CNBC’s Jim Cramer might not be a foreign policy expert, but that didn’t keep him from analyzing how President Donald Trump’s comments to NATO representatives could affect stocks.
On Wednesday, the president said at a press conference that Germany was “totally controlled” by Russia, criticizing Germany for doing deals with Russian energy producers. He later told NATO leaders to boost their military spending.
The “Mad Money” host agreed that Germany depends on Russia for natural gas, figuring that Trump’s strategy was to get Germany to do more deals with liquefied natural gas producers with the United States. He also liked the profit prospects inherent in Trump’s defense statement — that is, if U.S. allies cooperate.
“I don’t know whether Germany’s willing to play ball, but if today’s tough talk makes a difference, it will give these industries a boost,” Cramer said.
“Either way, the American defense and liquefied natural gas stocks are worth owning here,” he continued. “I don’t think you’re coming to them too late. If anything, judging by the vociferous nature of our president’s strident tone this morning, it’s still early.”
Two of the market’s most high-profile financial technology stocks have “unbeatable” safeguards against the United States’ growing conflict with China, Cramer said on Wednesday.
“Mastercard and Visa: that’s a one-two punch that may be an unbeatable combination,” he said after shares of the credit card giants hit fresh 52-week highs intraday.
On a day when stocks were dragged down by the Trump administration’s release of a new list of tariffs on China, Cramer flagged Mastercard and Visa as both safe havens and potentially positive influences on the growing conflict.
“They’re not allowed to do business in China, which makes them anti-China stocks, but get this: they’re also the best way for the Chinese to show that they’ve blinked,” he said.
Find out what that means for you here.
The legalization of recreational marijuana in Canada will mean new opportunities for cannabis businesses — and that could include pot-infused beverages, Canopy Growth CEO Bruce Linton told CNBC on Wednesday.
Canopy Growth, a Canadian cannabis producer and the first purely marijuana-focused stock to list on a U.S. exchange, has garnered support from Constellation Brands, the alcohol giant behind Corona and Modelo, which took a 9.9 percent stake in Canopy’s business last fall.
And when recreational marijuana becomes fully legal in Canada this October, Canopy and Constellation may start working on what could be the next trend in weed: marijuana-infused beverages.
“We expect we’ll be able to make beverages and those beverages will be no calorie, they will cause you to feel upbeat,” Linton told Cramer, maintaining that there were “no guarantees” in this plan. “We’re talking about going into a bar and having a tweed and tonic.”
With over 24,000 locations worldwide, Starbucks is starting to lose its “premium” flair when it comes to coffee, RSE Ventures CEO Matt Higgins argued on Wednesday.
Higgins, whose firm recently took a minority stake in competing coffeehouse Bluestone Lane, told CNBC that while Starbucks may have coined the concept of premium brews, the globally recognized chain may be losing some of its touch.
“It’s definitely scaled and it’s definitely successful, but it’s not premium. When you look at the coffee space, people are looking for that escape, but it’s not really defined,” Higgins told Cramer.
That’s where Bluestone Lane comes in, Higgins said in an exclusive interview with Cramer and Bluestone’s CEO, Nick Stone.
While news of Dell considering a merger with VMware was breaking, VMware COO Sanjay Poonen said his employees were focused on one thing: their customers.
“Even while all of this sort of cloud of uncertainty existed in the last several months in our stock, there was no cloud of uncertainty around our customers and what they wanted us to do,” Poonen told Cramer in an exclusive interview on Wednesday.
“They wanted us to bridge the private cloud to the public cloud and we told all our employees, from engineers to sales reps, focus on the customer. Focus on the partners,” Poonen continued.
And now that Dell has backed off after acquiring the shares of its publicly-traded stock that tracked VMware’s progress, the COO said his company can go back to building out its cloud capabilities and software-define networks.
“The outcome, we actually think now, is a good outcome for all the shareholders,” he told Cramer. “And Michael Dell on your network said he’s proud of VMware being an independent company. So that’s really good for all of us and our ecosystem where Dell’s been very helpful to us, as has Amazon, but also certain Dell competitors.”
In Cramer’s lightning round, he shared his take on callers’ favorite stocks:
Axon Enterprise, Inc.: “Listen, you’re playing with the house’s money. When you’re playing with the house’s money, you’ve got to let it run. We’ve been all in with this one with [CEO] Rick Smith, I’d say, for a triple. And I’m not abandoning it because this is a company that’s turned into a terrific ecosystem and software play, so I am not leaving the company that used to be known as Taser. I’m going to tase-bro anybody who’s selling the stock.”
Seattle Genetics: “We got behind this thing a couple years ago when we went out and met them in Seattle, and I’ve got to tell you, for a while, I really felt that I was just dead wrong. I’m glad to see that a lot of things that we talked about came to fruition. Hold on.”
Disclosure: Cramer’s charitable trust owns shares of Amazon.
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Source: Tech CNBC
Cramer Remix: After Trump’s NATO comments, these sectors are worth owning