Mad Money w/ Jim Cramer 10/5/26

0:00There are three kinds of investors that listen to this show. Those protecting what they've got, those looking for solid returns, and those swinging big. Most tools pick a lane. VectorVest doesn't. Every stock gets three scores. Value, safety, timing. You decide what matters most. Stop overthinking what to buy and sell. Go to VectorVest.com slash mad. Get 30 days for just 99 cents. VectorVest provides stock analysis tools, not personalized investment advice. Terms at VectorVest.com. If you're a small business, the right hire can be make or break. Indeed Sponsored Jobs gets you quality candidates when you need them most.

0:37Join the 3.3 million employers worldwide that use Indeed to connect with quality talent that fits their needs. Listeners of this show will get a$75 sponsored job credit to help get your job the premium status it deserves at Indeed.com slash podcast. That's Indeed.com slash podcast. Terms and conditions apply. Hiring now? Then this is a job for Indeed Sponsored Jobs. My mission is simple, to make you money. I'm here to level the playing field for all investors. There's always a home market somewhere, and I promise to help you find it. Mad Money starts now. Hey, I'm Kramer. Welcome to Mad Money.

1:20Welcome to Kramer. Other people are my friends. I'm just trying to make a little bit of money. My job is not just to entertain, but to teach you how this game works. So call me at 1-800-743-CBC. We mentioned Kramer. Pattern recognition is the name of the game in this business. It allows you to make investing decisions that have some grounding in history. But what happens when the patterns go out of whack? And what do you do? Well, you got a day like today when the Dow advanced 91 points, has to be gained 0.66%, and then asset jumped 1.05%, to a record close, all occurring with a backdrop that should not have generated such strong performance.

2:01Yes, today was bizarre, because we're conditioned to believe that interest rates go down when oil goes down, and stocks are supposed to be captive to the bomb market, not the oil market. We've seen this pattern since the war broke out at the end of February. You could bank on it. I mean, literally bank on it. It's banks were the chief losers when oil went up and interest rates soared along with it. But not today. Like so many other groups, the banking patterns went awry, too, as oil went lower, but rates continued to relent this climb. Climb. With the 30-year yield up a few basis points, putting the all-important rate at 5.66%, and that's way too close to comfort for six, right?

2:38I mean, it feels like the 30-year is headed to 6%. So there goes the S &P traveling north all day. Nasdaq, a tremendous session that was led by Microsoft with better than expected numbers and co-pilot. And Meta with the revaluation of this one-time pure advertising company, something embraced by small business owners who can't get enough news. And there's NVIDIA, which is finally getting its due from that last amazing quarter. It hit another all-time high today, so much for the people who said, trade it, don't own it. In short, the patterns broke today. Oil and interest rates moved in opposite directions.

3:12This time, it was oil that controlled the stock market by going lower. What the heck's going on here? Have the old decoupled? Usually, no. But we haven't had usual time since this president was elected. So here's what we have to do. We have to pull things apart, figure the situation out so we can make our next moves. Let's start by tackling the price of oil. Now, this price has been reacting to the amount of oil that can get through this trade of removes. We know the amount of oil coming through this crucial vein had declined from 18 million barrels a day to around a couple million barrels at its nadir.

3:43There are no hard and fast numbers here available for anything. Now, though, it's about back to 80 percent of its pre-war levels. Now, that is a gigantic comeback. We learned this weekend that the Saudis are discounting their oil by five dollars below the standard Oman Dubai benchmark. Quizzical because oil is in such a short spot. What are they cutting price for? But you know what? I think they're just defending their market share, perhaps making China a happier customer than they might have been with Iran. But that's enough to shave a percent or two off the price of West Texas and Brent crude.

4:15There's no way oil can stay so high if the Saudis are selling at a discount. But let's be clear about it. This is what's going on. The price of oil is going down because they keep producing lower prices to take market share, not because the Iran war premium is going away. For oil to trade on its fundamentals, which, by the way, would be a lot lower, the war would have to end. As usual, I'm not optimistic about the possibility of peace in the Middle East. The White House just sent a whole additional carrier group of about 7 ,000 sailors to the region, along with an amphibious Marine group of 2 ,000 soldiers.

4:45Doesn't exactly scream give peace a chance. Historically, you don't just send the Marines unless you tend to use them. But history hasn't meant all that much in this era. And as long as we're at war, I don't see oil getting too far away from what I call the pinned price of$100, which has somehow become the war price for quite a chunk of time now. All right, so then let's examine the bond market. That's also misleading, too. Sure, there are tons of Paramount Skydance bonds flying around, 52 billion of what I would call untenable paper, meaning those who really need yield are reaching mightily for it with this company.

5:17Some of these bonds are trading at 9%. Now, that doesn't mean bargain. It means red flag to me because you're assuming a lot of risk to chase that yield. I never chase yield, but there are always people who think it's worthwhile to do so. I cannot protect them from themselves. We also lured the Treasury Secretary, Besson, basically copped to not being able to stop a bond market slide with his meager multi-billion dollar bond buys. He apparently bought something like five billion dollars in change of bonds. He's plugging the dike with a finger and it's got thirty one trillion dollars in treasuries behind it.

5:47I don't know what possessed him to say that he had better information than everyone else. That was kind of sad. Other than maybe that's something like the president might say. What matters is that the bond sell off is only accelerated when Besson admitted defeat. The incredible thing about the bond market is that the last data point we have, the soft non-farm labor report from last Friday was supposed to be usually important. The weakness wake, W-A-K-E, should have lasted a week, maybe even two. Instead, it didn't even last a day. Now, that could be because we've got more inflationary decisions coming.

6:19I'm not so sure. It might be because we know that the U.S. government has gigantic funding needs, or maybe big hedge funds are shorting bonds. Yes, you can do that because the trend is your friend, and the relentless decline in bond prices tells you that somebody's making fortune, shorten them. So others are probably joining them. If even a soft employment number can't push bond prices up and yields down, then the short side is the path of least resistance, which leaves me with stocks. Now, here I think there's tremendous distortion caused by some very big winners, namely NVIDIA, Microsoft and Meta.

6:52The rally in NVIDIA has a lot to do with the fact that if you buy the latest and greatest chips, you make a lot of money doing so. That's something that Jensen Wang always told us would be the case. And that's why Elon Musk's SpaceX, I think, is really going higher. Starting in December, they'll be making more than$3 billion a month, maybe as much as$4 billion. The numbers aren't all public. Simply for lending other companies its computing power. Now, there's a business for you. Elon runs an NVIDIA house for SpaceX, meaning that his giant server farms run on NVIDIA. And they are worth a lot to any company in the AI game.

7:24Microsoft. Now, more on this one later. But it's all about the surge in copilot use. Meta, that's all about Muse and how it's beginning to have an impact with small business. A much less fickle customer than the current customer book of business, which is the consumer. These three are big enough to actually send the NASDAQ higher. But when you take them out of the equation, the classic safety stocks, so many of them in there, they got all hit today, which is supposed to happen. Given the action of the bond market, at least some was consistent. So we put it all together and we have a real one off day.

7:54Oil's down, but only because of a momentary excess of supply. Rates are up because demand for money is high and Treasury Secretary Bestin turned out not to have any cards up his sleeve or otherwise. Sometimes I wonder if he was a good bond trader back in the day. And stocks? As usual, a handful of hyperscalers are pushing up the NASDAQ, and its accolades are long for the ride. Can a day be one-off for meaning no pattern worth discerning? Oddly, in this market, I think you'd be dismissed for a day, as there are mitigating factors everywhere. That said, I wouldn't be too complacent. The bottom line, we have so many stocks with so many companies that can't rally until interest rates reach a level where selling bonds is just plain stupid.

8:32The only conclusion, the bond sellers so far have been anything but stupid. My money's on them to tell us when and where we're going next. Bonds, not oil, are telling the truth at least longer term. Always bank on the bond market longer term, even if we are in the throes of oil gyrations at this very moment. Let's go to Joe in Illinois, please. Joe. Hi, Jim. This is Joe from Chicago, where the Bears will be in the Super Bowl, the Sox in the World Series, and the Wildcats will be in the top 25. You know, I'm not going to disagree. I function on the concept of hope, at least in the last six days.

9:11Tell me more. okay anyway jim i'm not a cowboy but i've been writing the uh i've been writing this isn't my first rodeo i've been writing the bulls with you for the last 25 years and you've helped me tremendously jim thank you you're a great teacher thank you thank you anyway my my question is when do you invest in a stock and when do you trade a stock for example i know you've taught us to keep stocks like Nvidia and Apple. And then my question now is with HONA, with Honeywell Aerospace, it's been in the trading range. I've made some money over the last few days, but now it seems to be stuck at around 153.

9:54And I know you sold on the stock a little bit when it first came out. So what do you think? Is it something - Well, the company has no credibility in my eyes. None whatsoever. You know, if it were a sports team and someone said that, we'd all be nodding our heads and say, yeah, no credibility. Here, you're never supposed to say that about a company. You're supposed to say, who was Kramer to even say that? I've been a businessman all my life and a business person and a successful one. And I don't like anything I've seen from these guys. They have no credibility and I have the right to say it because I have credibility.

10:25Let's go to Sammy in California. Please, Sammy. Hey, hi, Jim. And you do have credibility. And I wanted to tell you, I think Thank you very much. And I love your staff and your ops crew. Well, I've got to call them as I see them. When I make something wrong, I am out there saying, you know what? I bought this and I made a mistake. I wish CEOs would do that. Then I wouldn't have to say they have no credibility. I would say at least they owned it. And that's all you can ask. I'm sorry, Seaman, didn't interrupt. But sometimes it just makes me so angry to think that people can say whatever they want once they become CEOs.

10:57You can't. Not in this room. Oh, they do it. All right. Exactly, and they run ragged over half the country. So anyway, I'm glad you speak up for the rest of us. Thank you, Sammy. Of course, they make a ton of money for no reason whatsoever. You have helped me make a ton of money. Thank you. I want to tell you that. Thank you. I wanted to talk to you about stock. I bought it when it split. It's a semiconductor stock, and it started at$125 this year. It rose to a fabulous$301, and of course I didn't sell it. And during the momentum craze, it dropped to$190. It's bouncing around$206. apparently its valuation is pretty high at 53.

11:36And according to what I read, I'm not a brainiac with this, its stock revenue grew 14 % below the 17 % it would need for the price to improve. So what catalysts will cause the stock KLA to rise? And where do you see it going in the coming year? Okay, I think KLA, look, I like, just so you know, I like LAM, okay, and then I like Applied Materials and I like KLA, but they're all really good companies, and they are the solution for the huge semiconductor shortage we have, of which KLA is certainly part of being able to make things better. I would own that stock right here. Again, I like LRCX more, and I like AMAT more, but that's a very, very good company, and I would not sell it.

12:19Definitely not. Let's go to France, and thank you for the kind comments. Sometimes I get a little heated because there's some companies where really some changes need to be made. Let's go to Francis in Florida, please. Francis. Hello, Jim. Good evening. I have a two-part question for you about Domino's Pizza. I've owned it a long time. It's one of my largest positions. It's been very good to me through the years, both with dividends and with a steady share price increase. But the last three, four years, it's wavered. And I'm wondering if you think it's just kind of gotten off the superhighway, it's in a rest area, or do you think it still has a lot of road to go, especially with international expansion, and that it will get better with time?

13:09You know, this is a very tough one. What I'm going to do, I usually don't like the punt like this, but they're about to report. And they have a new CEO. And I just think when you have a new CEO and you're about to report, that's a fraught moment to be able to make a stand on a stock. Let's see how the new CEO handles himself. Let's see how the company does. And then we'll be able to make a better, more informed decision on DPZ, which was one of my biggest wins for a very long time. That was during the period when Pat Doyle ran it. He did a fantastic job. All right. When it comes to the direction of stocks, my money's on the bond market to tell us what to do.

13:42And right now, the sellers are in charge there. On Mad Money tonight, HPE, don't talk about enough, is finally breaking out. Is there even more room to run? Don't miss my deep dive on this one. Then gold prices change with the seasons. So where are we in the cycle right now? I'm going off the charts to see if you should stay long on the precious metal. And Planet Lab stock has been plummeting to earth lately. Could it be the start of a buying opportunity? Do not miss my take. Take and stay with Creeper. Don't miss a second of Mad Money. Follow at Jim Cramer on X. Have a question? Tweet Cramer.

14:17Hashtag Mad Mentions. Send Jim an email to madmoneyatcnbc.com or give us a call at 1-800-743-CNBC. Miss something? Head to madmoney.cnbc.com.

14:34This message comes from Wise Business, the only account your business needs to scale globally. You're building a business with global ambitions. but hidden fees are eating into your margins. With Wise Business, you can pay overseas suppliers without exchange rate markups. Have customers worldwide get payment details in 22 currencies so you get more of each hard-earned payment without hidden conversion fees. Be smart. Get Wise Business. Download the app. T's and C's apply. Weren't agents supposed to take things off your plate? Building another to handle the others is a bit much. Don't make more work out of work.

15:13Gemini is the one agent that knows all parts of your business and actually gets stuff done. You give it a project, close your laptop, and when you come back, the job's finished. No matter your industry or role, your agent has the skills to help every team stay in their flow. Seriously, make work less work with Gemini on Google Cloud. Check response, subscription required. This holiday, all plans, even unlimited, are just$15 a month. A holiday deal this good obviously deserves an enormously expensive holiday song. Like, all I want is ****. Right. Okay, we can't afford that. You know what? Forget the music budget.

15:45We're going to stick with whatever's in the public domain. Give it a try at mintmobile.com slash switch. Upfront payment of$45 for three months,$90 for six months, or$180 for a 12-month plan required. $15 per month equivalent. Taxes and fees extra. New customer offer for initial plan term only. Greater than 50 gigabytes may slow when network is busy. See terms.

16:10After years of suboptimal performance, HPE, or Eulet Packard Enterprise, finally seemed to be living up to its potential. Thanks to the AI infrastructure boom, this stock is up almost 185 % year-to-date. Pretty serious outperformance. You know what? I think it's got more in the room. This is a company that primarily makes servers, data storage, and networking equipment, along with hybrid cloud service. As the massive investments in data centers start to ramp a couple of years ago, the promise of HPE was obvious. They were one of a small handful of companies like Dell, Supermicro, that make the kind of advanced servers that can handle the highest-end AI processors, like the ones made by NVIDIA.

16:50These servers are how most enterprises actually get their hands on that technology, not right from the semiconductor company. Two years ago, I recommended HP Processor for that data center exposure because the company seemed like it was getting its house under, you know, pretty much under order under CEO Antonio Neri. HPE was in the low 20s back then. And with the stock down in the high 60s, that was obviously a great time to buy. But the truth is, for most of 2024 and basically all of 2025, this thing was indeed dead money. By last year, I know I was getting frustrated. Their acquisition of Juniper Networks took much longer than expected.

17:25Their stock was stuck in the high teens. They had to import some soft quarters, and the tariffs hurt them pretty badly. I liked that Elliott Management was in there, quite possibly the smartest activist investment firm. And they'd taken a pretty big position in the spring of last year. But by June of last year, I told you, you know what? And I'd rather just own Dell, which has proven itself the better operator, too. Since then, Dell is up 390 percent and HP is up 283 percent. So that was the right call. But I never needed to abandon HP, especially when NVIDIA's Jensen Wang had dragged me over to meet Antonio at GCC.

17:56That's his big conference. NVIDIA's big conference two years ago. And then again earlier this year, just to show me their exhibition booth. It was pretty darn impressive. Look, I still prefer Dell, but HP has finally broken out of its funk, and then some. How did this happen? How did the stock get its mojo back? For starters, my original thesis on HP was correct. Data centers desperately need advanced servers that can handle high-end GPUs from the likes of NVIDIA and AMD. There are only really three players of scale here, and one of them, Supermicro, is in hot water because people associated with the company allegedly helped Chinese customers evade AI hardware export bans.

18:34Hmm. That means HPE is now the clear number two in the space behind Dell. And given the tremendous growth here, well, that's pretty darn good place to be. Second, this year, the company's finally started putting up some truly great numbers. HPE's core cloud and AI division, which houses the server business, has gone under a mid-20 % clip for the past couple of quarters, thanks to over 30 % revenue growth from server sales, now double-digit growth from storage products, too. Now, when the company was struggling in 2024 and 2025, they kept having trouble with their margins. While HP was seeing improved growth from AI, it was also spending heavily, which meant the new AI business was less profitable than it could have been.

19:14But over the past few quarters, that's really improved. HP's operating margin bottom out at roughly 8 % in the second quarter of the fiscal 2025, meaning the quarter that ended in April 2025. It rose to the low double digits by last October and has climbed in each quarter of fiscal 2026. Their operating margin hit 12.7 percent in the first quarter, 3.3 percent in the second quarter, then jumped to 16.2 percent when they reported a month ago. Wall Street was only looking for 14 percent. Now, basically, what's happened here is that their operating margin doubled in about a year and a half. That's the percentage of revenue left over after cost of goods sold and operating expenses.

19:48Listen, you double your operating margin, you're going to see a monster earnings boost. Sure enough, HP has raised its four-year earnings forecast every time it's important this year. When management introduced their 2026 guidance last December, they were talking 2.25 or 2.45 of earnings per share. When they reported a month ago, the forecast had risen to 3.75 or 3.85 per share. Not many companies have that kind of progression. HP also raised its sales outlook in each of the past two quarters. And last month, they rolled out a very strong outlook for the 2027 fiscal year. Management says to expect earnings of 4.40 to 4.60 per share.

20:22Wall Street was only looking for$4.08. That's quite an impressive beat. Then there's the final piece of the puzzle, which is that HPE is finally getting credit for its networking business. This used to be a small piece of the pie, but then they decided to acquire Juniper Networks in early 2024. Juniper's a heavy hitter in networking. Unfortunately, in January 2025, the Justice Department sued to block the deal. For a time, this seemed like the only merger that they were against in the Trump administration. But they were really pursuing it pretty aggressively. Eventually, though, in June of last year, they reached a pretty benign settlement and finally closed in June of last July.

20:57Ever since, their networking division has been putting up fantastic numbers. And that was a good acquisition after all. Last week, HP hosted a Networking Investor Day event wholly dedicated to explaining the scale of the networking opportunity that's been created by the great data center build-out. Madden says they expect their networking division to see its revenue rise at a high teens compound annual growth rate through fiscal 2029, with operating margins in the mid to high 20s for the next three years. Many, many stocks, companies would kill for that. In response, a bunch of different analysts started raising the price targets for HPE to the point where I felt compelled to circle back to the story and tell you about it, but only to help you understand how a company got its groove back and why this stock has been so strong.

21:37Now, for a long time, HP is one of those ideas that look great in theory because we knew they eventually make a killing from the great AI build out. But it just didn't seem to work in reality. The company struggled with profitability and the Juniper Networks deal took way too long to close. But now everything's fallen into place and HP keeps putting up surprisingly strong numbers. So let me give you the bottom line on this very exciting story. Still, I am not ready to say that I like HP more than Dell because Dell's best to bring. But Dell trades at 18 times extra service estimates. that HPE only trades at less than 15 times next year's numbers, which is much lower than it should be versus its growth rate.

22:12So, sure, even if it's not as good as Dell, and it's not, the stocks act a lot cheaper. Given the lower valuation, I think HPE's got more upside here. Again, not my absolute favorite. But it is terrific to see CO Antonio Neri's got his house in order, and the company's putting up some excellent performance that I think can continue for some time. It was a pleasure. Everybody is back here for the break. Coming up, are we about to see a golden opportunity for a bounce back in gold? Kramer's digging into the charts to find out next.

22:48This message comes from Wise Business, the only account your business needs to scale globally. You're building a business with global ambitions, but hidden fees are eating into your margins. With Wise Business, you can pay overseas suppliers without exchange rate markups. Have customers worldwide get payment details in 22 currencies so you get more of each hard-earned payment without hidden conversion fees. Be smart. Get wise business. Download the app. T's and C's apply. Weren't agents supposed to take things off your plate? Building another to handle the others is a bit much. Don't make more work out of work.

23:27Gemini is the one agent that knows all parts of your business and actually gets stuff done. You give it a project, close your laptop, and when you come back, the job's finished. No matter your industry or role, your agent has the skills to help every team stay in their flow. Seriously, make work less work with Gemini on Google Cloud. Check response, subscription required. This holiday, all plans, even unlimited, are just$15 a month. A holiday deal this good obviously deserves an enormously expensive holiday song, like all I want. Right. Okay, we can't afford that. You know what, forget the music budget.

23:59We're gonna stick with whatever's in the public domain. Give it a try at mintmobile.com slash switch. Upfront payment of$45 for three months,$90 for six months, or$180 for a 12-month plan required. $15 per month equivalent. Taxes and fees extra. New customer offer for initial plan term only. Greater than 50 gigabytes may slow when network is busy. See terms.

24:23The last eight months have been pretty darn brutal for the price of gold. After a spectacular run in 2024 and 2025, the precious metal peaked at nearly$5 ,600 an ounce near the end of January. Since then, it's come down to around$4 ,100. Now, normally you'd expect gold to be a winner during a period of persistent inflation. It sure did anticipate the inflationary flare-up. But it had run up so dramatically coming into this year that perhaps it was just due for a serious pullback. But don't say you weren't warned. Back at the end of January, right around the peak, We checked in with our resident commodities expert, Carly Garner.

24:57She's a brilliant technician who's senior commodity market strategist and broker to Carly Trading, as well as being the author of the Carly Perspective Newsletter. She told us the precious metal markets were broken and gold seemed ready to peak, or at least give us a sanity saving correction. In other words, she nailed the top. Since then, Garner's been bearish from gold, but now she thinks something's changed. And she thinks there's a high probability of a relief rally. What makes her more sanguine? OK, according to More Research Center Inc., MRCI for short, which is a seasonal trading service going long December gold futures around September 29 through October 25, has been a profitable trade in 12 of the last 15 years.

25:37Obviously, that's not a guarantee, but this has been a very strong seasonal pattern. Garner points out that autumn tends to be a good time to own gold thanks to the Indian festival and wedding season and China's Golden Week celebration. Lots of demand from those. Just take a look at this seasonal pattern of the annual action in gold prices, which mimics that of the last 15 years. You can see right here that it has a strong tendency to rally from late September through late October. Of course, it also tends to be temporary. Then gold typically finds its footing again near the end of December before rallying hard in the first few months of the next year.

26:08What makes this more compelling, though, is what's been holding the price of gold down. Normally, when we have higher inflation, investors like to park their money in gold because it's a hard asset that retains its value even when your currency's purchasing power is diminishing by the day. But when oil prices soar and that pushes up treasury yields, that puts pressure on gold, the same way it puts pressure on so many other things. So to get a real turn in this precious metal, we need oil to keep cooling off. And that's exactly what Garner's predicting. Take a look at the chart, this is the daily chart, of West Texas Intermediate Crude.

26:42Lately, oil's pulled back from its highs in the triple digits, coming down to$89 a barrel today. Garner reminds us that oil's had a pretty dramatic sell-off from May through July, back when President Trump and the Iranians seemed like they were willing to give a piece of chance. That happened right after oil touched the upper trade line in this chart. When that happened again last month, we got yet another pullback from the highs. Garner's betting that we can see a similar decline this time. It doesn't hurt that our government and the rest of the G7 have opened the strategic petroleum reserves to flood the market with crude.

27:13As Garner sees it, once oil breaks down below$89, then the chart suggests to her that it could head back to the bottom of the channel or about$75 a barrel. Nice hit. I don't know if we'll get any foreign policy moves that could justify that kind of decline, but man, there's an election in a month. And it wouldn't surprise me if the White House does everything in its power to get oil lower before America votes. And if oil comes down, that's likely to send Treasury yields lower too. Remember, higher oil has consistently pushed rates higher. It's not crazy to think that lower oil will provide us some rate relief.

27:46And when rates come down, well, that's good news for gold. Check out this very short-term chart with the price of the 10-year Treasury note in green versus the price of gold in yellow. It's kind of a cool chart, isn't it? Every tick here represents just two hours of trading. Garner points out that over the last 30 sessions, gold and the 10-year have settled in the same direction. 94 % at the same time. And you can see that from this chart, they're practically trading at lockstep. So anything that can push Treasury prices higher, which sends yields lower, should also benefit gold prices. Finally, how about the daily chart of the October gold futures?

28:27This is not a popular futures contract. It's not very liquid. Most traders skip from the August futures to the December futures. But Carter points out that gold futures tend to spike in the direction of the dominant trend going into the first year of the day. the day futures traders need to get out of their long positions if they don't want to take physical delivery of the actual gold. In this case, that day happened to be September 30th. This time, the October gold futures dropped$170. You can see, here we go. In a single session going the first notice day. But then the price held above the floor of support.

28:59At the same time, it hit oversold levels in the RSI index, which you can see down here. That's an important momentum indicator. To garner that looks like a short-term bottom. As long as gold holds near 4 ,150, she expected to rebound to 4 ,500, maybe to the highest 4650. That's a lot in the not too distant future. 4 ,500 represents a downturn resistance line. 4 ,600 is where the 200-day moving average currently sits. Talking about a move up to here, it'd be certainly worth getting. Remember, Garner's not a believer in the longer term. She wouldn't expect gold to meaningfully exceed these levels.

29:35but that would still represent a terrific rally. I'd like you to catch that. Here's the bottom line. The charge interpreted by Carly Garner suggests that we've got a high probability set up for a strong bounce in gold this month, making this a good time to go long. I think she makes a pretty darn compelling case. Let's take calls. Let's start in Don in Indiana. Don. Hello. How are we doing today? I am doing well, Don. How are you doing? Pretty good. I'd be happy to talk to Kramer. You got him. It's Jim. All right. How can I help you? Well, I wanted to know, is SoFi a broken company or is it a broken stock?

30:15My daughter and I here in Indiana, we're thinking about moving some of our money to the SoFi Bank and trying to invest a little more in the market from there. I think you're right. Look, it's down 40 % for the year. It is sitting almost at its low. It's got earnings. I mean, it's not like it's sitting there losing money. Anthony Noda's doing a good job. It's been a terrible stock. Now, the fact that it's been a terrible stock for a long time does not make it a terrible company. And I do think that I think it can bounce. It's just the problem is, as we see with so many different cases, when rates are going higher and you have a 26 P.E.

30:52on a stock, in other words, a price range multiple above market multiple, it tends not to do well. And that's exactly what really is happening with SoFi. Let's go with Fred in Louisiana. Fred. Hey, Jim, I'm from Chicago, Illinois. I got a question about RTX Corp. Mid-August, it's all-time highs, 226. It's lost almost 20 percent. Why? OK, so people feel that for some reason, of which I disagree, that the defense budget is peaked and we're not going to put any more money into defense. Enough has been spent. Meanwhile, RTX keeps getting contract after contract after contract. However, it also has aerospace, commercial aerospace, and anything touching commercial aerospace has been weak because people feel with oil this high, it's only a matter of time before the airlines cut their purchasing of planes.

31:40It has not happened, but my travel trust has done very poorly in Boeing. I always like to play with it open hand. It's done poorly, and it just bothers me tremendously. But RTX is pretty much in the same situation. All right, let's go to Austin in Minnesota. Austin. Hey, Jim. I love your show. Thanks for taking my call. Thank you, man. I appreciate that. Thank you. So I hear you say all the time, buy broken stocks, not broken companies. And I certainly don't think this company is broken. Considering its price decline year to date, would you classify ISRG, intuitive surgical, as a broken stock we should consider buying?

32:17I don't like that particular business anymore because there's too many companies that want to be in it, particularly Johnson & Johnson. Anything can bounce, but it's at 37 times earnings, and I do not think it warrants that high a price earnings multiple, given the fact that the Colossus with the AAA balance sheet, J &J, is coming in against it. I like the company very much. It's just too expensive a stock. All right. The charts, interpreted by Carly Garner, suggest that at this point, the calendar gold prices are poised to go up. It's a good time to go long. Hey, for much more made money, it can be Planet Labs.

32:52Whoa, boy, is that going to be killed. Can it launch its stock back into orbit? I'm digging deeper on the satellite company. Then when it comes to the AI trade, it looks like Microsoft is finally getting its due. Don't miss my analysis of this company and why I've been pounding the table on it for a while with the charitable trust at the CMBC Investing Club. And of course, all your calls rapid fire in tonight's edition of the Lighting Round. So stay with Craig.

33:26All right. What the heck just happened to the stock of retail favorite Planet Labs? Now, this is a promising company with hundreds of Earth imaging satellites in orbit. 13 months ago, we had CEO Will Marshall on the show. I thought he told a great story. The stock soared, flying from about$10 last fall to more than$51 at its highs in May, fueled by major government contracts and retail investors seemingly insatiable after for anything tied to space. But then the stock fell apart. Planet Labs plunged 26 percent on June 5th after launching a$1.5 billion stock sale program the day after it reported a fantastic quarter.

34:02It dropped another 9 percent the day SpaceX came public and then lost 9.6 percent more over the following two sessions. At that point, it had fallen to the high 20s. Now, from late August into September, it fell 14 out of 16 days, sliding to 16 bucks. Even after Friday's 8 % rally following the launch of Google's AI chips aboard a Planet Lapp satellite, it closed at$17.50. Today, it's trading at$17 and change, about two-thirds below its peak. Now, that is quite a collapse. So what went wrong here? Now, some of this is simply because many investors swapped out of smaller space plays into the much bigger SpaceX after it came public.

34:43I do not blame them. Do you know that even after today's 7.6 % increase, I think SpaceX remains a fantastic stock for long-term shareholders, but its strength only explains part of the decline in Planet Labs. Remember, this started when they authorized that plan to sell$1.5 billion worth of stock, about 10 % of the market cap at the time. Planet didn't issue the entire amount immediately, but the prospect, the dilution from those new shares helped overwhelm a better-than-expected quarter. I understand why investors got spooked by this, but we're talking about literal rocket science here. It ain't cheap.

35:15The stock was trading at more than 40 times this year's sales when it peaked in May. So you could argue it was priced for perfection. 40 times earnings is a lot of money. Sales is big. Now it's down to 14 times sales now. While it's still not cheap, let me tell you why I think it might be worth the price. Planet Labs operates imaging satellites, providing data analytics and software to help governments and industries track global changes. They can sell the same images to dozens of different customers. The potential users? Well, the users are enormous. Farmers can monitor crops. Insurers can assess disaster damage.

35:47Governments can track ports and military facilities. Energy companies can monitor infrastructure and emissions. And all this is much easier with the help of AI. Plus, Planet's data archive, enormous advantage. A competitor can launch a satellite tomorrow, but it can't go back and photograph what happened five years ago, can it? Governments increasingly want dedicated satellite capabilities, too. Planet can build and operate systems without their customers having to develop an entire space program themselves. Countries want greater control over their intelligence capabilities, and they don't necessarily have years to wait, which is why the company keeps winning big contracts with governments around the world.

36:24And look, their numbers are pretty good. When Planet Labs reported a month ago, they delivered a healthy top and bottom line beat, 58 % revenue growth. Wow, defense and intelligence revenue grew more than 90%. Commercial revenue is up more than 15%. Civil government gained more than 5%. I wish that had been bigger, but they made two cents a share when the street was looking for a loss of two cents. Not eye-popping profits, but it's important to note, they did indeed make a profit. Clearly, defense is doing the heavy lifting here. Revenue from Europe, the Middle East, and Africa increased more than 130 % because countries in the region can't afford to stand on intelligence.

36:56I think commercial opportunities for plant labs are enormous, too, but so far the uptake has been much slower than I thought. But unfortunately, despite the strong results, Planet's guidance for the current quarter came in light. Some Swedish satellite program revenue arrived early, boosting the second quarter at the third quarter's expense. People didn't like that. Longer term for the fiscal year ending in January 2027, Planet raised the lower end of its revenue forecast. The new range implies 40 to 43 percent growth. It raised adjusted gross margin guidance from 53 percent at the midpoint to 56 percent at the midpoint.

37:26I've regarded that as significant. Still, you can see why the response was indeed mixed. Planet's demand is exciting, but investors want more large contracts and evidence that their cash generation can improve consistently. They finished the quarter with an$815 million backlog that's down versus the previous quarter because they didn't get enough new contracts to offset the work they finished. Not good. Magic expects the existing backlog to generate more than$40 million in business over the next four quarters. That's for any new business or contract renewals. Wall Street's looking for the backlog to rise above$1 billion in the current quarter.

37:57Now, that would be encouraging. Planet's also got a bunch of new satellites that can collect a broader spectrum of data or provide more detail or faster data delivery. And there's a good Google angle that people should be talking about. Alpha is a stake in Planet Labs, significant shareholders, and quality sponsorship. Four days ago, a Planet prototype satellite carrying four of Google's custom AI chips reached orbit aboard SpaceX's Transporter 18 mission. The company's established contact, and the news helped send the stock flying Friday. This is all about part of a project to see if AI computing infrastructure can operate in space using solar energy.

38:34We know how important that's going to be. Solar is much more efficient in orbit because there's no atmosphere or ozone layer getting in the way. Google's choosing to choosing Planet for this key test tells you something about the team and its technology. Now, for the spending, one of the main things has been scaring people away from the stock. Planet Labs raised its annual capital expenditure forecast to 100 to 115 million. That's up from$80 million to$95 million range. It's buying components, developing satellites, and expanding manufacturing in Germany. Those investments support growth, but the bills arrive before the returns do.

39:08You get that. In the meantime, Planet has$865 million of cash in short-term investments to fund the work. Roughly$120 million came from stock sales during the quarter. It also generated nearly$24 million of free cash flow in the latest quarter. Okay, rookie numbers, but I don't think you'll have to worry about another fundraiser in the near future. Put it all together. And you know what? I like this one. There are only a handful of companies in the space business that I'm willing to get behind. SpaceX is my blessing as long as you're in it for the long haul. And long haul only. Planet Labs makes for a nice speculative pick.

39:39Here's the bottom line. If you like Planet Labs as much as I do, I put on a small position here. Leave room to buy more if the stock keeps getting hammered. Remember, this was a penny stock not that long ago. It can certainly fall further at this valuation. But the business is looking good at this point. And I think believers will only be rewarded. Just don't buy it all at once. If they have money, he's back after the break. Coming up, he's the fastest mind on Wall Street. So we're putting him to the test with your help. Bring on the lightning round next.

40:18It is time for the lightning round.

40:28And then the lightning round is over. Are you ready? It's key. Daddy, Tom and the lawyer. We're going to run it. Let's start with Jerry. Come for you, Jerry. Jim, big Southern Talley. Booyah to you. Excellent. Right back at you. What's going on? Jim, you're the journey and the destination to investing. I appreciate the call. Thank you. Yeah, big question for you. So small and mid-sized businesses, I think my instincts are telling me they're going to make a run end of the year, probably into 2027. This iconic brand should be the benefactor of it. They're a sleeper on the street. What do you think of Avery Dennison?

41:08I've always liked it. It always sells a reasonable multiple 16, 17 times earnings. It has very traditional growth. I think you've got a winner there. I totally concur with your analysis. Remember, whether it be small or large, if the numbers are good, I'm with it. Let's go to Chris in New Hampshire. Chris. Hey, Jim. Wanted to know what you thought about Sienna. I think Sienna's very good. I happen to like optical. You know, the one that I had liked for the club was corny. I'm waiting for it to come down and be able to get back in. It never seems to come in. Let's go to Barron in Texas. Barron.

41:41Hello. What up, Jim? You tell me. This company has a 4 PE of 16, but a peg ratio under 1. They operate pawn shops between the U.S., Latin America, and the U.K. What are your thoughts on first-cast holding? You know, I've looked at the Times. One time I did recommend it a long, long time ago, but because it's a pawn shop company, I don't understand that business model well enough to be able to opine on it, and I think, therefore, it's too tricky for me. Let's go to Ron in Arkansas. Ron. Hey, Jim, thank you for taking my call. I've been a member for only two years, but I've been retired for 19 and have your book.

42:19All right. Thank you very much. Thank you for reading. Thank you for joining. How can I help you, Ron? Okay. In addition to owning investment club recommendations for banks, I also built a position in a European bank starting below$16 and had Schnitzel on the way up. Jim, has my double-banger stock run out of gas? The stock is ING. No, no. ING is good. I think ING's fine. People are very worried about Europe right now because of France. I think ING's good. I'm going to make it a two-for. I know there's a snap election in Spain, but I happen to like Banco Santander very much, too. I think you're in good shape.

42:52Let's go to Patrick in Texas. Patrick. Hi, Patrick. Jim, this is Patrick calling from the Alamo City. There's been recent information presented at two international muscle disease meetings showing that the increased microdystrophin levels seen with seroptosis, Elevitas correlate with improved and prolonged functional capacity in patients with muscular dystrophy. How does this affect your investment thesis for the company? It's a very controversial stock. I know that I want everything to work for people who have this and the families who have it, but I cannot opine on it because it's just too difficult for me to understand.

43:32I've just got to own that. And that, ladies and gentlemen, is the conclusion of the Lightning Round! The lightning round is sponsored by Charles Schwab.

43:49This week, it's Microsoft's turn. Last week, I explained how much Meta's news platform might be worth to the enterprise, which allowed Meta's stock to soar because Wall Street loves the enterprise business. Much more reliable than consumer business, which is considered fickle and unreliable. Then last week, we saw some eye-opening data from 100X, that terrific data outfit that uses predictive surveys to spot things before they happen. CEO Rob Pace pointed out that AI remains a powerful industry, with Anthropics claw at having a 33.2 % net future usage intent score. That is incredible and strategic lead.

44:27In second, though, it was actually Microsoft's co-pilot, 15.3 % net future usage intent, followed by Gemini 11.7 % and ChatGPT at 10.9%. Now, these are all still very closely clustered, but I was shocked to see Microsoft leapfrogging Google and OpenAI. It would have been unbelievable for that latest quarter when we learned the Copilot has more than 30 million paid customers. I went back to Pace to ask about the disparity, and he shared with me a chart that shows a sizable lead over the competitor set that includes Claude and ChatGPT on the issue of trust. The positive versus negative differentiation, as you can see, can not be ignored or denied.

45:10Now, most of you know me as a journalist, but for my current incarnation, I was a pretty good business person, served on boards that make big decisions on big matters, or at least we thought they were big and we never wanted to make a mistake. I know that Claude and Chad GPT are the best at what they do, but lately the companies behind them, Anthropic and OpenAI, have engaged in what I regard as erratic behavior. OpenAI has a CEO, Sam Altman, who refused to join the Open Secure AI Alliance, a group that's created by NVIDIA's Jensen Wang. It was surprising, given how many big companies endorsed his plan for safety.

45:39Dario Amadei of Anthropoc has been the most forthright and, frankly, the scariest about the possibility of AI representing an existential threat to humanity. He made me feel like I was reading The Stand, where a vast man-made plague killed almost everyone, frightening book by Stephen King, frightening thesis by Dario. But then the guy meets with the president of the United States, along with the other technology leaders or big shots or oligarchs. And he didn't seem to mention any of his reservations when he spoke at the president's impromptu press conference. He seemed to agree with the president.

46:07One minute he's warning of human extinction. The next he seems to be on board with the president's safe at any speed ethos. I don't think that's great for anthropics credibility, which brings me back to Microsoft. If you're making a presentation or board meeting right now after what's happened about which AI platform you should use, You would say, I don't know, let's just turn it over to Microsoft. It makes sense. Microsoft's already a trusted partner of the enterprise with nothing erratic about its leaders. After toiling in the bearish vineyards for some time, Microsoft's stock is finally breaking out.

46:36And in part by, I think, our segment Friday. But also because of very powerful analysts, Ben Wright just changed his view on this stock. He works at Emilius. He did a terrific piece called The Adults Are In Charge, echoing my Friday theme. Ben, who really didn't care for the stock not that long ago, put some real meat on the Microsoft phones, talking about how Azure's cloud computing division might grow as fast as 50%. That would be a considerable acceleration. That's giving the stock a gigantic push. In the end, Microsoft has good governance. That, to me, sounds a lot safer than the two anointed winners, Anthropic and OpenAI.

47:09I think that means we're witnessing the reinstitutionalizing of AI, with the incumbent Microsoft having a lot of pull at the board level. Boards don't like surprises. They don't like erratic behavior. They don't want to be embarrassed, or they don't want to be second-guessed. Consider it a good reason to stay in the stock of Microsoft, and an even better reason, even at this price, to buy it. I like to say there's always a bull market somewhere. I promise you I'd find it just for you right here. You may have money. I'm Jim Cramer. See you tomorrow. All opinions expressed by Jim Cramer on this podcast are solely Cramer's opinions and do not reflect the opinions of CNBC or its parent company or affiliates and may have been previously disseminated by Cramer on television, radio, internet, or another medium.

47:48You should not treat any opinion expressed by Kramer as a specific inducement to make a particular investment or follow a particular strategy, but only as an expression of his opinion. Kramer's opinions are based upon information he considers reliable, but neither CNBC nor its affiliates and or subsidiaries warrant its completeness or accuracy, and it should not be relied upon as such. To view the full Mad Money Disclaimer, please visit cnbc.com forward slash Mad Money Disclaimer. Real talent is defined by what people can do, not where they learn to do it. So by stopping at the education section of a resume that you might throw away the perfect hire.

48:19Skills First Hiring helps you see talent others miss, like more than 70 million stars, skilled through alternative routes. Let their story unfold and gain a competitive advantage because hiring managers who start with skills are 60 % more likely to find a successful hire. Hire Skills First. Learn why at tearthepaperceiling.org. Brought to you by Opportunity at Work and the Ad Council.