Sometimes, CNBC’s Jim Cramer is content with taking things at face value.
That’s at least how the “Mad Money” host felt about the U.S. Labor Departments nonfarm payroll report on Friday, which showed healthy job growth with little inflation.
“The jobs report, frankly, had something for everyone,” Cramer said. “Good manufacturing growth, … tame wage growth — I know that’s not great for the vast majority of people who work for a living, of course, but it is terrific if you’re a business that wants interest rates to stay relatively low, and those businesses tend to have stocks attached to them. At the same time, there was enough ammo for the Fed to tighten when it meets next week.”
With this set-up in mind, Cramer turned to the stocks and events he’ll be watching next week.
Sunday marks the first day that non-miners will be able to trade bitcoin futures on Cboe, creating the first two-way market in the digital currency.
“I bet they start to tame the bitcoin phenomenon,” Cramer said. “I don’t necessarily mean it’ll go down, although I have my suspicions that short-sellers will use the futures to blast bitcoin lower. What I mean is that, so far at least, bitcoin is the least transparent financial bubble I’ve ever seen.”
Cramer is curious to see how bitcoin fares trading on a prominent exchange with possibilities for hedging and high-volume trading.
Cramer is always on the hunt for strong secular growth trends, and lately, he’s been eyeing one that he just can’t seem to brush off: protein and millennials’ obsession with it.
“I know this sounds silly. They made fun of me on ‘Squawk on the Street‘ when I said it. ‘They like protein.’ I know, it’s been kind of a staple for millions of years,” he said. “More important, aren’t millennials supposed to be going vegan or vegetarian at alarming rates?”
“As it turns out, the younger generation does love protein, and the one they really love is chicken,” Cramer continued. “I think millennials are so image-conscious — well, of course, they’re Instagramming each other — that they’ll do anything to avoid eating carbs, including going full carnivore.”
Cramer believed in this trend so much that he attributed two high-profile deals — Roark Capital taking Buffalo Wild Wings private and Burger King parent Restaurant Brands buying Popeyes Louisiana Kitchen — to its dominance.
If someone had told Cramer that he would someday see nonfarm payrolls increase by 228,000 without an immediate rise in interest rates, he would’ve called them insane.
But that’s exactly what Friday’s jobs report from the U.S. Department of Labor showed, with jobs in education and health services, professional services and manufacturing making up most of the gains.
Specifically, some 54,000 jobs were added in education and health services; 46,000 in professional and business services; and 31,000 in the manufacturing sector.
“The manufacturing jobs are in diverse industries like fabricating metal products, plastic and rubber, electronic products, just the kind of higher-skilled blue collar jobs we want to see,” Cramer said. “Normally, though, this kind of number would be accompanied by inflation, and inflation sends interest rates soaring.”
However, rates didn’t surge higher, so Cramer took a moment to try to explain the action.
One of Tri Pointe Group’s largest markets could be on the cusp of a problem, CEO Doug Bauer told CNBC on Friday.
“The state of California is really in a housing crisis as far as supply. So the biggest impediment here in California is land entitlements and having the land available to build on,” Bauer told Cramer.
But California residents may have bigger problems than just a tight housing supply, Bauer said, calling attention to the GOP tax plan.
“The American home is where people save money and also consume. So as the Senate and House get through conference, we hope they take a more balanced approach to all aspects of the bills, whether it’s interest deductions, the SALT and property tax deductions,” the CEO said. “It needs to be a more balanced approach because, frankly, I don’t really agree that the doctors and lawyers in California, New Jersey, New York should be paying for a corporate tax break for Apple.”
Finally, Cramer turned to the stock of Cree, a leading LED lightning manufacturer that the “Mad Money” host has watched make a “miraculous comeback.”
“Starting in August, this thing began to take off … and Cree’s now made a remarkable move. It’s up from $22 to $34, more than 50 percent in a little more than three months’ time, which begs the question: what the heck is going on here?” Cramer wondered.
Put simply, Cree’s little-known power and radio frequency semiconductor business, Wolfspeed, turned out to be much better than the company’s previous management thought.
The company’s old showrunners tried to sell the segment to a German chipmaker, but the deal was blocked by a U.S. legislative committee. However, in Cree’s latest earnings report, it became clear that Wolfspeed was one of its hottest drivers.
“Put it all together, and I think the re-rating … of Cree as an actual semiconductor company has only just begun,” Cramer said. “Cree was very lucky when the regulators blocked them from selling their best business to the Germans. With the company’s non-LED semiconductor biz catching fire and a smart new CEO running things, I think you should buy Cree. I know it’s gone up a lot, but ideally, maybe you get a bit of a pullback, because this Cree? Well, this Cree is a heck of a lot better than the old one.”
In Cramer’s lightning round, he raced through his take on some callers’ favorite stocks:
Sprint: “OK, Sprint’s a real long-term situation. If you want shorter-term, it’s T-Mobile and if you want income, it’s going to be Verizon.”
Alkermes: “I’m partial to Alkermes. I think that [CEO] Richard Pops has done a good job. There’s periodically some negative press on their drug Vivitrol. I think that’s a mistake. It’s really good.”
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Source: Investment Cnbc
Cramer Remix: Bitcoin is the least transparent bubble I’ve ever seen