Investors who want a lucrative investment but can’t sink their money into a $450 million Leonardo da Vinci painting should consider the stock of Intuitive Surgical, CNBC’s Jim Cramer said on Monday.
“I think it’s safe to say that this is the da Vinci of stocks, and not just because they stole the guy’s name,” the “Mad Money” host said, referring to the company’s robotic surgical system named da Vinci. “Just like the painting that sold last week, Intuitive Surgical’s share price keeps roaring higher, more than doubling over the past two years, up over 86 percent since the beginning of 2017.”
Over the years, Intuitive Surgical has carved out a place for itself as one of the few providers of minimally-invasive, robotically-assisted surgical equipment.
And even after its last several quarterly earnings reports, both of which beat Wall Street estimates, the expectations for Intuitive Surgical are still too low, Cramer said.
“You may not be able to afford an actual painting by da Vinci, but you can absolutely try to participate in the upside from Intuitive Surgical’s brilliant da Vinci machine,” Cramer said. “The stock has been on fire. I don’t blame anyone who wants to take some profits. But the next time you get a pullback in ISRG, remember that weakness in this name has often turned out to be an excellent buying opportunity.”
Cramer always pays attention to this week, the week where major Wall Street investors “anoint” and buy the stock market’s best performers going into the end of the year.
“So how does a stock qualify to become anointed? Well, first, they need to be having a great year,” Cramer said. “Second, there has to be a long-term thesis to justify what would otherwise look like nosebleed valuations. Third, you need a belief that nothing can go wrong for the company between now and year-end.”
Portfolio managers “anoint” stocks because they want to show their clients they invested in the year’s winning names, Cramer said.
So Cramer went through the top 15 stocks he thinks will become “anointed” this year, in alphabetical order, to give homegamers a better picture of Wall Street’s most wanted.
It’s rare for Cramer to see an interview that “rocks [his] whole investment world,” but David Faber’s interview with Liberty Media Chairman John Malone last week did just that.
“Rarely do you come across an executive who’s so comfortable in his own skin that he can speak his mind about so many different companies,” Cramer said. “Most execs insist they can only speak about their own businesses — they don’t want to step on anyone else’s toes.”
But Malone isn’t one of those executives, and he proved it by drawing the now-pervasive comparison between Amazon and the Death Star, the evil Empire’s battle station in the “Star Wars” franchise that had the power to destroy entire planets.
By using scale, reduced cost and heightened convenience to reach consumers, Amazon is moving “into striking range of every industry on the planet,” Malone said on Thursday.
Hardly anything has made Cramer want to reconsider his bullish thesis on discount retailer Ollie’s Bargain Outlet Holdings since he recommended it in early 2016.
“Ollie’s, both the store and the stock, [is] en fuego. And it makes sense. After all, this company is an off-price retailer, and that’s the best acting portion [of retail]. It means when other merchants are struggling, Ollie’s comes in and buys their excess inventory for very low prices,” Cramer said. “Very often, the rest of retail’s pain is their gain.”
With shares up nearly 63 percent year-to-date, it’s hard to deny that Ollie’s own version of “buy low, sell high” is working, Cramer said.
“In a way, these off-price retailers are like scavengers,” Cramer said. “When all sorts of big national chains are shutting down locations left and right, like they’re doing right now, they generate a ton of closeout inventory. Ollie’s feasts on that stuff.”
That’s why the “Mad Money” host was so surprised when a Citigroup analyst initiated coverage on Ollie’s with a “sell” rating, slapping a $39 price target on the $46 stock.
Cyberark Software founder, Chairman and CEO Udi Mokady told CNBC on Monday that the cloud is “a new frontier” for hackers.
“When you go into cloud, you can get everything,” Mokady told Cramer in an exclusive interview.
And as much of the market froths over bitcoin’s surging popularity, Mokady said that Cyberark is working with companies to prevent the cryptocurrency’s dark underside.
The main way to pay off ransomware is “very much still bitcoin,” the CEO said. “We’re trying to prevent it. We work with enterprises who are mostly trying to combat it, but we do see, especially small organizations, often succumb to the ransom.”
And with North Korea a newly designated state sponsor of terrorism, Mokady said that cyberattacks are likely to get worse.
“Geopolitical tensions increase cybercrime,” he said. “We can’t stop them, but we can help with cyber hygiene to make sure that you can catch a cold, but it won’t bring you down. That’s our approach.”
In Cramer’s lightning round, he rattled off his take on some callers’ favorite stocks:
Braskem SA: “I know Braskem. I think you should swap out of that and go into DowDuPont, where they are doing remarkable things. That’s the better bet.”
Ormat Technologies: “That’s geothermal and I like geothermal. It’s integral to the pastiche of energy we have. The stock does feel like it’s rolling over; I’m a believer.”
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Source: Tech CNBC
Cramer Remix: Forget the 0M painting, Intuitive Surgical is the da Vinci of stocks