yeah. I think people are saying, look, if it's going to be approved in Europe, it's going to be approved here.
JEFF MARKS: Yeah. And it's got that big yield, too, as you called out.
JIM CRAMER: Yeah. And I think Gonzalez, I was initially very critical of him because I didn't think he was doing enough to be able to use Allergan. And one of the reasons why is because I'm the chief spokesperson for the American Migraine Foundation. And they've got a fantastic drug that I think, instead of doing a couple of million, should be doing a billion. Ubrelvy, I don't leave home without it.
But I do think that Richard's going to improve what he does with Botox and what he does with the migraine formulations. And I mean, for instance, the reason why I say this is I take Nurtec. And Nurtec you take as a preventative. And that's Biohaven.
But we don't have that preventative indicator yet for AbbVie. When they do, the stock is going to go higher again. I just don't understand how the stock sells for the lowest multiple in the group.
And believe me, Mr. Gonzalez doesn't either. 9 times earnings, what the hell is that about? But given where it has come from, a 2 is a safer place than a 1.
All right, why keep 55 shares of Broadcom? Good question. I guess it's because, if it were to fall to where it yields 4%, you know what? We'd probably buy some instead of 3% where it is about now.
Perhaps we keep it because Hock Tan, the CEO, makes his numbers no matter what. Do you know how many times that we had discussed selling this one only to hold on thinking we can't sell the stock of a company that's run so well? Hey, by the way, even their acquisitions may not be that good, and he makes them good.
I sense, though, that if it rallies to where it yields 2 and 1/2% and not 3%, well, then I guess we have to take profits. It's been pretty darn good to us. I really salute Hock.
I met Hock. He comes to Philadelphia quite a bit. I met Hock. And Hock basically is known as being a guy you don't mess with in the valley. And he's going to continue to generate gains. I do, like Morgan Stanley-- when it lower.
All right, here we go. What is it with me and Bristol-Myers? You know, what can I say? You know I love it. It's not just because I like saying it.
Here's a company that needs some hits and needs some now, but they haven't materialized. Last night, a company called Prothena, they told a great story about how Bristol and they are working on a terrific Alzheimer's drug for what's known as Tau, T-A-U, which is a big problem, causes Alzheimer's. But you never hear Bristol say a thing about it.
You know why we keep it? Because we fear selling it. Now, this is a waste management. And at last, a CEO will make good on all these promises. Can you imagine that?
Can you imagine if we sold Bristol-Myers at $67, and then it merges with Merck or it goes buy Prothena? Or it just says, OK, listen, here's the myocardia numbers, or we've got some new indications for our anti-cancer franchise. Or Eliquis goes to $10 billion instead of $5 Billion.
We will be so angry. So it's a real bad reason to own, but a very bad reason to sell.
All right, one that we just sold-- it was a good sale, by the way-- we sold some of Crown Castle, down again. I knew it. I knew it. I knew it.
We battled and won this one. So that's given us the ability to be able to have self-control. What's the point of just watching it rally after all that fighting and then give back some of it? Well, of course, we took some sales.
At this point, the last quarter was so bad that I think that we will see some stepped up pressure from the hedge fund Elliott Partners, whom, by the way, we adore because they care so much in passion about bringing up value. We think they're going to press the company to sell or change its ways especially with this urban strategy they had that is such a loser.
When they get rid of it, we're going to see $210 in a heartbeat. I want to be there for that because we have to keep it a 2 because I want $210. I don't want to sell any more, by the way, at $190. I think we've made our sales.
The tower business is on fire. We know that. 5G is amazing. The company just needs to listen to Elliott or else.
I feel guilty not keeping Costco a 1, since you know I love it so much. Maybe it should be a permanent 1, but I remember when I traded it so doggy from October to May. And so many questioned our judgment for buying it and buying it.
I think Costco can easily raise prices for its members. The bargain proposition over Amazon or Walmart, I mean, never been greater. Remember that they are substantially lower on all the stuff that they pick. They choose their own gross margins and get that water for $0.25.
If you don't own any, you can buy it on next dip. This is the most straight up of all the stocks we follow. It is the most straight up from the bottom.
All right, what the heck is going on with the stock of Estée Lauder. Wow. I'll tell you what it is. OK. Say, it spiked at $340 and then reverse to $335. That is classic about what I'm going to tell you about.
A bunch of research analysts all went out negative on it the week it reported. And that drew in a lot of shorts. But Fabrizio Freda crushed it with China leading the way. The makeup and skin care company produced staggering earnings for both divisions. And it caught the hedges looking the wrong way.
I play with an open hand. We're up almost 40 points in the stock. It is very tempting to kick it out if I didn't like Fabrizio so much and didn't think that it's a fabulous cross-border opening stock. So we hold it and bet on higher prices.
Let me just say this, though. How do you know about shorts? One of the things that-- when you're short a stock and you panic and you can't take it anymore, you get too emotional. So you buy it all the way up to what's known as get it off the sheets.
And then once your short is covered, there are no natural buyers. So the stock takes a header. Estée Lauder went up to $340 today and is now at $335 Estée Lauder is going to be down for a couple of days because of this action. Traders among you, take note. Do some selling. We're going to own Estée Lauder.
Facebook, I don't know. I mean, do you really want me to prattle on about the metaverse? How about I do this? Facebook is pulling away in advertising. It's starting to gain some traction on developing a worldwide cryptocurrency.
I know it sounds crazy. But ever since Facebook became the small business person's best friend, it has all been clover for these guys. They're on a hot seat.
I believe it has more levers than any company in this port save Alphabet. I just wish we owned more. But I won't let the small position be the reason why we sell this stock. I'm proud of how long we've been able to hold Facebook. It shows good discipline.
Now, I knew Linde would be good-- I mean good-- but not this good. What's the most cogent reason why this is a 2 and not a 1? I just am in disbelief that this make of gases could be trading as if it were some sort of biotech.
But I don't want to sell a stock simply because it is ahead of itself when I know I won't be able to get back into it, think Facebook. So we have made some sales. And now, we wait a decline a bit more.
The quarter was shockingly good. Hydrogen needed for fuel-- don't forget, they can make any kind of hydrogen you want. Oxygen needed for COVID, depressed breathing-- oh, it can fall. But I want to buy back what we have sold when it does.
Linde's a remarkable company. Steve Angel is a great CEO. The more and more work I do with green hydrogen, the more I realize that Linde is going to be the company that really leads the charge.
Now, yesterday, we debated making NortonLifeLock a 1. And why did we do that? Well, because I think it's kind of bided its time here long enough.
I do hope you watch the videos because we talked about it openly. If management can close on this recent acquisition, OK, that's what has to happen. Some say it could have up to 40% of the cybersecurity market for individuals-- interesting that, quizzical, the stock was up at one point today. Now, it's down.
I do kick myself that we aborted enterprise. And there all you have to do is think about is Palo Alto. We made a good game, and we went individual rather than enterprise. But we should not chastise ourselves for the winners, just the losers.
If this deal with this German company is allowed to close-- and by the way, there won't be any trust issues for certain. I think stock trades at $30 on its own volition. It could go higher if the company as aggressive as it says it's going to be when it starts buying back stock.
Oh, Nvidia, let's see how Nvidia looks today. I don't even know what to say these days about this company, which is about gaming, machine learning, autonomous driving, and the metaverse, other than it's done this without even knowing what happens with the Arm deal and without even think about the supercomputing until this very morning when they seems to have supplanted Intel.
Now, I know that the company is as confident as ever that this merger is a done deal, one that would cement Nvidia as the most important semiconductor stock in every single category, but no one really knows. What can I say? Maybe it doesn't even matter.
It's a wild trader. If it goes below $200, buy some. Someone asked me the other day, well, what do you think of Ford? I said, I love Ford, but I didn't name my dogs after-- I have Nvidia.
First Nvidia passed away. He was 14. The second Nvidia is also known as Ragu, Nvidia II, who reminds me constantly that this is the company that says that the metaverse is going to be bigger than the actual universe. Jensen says it's probably right.
All right, why isn't Wells Fargo still the 1? The answer is tricky. It's not a well-run company yet. It hasn't delivered a single good quarter since Charlie Scharf took over.
Other than its bountiful buyback, it doesn't deserve to sell higher. Maybe that's enough. All that said, do I want more? Every time it comes in, why? Because it an amazing amount of buyback firepower, fantastic balance sheet, and aggressive management with a new, young team.
They're like an NFL squad that still is tainted with being losers as they become winners. It takes a long time to make the playoffs. They aren't there yet. When they are, I want the firepower to upgrade it to a 1 and by some more.
By the way, I was reminiscing with Jeff. The stock was at $58 the Friday before the Eagles won the Super Bowl. There are very few stocks in that banking group that are not at all-time high. I'm buying that Wells. Oh, that's a good one.
Anyway, you know what? I've reminisced and talked about enough. I got to bring in Jeff who's probably sick of hearing my voice. Jeff Marks, take it away.
JEFF MARKS: All right, so the new position this month was Mastercard. And Mastercard is a global card network company that benefits from the ongoing shift away from cash transactions and towards card-based and electronic payments. This is a secular trend that was accelerated by the pandemic, as consumers spent more time shopping online and using card and electronic payments went in stores just to limit contact. No one wanted to handle cash. We were all so concerned about getting germs.
Now, we do have some recent history with the stock, right? If you've been a member for the club over the last couple of years, we had an investment in Mastercard before the pandemic. And we bought even more shares in March 2020 when that whole market was selling off on COVID-19 concerns.
We made some sales in late August of last year during that tech meld up. And we finally said goodbye to the rest of the position this past April when the stock traded around $394 for an average gain of about 45%.
We sold our position because we didn't like the stocks risk reward ahead of earnings. Here's why. That morning, shares were pushing to a new all time high, $394, in sympathy to Visa's quarter. And we felt that too much optimism was priced in just because it was going up solely because of Visa.
The call was a timely one as, despite the earnings beat, the second quarter outlook was a bit lower on higher operating expenditures. And the stock soon found itself around $355 about two weeks later, great sale. As the summer progressed, Mastercard did make a move back to the $390s. However, the stock quickly fell apart on what we thought were concerns about competition from buy now, pay later players-- Square acquiring Aftercard. And also, hurting Mastercard's cause was worries that the Delta variant would further delay the recovery in cross-border travel and impair consumer spending, both of which are headwinds to earnings.
Soon enough, the stock was back to about $365 or about 8% below that April sale price. Given our view that buy now, pay later competition concerns-- those were overblown. I mean, Mastercard has its offering of its own.
And our belief that the pullback and the reopening names was a buying opportunity-- because at some point, this pandemic, it's going to be over at some point, fingers crossed. We thought this pullback represented a great time to strike and buy back some shares that we previously sold higher. So I mentioned before Mastercard is a play on a secular trend, but it's also a reopening play as well.
So what makes it this reopening play? Well, the shift to card and electronic payments accelerated in the pandemic. Mastercard's earnings power has been held back over the past 16 months or so due to international travel restrictions, which are limiting cross-border volumes, a high margin business for them.
It's actually pretty remarkable because of how strong Mastercard's business is performing outside of cross-border, as second quarter revenues were up 10% over 2019 levels despite international travel still being in its early stages of the recovery. But those restrictions won't last forever and Mastercard's earnings power will grow even stronger once activity normalizes. And again, the rest of Mastercard has been so strong right now.
Switch volumes have been improving quarter over quarter with strength across all product lines. Debit spending is elevated. And Mastercard is seeing a further recovery in credit too.
But the long-term trends here, they're just going to be so strong once cross-border picks up. And that's why, analysts at JPMorgan, they're forecasting a 20% compound annual growth rate in earnings per share from now to 2024. And, look, we've been in the camp that inflation is in the economy. That's going to prove to be transitory.
But it's always good to point out and to remember that inflation actually works in Mastercard's favor, too. More than half the company's revenues come from volume-based pricing. So in other words, they take a percent off the average ticket price. That's not a fixed fee. So as prices for goods increase, Mastercard, they're going to make even more money.
As for capital returns, I was looking at the balance sheet. And Mastercard, it's a very strong generator of cash flow. The company is expected to generate about $8 billion in free cash flow this year, increasing to over $10 billion in 2022.
And Mastercard's ability to generate cash has allowed management to seek acquisitions that increased the company's overall value proposition. I'm looking back to past deals like Finicity and Net, those are two recent ones that come to mind. The company, they buy back a lot of stock. And they pay a nice little dividend as well.
In the recent quarter, The company bought back 4.6 million shares at a total cost of $1.7 billion. And as of July 26th, Mastercard repurchased an additional even more shares. And they have 6.4 billion remaining under its current repurchase authorization as well.
And as the dividend, look, you're not getting much here. It yields about 1/2%. But the company increased its quarterly payout by 10% last December. And remember, that was in a pandemic year. So I would expect another dividend boost later this year.
So what's the bottom line here with Mastercard? Mastercard is one of those rare secular growth tech names that will do even better as economies fully reopen, travel restrictions ease, and cross-border spending recovers. With the stock trading at about 34 times 2022 earnings per share estimates, up only about 2% year to date, and still 8% below that roughly $400 high, we still think this one can absolutely climb higher as earnings grow year after year, that 20% rate that I mentioned before.
JIM CRAMER: That's a great analysis. And I had been personally close to Ajay Banga, who was the CEO. He's now the chairman. And Ajay knew that I wouldn't be comfortable with the stock unless I sat down with Michael Miebach. And I had caught up with him for dinner, wicked smart, European. That's good because this is an international company, but with tremendous ideas about how to expand-- good balance sheet, very shareholder friendly.
Just little things about your name on your card-- how you have the ability to be able to, in an era where people want to be able to choose their sex, you have the ability to do that on the card-- he brings it up, kind of just say, look, these are the things that you have to do. You have to be more personal. I thought it was fantastic.
I like the fact that buyback is one of the biggest in the marketplace. The stock, by the way, is at $356 billion. But he has a game plan. It's not that much different from Ajay, but suffice it to say that he is going to be very competitive taking banks from Visa.
And I think Visa's a great company, but I believe that Mike Miebach's would take a lot of business. And they are rivals. Visa and Mastercard are rivals.
JEFF MARKS: Yeah, it's pretty much a duopoly--
JIM CRAMER: Right.
JEFF MARKS: --between them two.
JIM CRAMER: But they do compete. I mean, people think, well, wait a second. If a bank's a Mastercard and another bank's Visa, they don't realize that these guys, it's not Harvard versus Yale for these guys. I mean, it's Penn State, Ohio State, maybe a little more roughhouse. But I do think that Michael's exceptional, exceptional CEO. So--
JEFF MARKS: Yeah. We added to our position, I believe twice, last week still be a buyer here.
JIM CRAMER: Right.
JEFF MARKS: It's $360, $361, I think, the last price I saw.
JIM CRAMER: Yeah, so it's good. Well, should we get to questions?
JEFF MARKS: Yeah, absolutely.
JIM CRAMER: Because, you know, boy, it's 12:23.
JEFF MARKS: I know. I didn't think it was going to run this long, but it always does.
JIM CRAMER: No, I told you when I sent this last night.
JEFF MARKS: Yeah.
JIM CRAMER: It's, you know, 5,500 words.
JEFF MARKS: How about I'll take the first one and then we'll--
JIM CRAMER: Yeah, I mean, just so you know, I mean I apologize for these being long. But everybody wants every question, every stock addressed. And I'm not going to do anything that's different from what the club members want. OK.
JEFF MARKS: All right, so this first question comes from Aaron in Ogden, Utah. "I love Costco. The management is impeccable. The business execution is impeccable. I'm not so in love with COST stock at the current valuation. Should I consider taking a profit in some COST shares here?"
You know, it's funny. I remember you mentioned this earlier in the call. I remember being here earlier this year. The stock was around $300. It was a falling knife.
JIM CRAMER: Yeah.
JEFF MARKS: And now, all of a sudden, it's back at $450.
JIM CRAMER: Right.
JEFF MARKS: And it's really taking the stairs up. But I would say, Costco, it's never a cheap stock. It trades at a premium multiple for the reasons you just mentioned. They run a great business.
But what I would say is that-- and we actually talked about this a couple of months ago. A good Stifel note pointed this out is that the stock always tends to outperform ahead of when they might increase a membership fee.
JIM CRAMER: Right.
JEFF MARKS: And it's been evident ever since this note came out on July 22nd. It's outperformed the S&P 500. In the time since then, I think Costco is up 6%. I think the market's up about 2%. So that's been spot on.
JIM CRAMER: Yes.
JEFF MARKS: And we could be nine months away from a membership fee increase. So I think you still have to hold it.
JIM CRAMER: You have to hold it.
JEFF MARKS: You can't blame anyone for taking a profit.
JIM CRAMER: No, you have to hold it.
JEFF MARKS: But you got to own this thing.
JIM CRAMER: Yeah, there's this guy Rich Galanti. He's the CFO. He's actually one of the funniest CFOs ever. And when I had my back surgery, he would send me a joke of the day.
And they were all hilarious. I used to read it to my wife. I said, look, the only thing that happened good today with his back surgery, I got another very funny-- they're all funny-- joke from Rich.
And Rich is one of those guys. He once explained to me the Costco ethos. Because I had the Caymus. I said, look at that. You got the Caymus at, like, $70. I mean, how much money you lose on that?
And he goes, are you kidding me? It's designed to lose money. He said, we're selling it for less than we pay. Because you know why?
I said, no. He goes, because you're going to go on TV and say I just got Caymus cheaper than you can get it anywhere else. He goes, that's the point.
And I always laugh. He once called me years ago. I bought some tires at Sears. And I said that there was too long a line at Costco. He called me up.
And this was, like, maybe 15 years ago. And he said, I want to know everything. I want to know everything about what happened. When you have a CFO like that, you're going to win. He's a killer.
Now, I happen to love Jelinek, terrific guy. But Galanti is about price. And I just think that the CEO's about all the great people, so is Rich. But the pricing there is the most extraordinary part. And it's so through Amazon that that's why it's winning. It can keep winning.
OK, so I've got one from Dan E. Oh, no. I'm sorry. That's not-- I got Austin from Austin, Texas. Well, Austin, I hope to get the Regeneron down there, get those ICUs under control. It is a shame that they do not have the right drugs to get people out of the hospital.
OK, so Austin wants to know-- "Hi, I'm trying not to spread my portfolio too thin--" and that's what we encourage-- "and would like to know which stock you like more the long term, Marvell Technologies or PayPal?"
OK, I'm going to pick PayPal, and here's why. PayPal is going to be largest bank, all right? And that is going to give you multiple years of outperformance. Marvell Tech is going to get acquired. It's just too good.
And it will be acquired at a price that's too cheap. Remember, I told you, Pat Gelsinger, you're just going to have to buy it. But I just think Marvell is a great company, but we're buying PayPal at a very discounted price. And you're buying more Marvell at the absolute high.
JEFF MARKS: Yeah, exactly. Right here, PayPal is still 7% lower from where it was prior to earnings. So I think, if you're choosing between the two, that's the opportunity right here.
JIM CRAMER: Yeah. Right. Plus, Marvell Tech, as I, like Salesforce, is going to go down when they report because people don't understand it. It's all right. It's all right.
JEFF MARKS: All right, next question comes from Dan E. "DuPont is at the same price it traded at in January. Should I redeploy this position into a new stock?" And I think Jim's comments before kind of explain perfectly how we feel about it.
If the stock rallied to, say, $77, $78, we'd probably start peeling some back--
JIM CRAMER: Yes.
JEFF MARKS: --looking to exit position, maybe buy more of a Honeywell, which we know is going to be a-
JIM CRAMER: Absolutely.
JEFF MARKS: --play on that aerospace recovery 2022, 2023--
JIM CRAMER: Better stock.
JEFF MARKS: --not too early to look ahead.
JIM CRAMER: And we had good gains.
JEFF MARKS: Yeah.
JIM CRAMER: We bought them after the IFF bought some good stock.
JEFF MARKS: Yeah, we sold in the 80s a whole bunch of times--
JIM CRAMER: Right.
JEFF MARKS: --bought stock in the low 70s. We bought stock-- really the majority of what we bought was
last spring--
JIM CRAMER: Right.
JEFF MARKS: --when the market was much bleaker.
JIM CRAMER: And you know, so if you can get a 10% gain from the last buy--
JEFF MARKS: Sure.
JIM CRAMER: --that would be worthwhile. OK, so here's John K. John K. is wondering, "Amazon's 52
week performance has severely lagged the S&P 500. When will the stock of this great company be great again?"
You know, in preparation of the call, I spent a lot of time thinking about Amazon. And then I ended up-- what did I end up doing? I ended up doing that top of the show yesterday, saying that the Death Star is no longer the Death Star.
What Amazon has to do is have to do one more reinvention. It has to do one more. It has to have something besides advertising model, besides the web services, and besides retail.
And the reason I say that is because they've been caught up to by other retailers. And what I would do, if I were them, was, first of all, I would raise the price of Prime. That's insane. Prime's worth, like, $300. So they'd have to raise the price of Prime.
Then, second, they have to find another way to be able to augment, use all that infrastructure they have. And I'm not smart enough to be able to tell Andy Jassy what that should be. But this has to be more than a three-legged stool now. And that's what's going to get-- but my confidence that they're going to do that is so great that I just think you got to hold it.
JEFF MARKS: Yeah. We talked about Costco raising membership prices.
JIM CRAMER: Yeah.
JEFF MARKS: I think you're spot on with Prime. They have that MGM deal that they're looking to close.
JIM CRAMER: Yes.
JEFF MARKS: That's going to just only boost their Prime Video even stronger. And I look back. Their last
prime membership hike was in April 2018. The stock went on an absolute tear for the next couple of months after that.
JIM CRAMER: Yes, yes.
JEFF MARKS: So I think that's exactly what could get it going.
JIM CRAMER: That's a long time, long time between for something that's been unbelievable.
JEFF MARKS: Sure.
JIM CRAMER: That's good.
JEFF MARKS: All right, question number five, "what is your strategy for Wynn Resorts? Following the FDA approval of the Pfizer vaccine, do you think this stock has upside?" And this is from Larry in Fort Worth, Texas.
Yeah, I think that's our belief. It's still down pretty sharply year to date from its highs. And what I would point to, too, is that Vegas is so incredibly strong. This is going to be the first season where the Las Vegas Raiders-- first season where they're actually going to have fans in the stadium. So it's going to be a very strong football season--
JIM CRAMER: Very big.
JEFF MARKS: --for Vegas. And look, Macau, it's been, as they said it on the earnings call, two steps forward, one step back. But if you go back and you read the conference call, what they said about Golden Week and how strong of a holiday period that was, that's just a sign that there is the pent up demand. Macau is still one of the best tourist destinations out there. So I do believe in that recovery.
JIM CRAMER: Yeah. I mean, one of the things, people always think that Vegas Sands trades. Of course, it's really Macau Sands. There's no Vegas-- trades with MGM, trades with Penn Nat.
And my problem with that is is that means that you don't think Matt Maddox adds anything to the equation. Matt's a brilliant CEO. Matt sees what we do, believe me. He's not happy with the stock.
He's a major reason why I think that you can still get on board. Of the stocks in the portfolio, that one and the next one I'm about to talk about away from Ford are the ones that I would put the phone down or listen or turn the computer to whatever broker you have and buy. And that's Abbott Labs.
Cathryn from San Francisco, California says, "is it too late now to add to a position in Abbott Labs?" Absolutely not. Abbott's got that big potential approval. But I think that when people realize-- you know, there have been companies got approved. Three major companies got approved to be able to make an at-home test.
One was a company called OraSure, and they've had huge problems. One was a very small company in Australia. That made no sense at all. And then the other was Abbott and Binax.
And you read a very negative article in The New York Times, which I have to tell you I think it was complete BS. They did destroy some. If you use it-- I use Binax every day.
There is a serum. There's a little bit of liquid that's in the test, and that goes bad. So they didn't destroy the test. They destroyed that liquid. And now, they put new liquid in-- been wondering whether that liquid's from Agilent, got to do some work on that.
But suffice it to say, they got the only one. And when the FDA and the CDC come out and formally say that, look, after five months, six months, the efficacy of these things drop dramatically, I believe companies that want people back to work will be providing Binax. They can also go do PCR tests and by PCRs. And that's something, by the way, that Marc Benioff-- who reports tonight in Salesforce.
But my overall consideration is that Abbott probably goes to $150 on a monster good quarter. In the same way that it went down 16 points when they announced that they had too many Binax, I think it goes up 16 points when they announce they don't have enough.
JEFF MARKS: All right, next question comes from Richard F. "What is your short-term and long-term view on Advanced Micro Devices? Is it a hold or buy?"
Definitely say hold. Short-term, like, we thought it got a little bit ahead of itself, which is why we made a couple of sales around $110. But, look, long-term, if the company gets approval from China to acquire Xilinx, their data center business is going to pick up even stronger. It's a more diversified business.
Their product portfolio is going to expand to different areas. And it's going to be immediately accretive the deal to margins, earnings per share, and free cash flow generation, so just a much better company. And it can definitely be even more of a gainer from here.
So short-term, I would just say hold. Maybe you don't need to sell if you already made a sale at $110. And just be ready to buy back more on a pullback.
JIM CRAMER: Oh, yeah.
JEFF MARKS: Yeah.
JIM CRAMER: I mean, Lisa Su has been adamant that she's done with this idea that she's just a PC company and a gaming company. Xilinx gives her the telco that she needs. It will be a fantastic story. Xilinx actually had a good quarter.
People don't even think about that. It's like Slack had a great quarter. Salesforce [INAUDIBLE]
But Xilinx is doing quite well. I think it's going to be a great combination. And I think that I'd be a buyer if it comes down a little. All right, this is from Mike M. "Are you still a buyer of Union Pacific here?"
Right here, yes. Union Pacific is very undervalued versus the other rails. There is a lot of consolidation talk in the rails. Obviously, I think people are worried that KSU is going to get bought by Canadian Nat. That's going to give Union Pacific a run for their money.
Give me a break. These are all monopolies. Union Pacific is generating a huge amount of cash. The efficiency ratio is going down. Their doing a remarkable job with the ports. They are the way to go from West to East. This is their quarter. Oil up is good for them. Buy Union Pacific with both hands.
JEFF MARKS: Yup. Question 9 from John T. In Minnesota, "now that Apple is over 5% of the portfolio, is it time to break your own own it, don't trade it motto and do some portfolio rebalancing?"
I don't really think there's a need here at 5%. If you really think about it, Apple represents a little over 6% of the S&P 500. So, look, if you're just buying any passively managed mutual fund, that's 6% Apple right there. So I think maybe if it got to 7%, we would do some trimming--
JIM CRAMER: Yeah, that's a good level.
JEFF MARKS: --like what we did with Amazon last summer.
JIM CRAMER: I hadn't thought of that, 7 is a good level.
JEFF MARKS: But 5%? No, I'm good with it here.
JIM CRAMER: I'm with you
JEFF MARKS: Just continue to own it.
JIM CRAMER: Yeah. Look, if it gets that rerating that I'm talking about, it could be even better. OK, Lorie writes, "at what price would you be a buyer of more Ford stock?" Lorie, stop watching, go buy some Ford.
I think people are not understanding that Jim Farley has said he will make no cars where he loses money. He has the ability to have enough batteries to do the F-Lightning, which is so cool that it powers your house. The Mach-E is so great.
Wait till you see how bad, how ugly-- I managed to get an actual picture of it-- the pickup of Musk is. People are going to be doing stories about the pick-up of Musk versus the F-150 Lightning. And it's going to favor Ford heavily.
The reservation list-- remember, he switched. He's not using traditional sales, Jim Farley. He's got a reservation system for the F-150. So he has a very good look at what's going to be bought. And it's going to just move that stock up dramatically. So please, go buy some Ford.
JEFF MARKS: Yeah, I agree. And they just doubled the production for the F-150, for the Lightning. What a strong sign of demand--
JIM CRAMER: Right.
JEFF MARKS: Mustang-- profitable already, just a great long-term story. They've fixed up the profitability of the business. And I think that gets lost here.
JIM CRAMER: Yeah. Also, they've done yeoman's work to try to get as many chips from Taiwan Semi. GM, who's stock has been it terribly, was using chips from Taiwan Semi, but also a lot of Malaysian factories. And the Malaysian factories were hit by COVID.
Ford was hit by that fire in the Japanese foundry. That's back online. So Ford has greater availability of chips than GM. That does matter.
JEFF MARKS: Yeah. 8 and 1/2 times earnings-- so cheap.
JIM CRAMER: Give me a break.
JEFF MARKS: All right, next question, "the outlook for retail sales is back-to-school season. It seems to be extremely strong. Should I hold my position in American Eagle Outfitters? And if so, what price should I look to begin trimming?" This question is from Brad A.
Brad, what I would say is we obviously need to see the quarter, see if it's good. Urban Outfitters, they've reported this morning. That's why the stock at AEO was down so much.
JIM CRAMER: Right.
JEFF MARKS: It was a good quarter, but they ran into some supply chain issues, which I think is holding things back. But what I would say, look, we have a $40 price target. So let's see the quarter.
Obviously, basis is approximately around $35. So, look, if we bought more lowered basis--
JIM CRAMER: Right, you say, $31?
JEFF MARKS: Maybe sell before that.
JIM CRAMER: What do you think? What do you think?
JEFF MARKS: For our next buy?
JIM CRAMER: Yeah.
JEFF MARKS: Yeah, I would say $31.
JIM CRAMER: OK.
JEFF MARKS: Definitely. I mean, if you look at it before today, it made a huge move--
JIM CRAMER: Yes.
JEFF MARKS: --off of last week's low, similar to Wynn. It pays a dividend. They have cash on the balance sheet to repurchase stock.
JIM CRAMER: Right. It's not Urban. It's better run.
JEFF MARKS: Yeah.
JIM CRAMER: I agree with that. So what price should we tell people exactly, $31?
JEFF MARKS: To buy or sell?
JIM CRAMER: To buy.
JEFF MARKS: To buy? Yeah, $31.
JIM CRAMER: I don't think you sell this things going multi-year move, multi-year move, 60, double again, that's what I'm looking for.
JEFF MARKS: Yeah. I would say a little bit lower from here expect to make our next buy.
JIM CRAMER: OK. That's what we'll do then. All right, so George M. writes, "what dividend stock do you currently recommend?" I know it's such a hard - because you know what I'm going to say, AbbVie.
I mean, when I meet with Rich Gonzalez, I laugh that AbbVie could have such a good dividend simply because the stock's too cheap. Not because they play-- look, they pay. They have tremendous cash flow, probably the best cash flow of any pharma other than maybe J&J.
But the fact is is that it's just disliked. And I think that it can still be bought. Obviously, I like it much lower, as I said in the call. But that's my favorite.
JEFF MARKS: Yeah. So, George, we do have an Investment Indices page. And within it, there's an income group. And the three there are AbbVie, Crown Castle, Bristol-Myers. I would say, of the three, AbbVie would be the most attractive to buy even though they're all rated 2s.
But, Jim, what do you think about this? I don't think of this as a traditional dividend stock, but it does pay a nice div. Cisco yields about 2.6 point and change.
JIM CRAMER: It's a great idea. I think that--
JEFF MARKS: They increase the div by maybe a penny year after year. So it's not--
JIM CRAMER: Yeah, I mean Chuck's a little--
JEFF MARKS: But you get some income with it.
JIM CRAMER: Chuck's so positive. Maybe that's right.
JEFF MARKS: But AbbVie, obviously, you have that huge yield. You get the 4% yield.
JIM CRAMER: Yeah. Chuck favors the buyback. That's the one thing. He favors buyback over dividend.
JEFF MARKS: Yeah.
JIM CRAMER: But that's a great idea. They're really hitting the retailers here, by the way. Micron making
a stand, that's good for us with Advanced Micro and good for us with Broadcom and, obviously, good for us with Nvidia. A lot of good things happen in the semi world today.
JEFF MARKS: All right, next question, "I'm a new subscriber--" thank you for subscribing-- "and I'm looking to invest. How would you recommend I build my portfolio to match the AAP portfolio? Should I replicate the entire portfolio, buy only the 1 rated stocks, or wait for new buy alerts and build the portfolio over time?" This is from Simon in Houston, Texas.
Simon, what I would say is read the weekly roundups. Understand our investment theses in each name. And then, from there, pick what you understand. Pick what you like. Only pick 5 stocks is what we typically recommend. Don't try and mimic the whole thing because you'll find yourself too spread thin as well.
So I also don't think you need to focus solely on the 1s. If there is really a 2 that really caught your eye, maybe start with maybe a quarter of position. And let it come in, and then buy more. But really pick what you know, what you understand, and what you like. And stick to 5 names.
JIM CRAMER: Yeah, I mean, my late dad, who was working until he passed away at 92, but he looked at it like this. He said, OK, I'm going to buy all the exciting ones. I said, pop.
He said, no, I'm going to buy all the exciting ones. I'm not going to buy American Electric Power at that point. I'll go buy FAANG. We didn't know it was FAANG, right? We didn't call it that.
And he said, it's going to be my Mad Money portfolio. I'm just going to buy the ones - I've got lots of Vanguard, lots of S&P 500. I'm just going to pick the 10 most exciting stocks to augment or what I did in mutual funds.
I always thought that was a great way to use this. It was very always curious, too, the way he would pick. I mean, he loved tech. He really loved health care. And if we wrote that there was somebody that had some new drug, he would do that.
But he was always mad at us that we never bought Roku. And I said, Roku's terrible. And then one day, you know, Roku turned out to be pretty good. He always loved it if there was a famous CEO. He would always like that, too, someone who did well on Mad Money. He'd say, well, that's very smart.
JEFF MARKS: A bankable CEO, yeah.
JIM CRAMER: Yeah. And so he had Honeywell. Because he said, boy, that guy's a smart guy, that Dave Coty. So I mean, there's so many ways to skin the cat here.
Remember, you're club members. You should ask us any question you want. And then Kim M. from Walnut Creek, which is so beautiful, California, "do you have plans to add crypto to the bullpen and ultimately to the portfolio?"
- I've made it very clear I had a big hit. And it was very public with this one, Bitcoin. Now, I am in Ethereum in a fairly big way. I don't know what's right for a trust.
JEFF MARKS: Yeah. I mean, look, there's chicken ways to play it. For example, PayPal--
JIM CRAMER: Yeah.
JEFF MARKS: --they do benefit from crypto. But I don't know. I think the volatility is just-- for a charitable
trust, it might be a little too much to stomach.
JIM CRAMER: It's trading oriented. I don't--
JEFF MARKS: That's a great-- it's trading oriented.
JIM CRAMER: And I don't want to do that. I mean, I'll give you a good example. Let's say you said, look, do you ever want to be in the meme stocks? Well, I would say, after Best Buy reported a good quarter and GameStop, I could say-- I said it on air. I said, buy some GameStop.
Well, GameStop then went up 22 points. But, now, it's down 4. I mean, like, oh my god, what do I do now? I'm not a trader. We're not traders.
It's funny. We were in my issues involving what I'm thinking about doing in my life. It's football season. I like fantasy, but I'm not a gambler. With stocks, I like investing. I don't like trading.
When I was at a hedge fund, I traded every minute. I did that. I know that you can't trade every minute. You're doing other things. So we set this up for you, not for me, not for Jeff, not for the street, but for you, OK?
And since we've been doing this, we've given away, what, about $3 million. All profits are given-- anything I take, any profit, any dividend, we send out. And that part I run for myself, the charities-- well, actually, for my wife.
My wife says, OK, here's what we're giving to. And if it has a B in it, if it's from Brooklyn, it gets a check. She likes Brooklyn.
But we do this for you. We are so proud of the work that we do for you. As always, we love your questions. As always, this is about trying to get you to be a great investor.
This is not about our charitable trusts and mimicking it. It's not about you following a portfolio and owning every stock. It's about learning how to invest.
If you told me, if I bumped into you on the street, like I did to Bruno just now and he said, I've used your skills to be able to buy-- and it wasn't a Charitable trust name. I say, even better, even better as long as you pay attention to it. As long as you follow it, as long as you know our rules and understand that you make mistakes and we make mistakes versus all those people I see on air, we're going to do great together.
Thank you again for a great month of August. You will hear for us in September. And best of luck with the fall.