Mad Money w/ Jim Cramer 9/11/26

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0:56Or find Schwab Market Update wherever you get your podcasts. My mission is simple. To make you money. I'm here to level the playing field for all investors. There's always a low market somewhere. And I promise to help you find it. Mad Money starts now.

1:17Hey, I'm Kramer. Welcome to Mad Money. Welcome to Kramer. I'll do my friends. I'm just trying to make you a little bit of money. My job is not just to entertain, but to educate and do some teaching. So call me at 1-800-743-CNBC or tweet me at Jim Cramer. Thank heavens oil went down today. It changed everything, as is its one. Keeping a little in treasury yields, which then triggered a rally of solid proportions in the stock market. In a tech-led move, the Dow gained 509 points, S &P climbed 0.86%. NASDAQ jumped 0.96%. I'll tell you what, it was a true throwback day. Funnily enough, the tech rally had little to do with some things that confused me and a lot to do with positive statements by Adobe and Oracle, even as their stocks themselves weren't participating that much.

2:03Adobe, a fallen angel, represents enterprise software, and Oracle, once a database company, and now a data center builder, represents artificial intelligence. The fact that Adobe showed some growth, any growth, and Oracle was able to raise$20 billion in what's known as an at-the-market equity offering showed that they can live to play again. Both gave conservative forecasts. That's OK. Neither of these companies about to be crushed anytime soon. That's what matters. I'll give you the lowdown Oracle later in the show. But as I said on the morning show, I thought that Adobe, which was down badly, would actually finish up.

2:37And it did, gaining 1.3 percent. I think Adobe is a candidate for a short squeeze. And who else gets to live to play again because of those two? How about all the enterprise software and hardware plays dedicated to the data center that have been performing so poorly of late. Companies like Dell, like Vertib, Cisco, Marvell, GE Vinova, Hewlett-Packard Enterprise, all beneficiaries of hyperscaler largesse, not to mention the stocks of the hyperscalers themselves. Meta, Amazon, Alphabet, and Microsoft, all of which finished in the black. I'd add Apple, but Apple's in very much its own world. Luckily, in a great world to be in, as demand for this new duo foldable iPhone could be off the charts.

3:26Bravo, Apple. The stock's had an unusually terrific run after a solid product intro. I think it's really still got more to go. Now, as I said, let's go over what's frankly a truncated game plan for next week, as there are very few earnings on the horizon. First, on Monday, we head out to San Francisco for the always market-moving dream force, the incredible extravaganza thrown by Salesforce CEO Mark Benioff. This year, we have quite the slate of people we're interviewing, including Hawk Tan, Sarah Fryer, David Risher, Vlad Tenev. Wow. Also Monday, we're going to have a success what happened in the Gulf.

4:09That's what happens every Monday when we come in. See, it's become very clear that whatever we do doesn't deter the Iranians militarily, not at all. They seem to be, frankly, almost enjoying this toe-to-toe action, as if they are being in the same ring as the champion allows them to be able to say, we're the Taliban, we're the North Vietnamese. As the Iranians see it, they have the upper hand, and the president can't and won't do anything about it. If nothing happens, then we have to presume that these days in peace talks between the Gulf states and the Iranians could produce something worthwhile that would allow the price of oil to plummet.

4:47That's why I thought oil went down today, just so you know. If Iran decides to attack a carrier group with some drones, though, then oil will spike, interest rates will fly up, and the stock market will get clobbered. Doesn't help that Iran's Houthi allies in Yemen might be able to block off the Red Sea. On Tuesday, we're going to interview Salesforce's Mark Benioff, who's now offering a cutting-edge AI platform called AsianForce. Did we introduce this on our show two years ago? We own the stock for the Chapel Trust. It's been very strong of late, including today. I think people are finally recognizing the Salesforce product can interrogate the data and run it through all sorts of AI to figure out the best way to get sales.

5:23I'm fascinated by how good this program is. I've checked out. I spent a lot of time on it. Wednesday, we've got a huge, huge day. That's when the Federal Reserve Open Market Committee meets. And the consensus is they need to put through a rate hunt as the economy is running too hot. And we're basically at full employment. I get that. Inflation is too high. The CPI was just OK today. Not great. It does need to be reined in. I know that much. It's obvious from looking at today's today's all the different numbers that we got that there's a plethora of prices going higher, many of which are dependent on the price of oil.

5:57Now, we've been waiting for oil to come down. Remember, you always say ex-food and oil. You can't do that. We've been waiting for oil to come down so long that I think it's now ingrained in the system. We can't ignore it. It hasn't gone down. The big question is, what will happen to the rest of the interest rate curve, as is known, once short rates go higher? Will the rates on the 30 or the long end of the treasury go up or down if Fed Chief Kevin Marsh announces a hike? You know, I actually think they're going to go down. Rates are going to go lower because these longer term rates are set by bond traders and the bond guys just want to see some discipline from somebody in this government.

6:31Wors could provide that discipline and it could be pretty draconian. The consequences of rate hike next week cannot be underestimated. We're going to spend a whole piece on it coming up. We've been living in a higher rate environment for years. And the fact that rates could go even higher is daunting. If the Fed tightens, the bulls will be fighting the Fed. And it's never a good idea to fight the Fed, even in tech. I think it's time to be sparing and applying your cash. The investing club maintains a high percentage of our charitable portfolio in cash right now because of this volatile environment.

7:01And once again, I urge you to get off margin. This is not the time to be buying stock with borrowed money. We're too high. I hope longer term rates go down for the sake of this great builder of the reports after the close, Lenar. Last year, Lenar's stock was at$140. Now it's at$79.60. cents. And that's after rallying$1.70 today. As long as Treasury yields remain stubbornly higher, so do mortgage rates. And most people don't want to cashier the cheap mortgages they got earlier this decade for higher ones, even if it means they get to buy a new home. Lenore will be tough about the need to have some home relief, though, something that the president should consider because existing home sales are at a four-decade low.

7:42It'd be better than giving everybody $5 ,000 to Congress, state Republicans. We don't want a Trump dividend. We want first-time home owner relief, home buyer relief, I should say. Thursday, we have two important analyst meetings. Brinker, you know we have them on the time. We have Brinker and Intuit. We have them all the time on the show. Brinker, you know, is Chili's, and the company never fails to wow me. I think this meeting will be no exception. As for Intuit, the company behind TurboTax and QuickBooks, it gets a bum rap because everyone believes it will be disrupted by AI. I think the days when we can rumor down stocks on the thought of disruption with AI are over.

8:16Just witness the rebounds in service now and Salesforce, and by the way, you know what I think is going to happen with Adobe. I'm betting that Intuit, if it's Investor Day, could have that same kind of move. Of course, I can't go without acknowledging the sadness of today. As we remember the fall from when America was attacked on 9-11-2001. I spent a great deal of time mulling how horrendous that day was. Did a special about the rebuild of downtown 10 years ago for this network. And I've always tried to keep the event front and center. especially for the younger people. That day changed America forever.

8:49The bottom line, what matters today is the remembrance of all those who died, both those in the buildings and those who chose to give their lives to rescue the people in the buildings. I'm going to talk more about my reflections later in the show, but I don't want you to think that this was just a show about thinking about money. It's anything but. But still, it's my job. Let's go to Jim in Florida, please, Jim. Jimmy Chale, a big sunny Naples, Florida. Booyah to you. Oh, man, Westside. Booyah to you. How's it going? Doing great. My question's on a stock that merged with another company back in 2015, and I've held it for a number of years.

9:29Luckily for me, I actually sold the shares I had when it merged, and then I bought more back. But anyway, I'm calling about Kraft Heinz, and I was thinking about taking some tax loss selling in it. No, I don't want you to do that, Jim. And I'll tell you why, because it's not that I believe in the greater man theory, but this Steve Kaelin, who's the CEO, he saved Kellogg and made people a ton of money. He's going to do the same thing with Kraft Heinz. Let's give him a chance. Let's give him six months. OK, I think he'd appreciate that we give him six months. He's been in for a while and he's a man.

10:01He's a person who really likes to get action. Don't leave it. Please don't leave Kraft Heinz. Let's go to Dell in Minnesota. Dell. Oh, yeah, Jim. This is Dell from Minnesota. Land of sky blue water. I got a question about Uber. I've had it for a while now. I'm wondering if it's time to sell or can I buy or should I just ride with them? OK, so when I wrote How to Make Money in the Market, I went over the stocks of companies that had been really great successes from an IPO basis. And then from what people are thinking were the so-called hot stocks, I included Uber. I am beginning to think that I might have been wrong in the book about Uber.

10:39I don't want to say that. I needed to see better action, though. All the others have been such fabulous performers. I'm worried about Uber. There. I said it. I am. Why? Because it doesn't have earnings momentum. It doesn't have growth. Let's go to Joe in Colorado, please. Joe. Jim, how are you? I am good. How about you? My man, we're living our best life out here in the mountains. Hey, look, my question is about Meta. My question is about Meta. We've seen a little uptick this week with their AI launch. Look, I want to understand your long term, maybe like six to 12 months horizon for this company who's trying to monetize their AI infrastructure for us as consumers.

11:20Do you really think it's there or do you think it's just hype? Well, I want to take an even longer term. You know, we're not traders in the show. I've taken a long term to do a metaphor of some ages. I think you can take a three to five view, three to five year view. This stock could double. I mean, frankly, it sells at a very low multiple. It's got a lot of the worries about those lawsuits away from it. It's got a really brilliant CEO, and it's got a great president. I think they've got a lot of things in the works for small business. I think they've got a lot of things that work for personal assistance.

11:51I think you hold on to better for the ages. All right, I'm glad oil went down today. It gave us a retro day where we finally saw some positivity. I mean, everybody, tonight, Oracle's reversing hard if they're strong earnings for us. So what gives? I'm taking a close look at the whiplash, as I mentioned earlier. And 2026 has a lot of parallels with a different year. That one didn't end well. So how about this? Stay tuned for my analysis of whether we're due for 2018. Like, pull back. And we had our monthly investing club meeting yesterday. And we had so many great questions. And we didn't have time to take them all.

12:25So I'm taking some of them out and telling you how I answer questions. You can see. Because, you know, I want you to be in the club. And that's why I'm even presenting a book, How to Make Money in Any Market, if you do sign up. Stay with me.

12:45Don't miss a second of Mad Money. Follow at Jim Cramer on X. Have a question? Tweet Cramer. Hashtag 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.

13:31Seriously, make work less work with Gemini on Google Cloud. Check response, subscription required. This episode is brought to you by Schwab Market Update, an original podcast from Charles Schwab. Schwab Market Update, an original podcast from Charles Schwab, provides an information-packed daily market preview on stock updates, U.S. and global economic news, monetary policy decisions, and key results and statistics that may impact your trading. Download the latest episode and subscribe at schwab.com slash market update podcast or find Schwab Market Update wherever you get your podcasts. You know, Kevin, sometimes I feel like computers are the only thing around here that are getting smarter.

14:10Yeah, my model hasn't had an update in a while. But that changes now. We think that we can smarten these listeners up about all things related to this crazy new future. Welcome to Machine Gods, a new NPR podcast that will be your guide to the AI future. Twice a week, we're going to help you get smarter about AI so you know what's real, what's hype, and what you should probably install on your phone. Listen to Machine Gods from NPR on the NPR app or wherever you get your podcasts.

14:47What the heck just happened to Oracle? The last day, the big data center builder reported a better than expected quarter, setting the stock fly in pre-market trading. It opened up more than 11 bucks this morning, but then Oracle gave back every penny of that gain and more, finishing the red. Honestly, even though the stock gave me whiplash today, I thought this was a pretty encouraging quarter. So let me walk you through it and tell you what's going on here. To understand the importance of this report, we need to go full circle.

15:21in a single session. Thanks to a massive$300 billion data center deal at Inc. with OpenAI, the stock briefly rallied all the way to$345. And guess what? Founder and chairman Larry Ellison was briefly the richest man in the world. Everyone hailed him as a genius for pivoting from enterprise software, plain old enterprise software, to AI. But then Wall Street got a little more skeptical on AI and people started wondering if OpenAI would be able to meet all of its trillion dollar plus commitments. Plus, Microsoft Microsoft, Amazon, Alphabet, Meta. They all entered this race with enormous cash engines supporting their data center spending.

15:55Oracle was already carrying substantial debt before it got into this business. People started worrying about Oracle's balance sheet. As a result, the stock started getting slammed, ultimately bottoming at$114.50 in late July. In July, by the way, the S &P cut its credit rating to triple B minus. And that's one notch above junk. You don't want to be there. But in the final days of July, the AI trade started recovering after the implosion of situational awareness. Remember that hedge fund and all its imitators? More importantly for Oracle, OpenAI released GPT-6 Astra on September 3rd. Oracle jumped 5.7 % that day, added 3 % the next day, and another 2.36 % the day after.

16:38Why? Well, because this thing was darn good. So far, we've been hearing nothing but great things about the latest iteration. NVIDIA's Jensen Wong says it represents AGI, Artificial General Intelligence, which is the holy grail of this business. And also the thing that many people are terrified of these days. Suddenly, Oracle's biggest customer looks a lot more competitive. And for what it's worth, the Astra model was trained at an Oracle data center in Abilene, Texas. That's the backdrop. So what on earth happened with its quarter and what happened today? Okay. First, the results were excellent.

17:09Oracle reported a sizable sales and earnings beat with a total cloud revenue up 62 percent. And Oracle Cloud Infrastructure, this core AI business, up 121 percent. Guidance for the current quarter is basically in line and they slightly raised their four-year earnings forecast. So why did this stock catch fire right after it reported only to quickly erase those gains today? A lot of the strength here came from solid execution. Oracle delivered 850 megawatts of AI capacity and more than 300 ,000 GPUs during the quarter. nearly three times the capacity delivered in the previous quarter. At their campus in Abilene, six out of eight buildings have been handed over to the customer, representing 616 megawatts.

17:51Actually, building a data center in this environment has become a real hassle. So the fact that Oracle's getting everything up and running takes, I think, this is how I felt. It took some major worries off the table. I have to give co-CEO Clay McGurk some real credit here. When he was asked about possible delays in New Mexico and Wisconsin, He said a construction plan that requires every project to arrive perfectly on schedule has a name, a bad plan. I left that lab when I saw it. It's pretty good. I like it. These campuses came or come online in stages and Oracle has multiple sites contributing capacity.

18:23Imagine said neither of those two projects affects its current fiscal year revenue or earnings guidance. They're planning for setbacks. Your setbacks are inevitable when you're doing such a massive data center build out. But at the same time, Oracle's capacity coming up for renewal was either renewed or resold at a 20 percent premium on average because the chips hold their value. Right. You know, most of the chips in question are at least four years old. They're worth sometimes in the class school, he said, more than they were paid for. It's not like we're buying cars here where they lose half their value, drive them off the lot.

18:55These things actually save. Their high end semiconductors are actually appreciating value like fine wine, as I said to Jensen Wong, CEO of NVIDIA. Meanwhile, Oracle's remaining performance obligation, that's the key metric, basically the revenue backlog, reached$664 billion. That's 46 % growth from a year ago and another$26 billion added since Bay. Management expects another half, around half to become revenue over the next three years. That's how you really book the numbers. We're talking roughly$332 billion worth of contracted business. Two years ago, that backlog was just$99 billion. The scale of the opportunity here has changed dramatically.

19:33But the biggest question has always been how Oracle finances all this. And here we got some, I felt, useful answers. First, we know their entire$20 billion at the market equity or where they actually each day offer stock. OK, that's finished. Those shares have already been sold, taking a major headache off the table. Oracle also booked more than$30 billion of additional AI contracts without increasing its announced capital raising equipment. So it's raising a lot of cash. How? Customers are increasingly prepaying or supplying their own hardware. Suppliers can also finance equipment. So Oracle pays as customers pay.

20:09It's not like they have to pay for all the infrastructure up front. While the company's quarterly capital expenditures were nearly$10 billion, higher than expected, they also received$11.36 billion of customer prepayments. After accounting for those, Oracle's net cash outlay for CapEx was about$1 billion lower than expected. That's really good. While the company's still talking about$90 to$95 billion in gross CapEx forecast for the full year, and that is a lot, their net cash CapEx will be no more than$70 billion. Still a lot, but in other words, their spending plans aren't as crazy as they seem when you factor in all the customer prepayments.

20:48That's what made me turn more bullish about the story. Put all together, Oracle's balance sheets look a lot more manageable. That's a great word than many people thought. At the same time, there's more to this company than the data centers. Their multi-cloud data business was excellent. Their electronic health records business is improving. That's the old Cerner business. And should get it even better as Oracle rolls out its authentic AI capabilities for health care. This is big because, people, this has been a big drag on the company. All that said, the bears still have plenty of ammunition, and they were really shooting at the end of the day, which is why the stock came right down.

21:23Oracle burned more than$5 billion in free cash flow in the quarter. That's a lot. Analysts at Mellius expect a similar quarterly burn through the rest of the year as customer prepayments moderate. The broadly inline guidance for the current quarter and full year was hardly a blowout. And they still get way too much of their business from OpenAI. JP Morgan estimates it represented roughly half or more of the prior quarter's backlog, both directly and through the Stargate project. Oracle also declined to give a date to returning to free cash flow positive. Not ideal. However, the valuation reflects these doubts.

22:00The stock now trades at less than 19 times this year's earnings estimates and less than 14 times next year's numbers. That's an absurdly low price earnings multiple for a company with 30 % revenue growth, unless, of course, you don't believe or you think that this data center boom is going to end. Here's the bottom line. In the end, I came away from this Oracle quarter feeling more constructive about the company's future than I did in a long time. This was a calm, reassuring, almost normal call from a company delivering capacity, collecting customer money and keeping its spending forecast under control.

22:31I think the stock has a lot of room to recover here. Although with the data center becoming political football, you might want to stay on the sidelines until after the election. But as long as Oracle keeps delivering like this, I'm actually not too worried about it. Everybody's back after the break. Coming up, Kramer's Seeing Signs history may be about to repeat itself. Stick around for his plan to handle it, if it does, next.

23:02Weren'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. Gemini 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 episode is brought to you by Schwab Market Update, an original podcast from Charles Schwab.

23:35Schwab Market Update, an original podcast from Charles Schwab, provides an information-packed daily market preview on stock updates, U.S. and global economic news, monetary policy decisions, and key results and statistics that may impact your trading. Download the latest episode and subscribe at schwab.com slash market update podcast, or find Schwab Market Update wherever you get your podcasts. You know, Kevin, sometimes I feel like computers are the only thing around here that are getting smarter. Yeah, my model hasn't had an update in a while. But that changes now. We think that we can and smarten these listeners up about all things related to this crazy new future.

24:12Welcome to Machine Gods, a new NPR podcast that will be your guide to the AI future. Twice a week, we're going to help you get smarter about AI so you know what's real, what's hype, and what you should probably install on your phone. Listen to Machine Gods from NPR on the NPR app or wherever you get your podcasts.

24:41Tell me if this sounds familiar. We're in the second year of a Donald Trump presence. Stocks performed well in the first year, and after some early turmoil, they're doing well into the second year, too, mostly led by tech. But there are major chinks in the bull's arm. Oil prices have been marching higher. Inflation readings have gotten away from the Fed's 2 % target. That matters because we have a new Fed chairman, freshly appointed by President Trump, and he needs to be, yes, prove he's serious. While he's been tough to read, this new Fed chief now seems poised to tighten. Meanwhile, the midterm elections are looming, and it looks like a Democratic wave year.

25:19Doesn't sound a lot like 2026, right? It's not, though. What I just described was the fall of 2018. That's right. I feel like we're reliving what happened eight years ago, and that's actually bad news, because the fall of 2018 got It got real ugly for the market. The parallels, though, are stunning. In early 2018, the market temporarily got derailed by the president's tariffs. This year, it was the president's war with Iran. But overall, from January 20th of 2017, when Trump was first sworn in to September 11th of 2018, the S &P was up 27 percent. This time, from the inauguration to today, it's up under 28 percent.

25:55In 2018, oil prices were climbing steadily higher throughout the first nine months of the year, going from around$60 to the mid-70s by the end of September. This year, oil has also started around$60, but it's rallied a lot harder, now sitting around$100. Back in 2018, we were worried about inflation. This was before the pandemic price shock, so high inflation back then was still in the 2 % to 3 % range. Today, we got the Elegant Consumer Price Index, and it was up 3.4%. That's enough to justify a rate hike from the Fed, as I mentioned at the top of the show. You can see parallels in the bond market, too.

26:26In 2018, the yield in the 10-year Treasury, it was 2.5. That's sweet. at the beginning of the year to over 3 % by the end of September. This year, the tenure has gone from 4.2 % to just under 5%. How about the Fed? Well, it's kind of hard to remember, but it was President Trump who originally appointed former Fed Chief Jay Powell. He took over when Janet Yellen in early February retired. At the time, the Fed was well into a rate hike cycle, and Powell basically just picked up the mantle from that regime, adding a couple of additional rate hikes in March and June. Still, a few months into his tenure as Fed Chief, We didn't really know which way Powell would jump.

27:03But then the Fed put through another quarter point rate hike in late September, followed by a fourth one in December. These two tightens crushed the stock market. Suddenly Powell was on the warpath against inflation, and he seemed willing to destroy the economy in order to save it. Compare that to today. Once again, we have a new Fed chairman. His name is Kevin Warsh, took over in May. We've spent the past few months trying to get a read on the guy without much success, frankly. But now we're finally starting to get some clues. Many felt his Jackson Hole address was on the Hawks' side. And after today's in-line but still pretty hot CPI reading, the Fed funds futures market suggests there's an 87 percent chance that the Fed raises rates next week.

27:39In other words, it'd be a shock if they didn't. Then there are the geopolitical risks. In 2018, it was an escalating trade war with China and a lot of rhetoric that sounded like it came straight out of the Cold War. 2026, well, we got to shoot more with Iran that's dragged on endlessly. Finally, there are the midterms. In 2018, the Democrats ultimately regained control of the House, didn't pick up the Senate. I don't like getting into politics in the show. I think it's just a waste. But it's looking like the Democrats will take the House while the Senate's more of a tossable. There's a lot of gerrymandering in the House.

28:06So but it does seem like it. I bring this up because the fourth quarter of 2018 was pretty brutal for stocks. I remember it was terrible. I was over in London for the Eagles-Jags game. It was like, oh, my God, my head was spinning. I was in this place, Harrods. I didn't know anything. The S &P 500 plunging 20 percent from its late September highs to its lows just after Christmas. Oh, God, what a period. The Nasdaq was hit even harder, down 24 percent peaked the trough. It wasted the whole holiday season. While the market technically peaked in late September of 2018, the sell-off caught fire in early October.

28:39One two punch of negative catalyst. On October 3rd of that year, J-PAL signaled that several more rate hikes were coming. Couldn't believe he did that. And then the next day, Vice President Pence gave this extremely aggressive anti-China speech at the Hudson Institute, which bet the next few months to get clobbered. clobbered. Of course, while there are a lot of similarities with 2018, we've got plenty of differences. For starters, Wall Street's much more familiar with how President Trump operates. There's a widespread sense that if he does something really ruinous for stocks, we'll likely walk it back once the market goes down and up.

29:07On the other hand, oil inflation and interest rates are all much higher in absolute terms than they were eight years ago. It's disconcerting. If anything, September 2026 looks a bit worse than September of 2018. But the real problem back then was that J-PAL got too aggressive, predicting a series of savage rate hikes that the market couldn't handle. When he eventually repudiated that forecast, the market came roaring back. This time, I think worse seems like a less gung-ho about fighting inflation by any means necessary. So what about these parallels? What do you do? I'm not saying you should just sell everything because history is going to repeat itself.

29:42That's stupid. Kevin Walsh was around in 2018. He's probably not going to repeat Powell's mistakes. Plus, after that steep sell-off in the fourth quarter of 2018, we went on to have this incredibly powerful rally in 2019, marking up nearly 30 % that year. After J-PAL changed his tune by early 2019, he went around cutting rates for three times. The highs that we set in September of 2018 were taken out by late October of 2019. Except for a few circumstances, it almost always pays to stay coarse and remain in the market, even if you're worried about a pullback. So here's what I'll do. If things do start getting squirrely for stocks, I'm going to tell you, do not freak out.

30:19If you're worried about a repeat of 2018, I want you to trim some of your winners. Take something off the table. And that is exactly what we've been doing for the Chapel Trust. Take your cash position up to the mid-teens, much higher than usual. If you're not panicking and you have a nice cash position, nice cash balance, then you'll be able to use any weakness to actually buy the high-quality stocks that you trimmed because you were concerned about the market, not the companies. So here's the bottom line. At the end of the day, there are some eerie similarities between the current moment and the fall of 2018, and they're not good.

30:50I don't think history will repeat this time, but it might rhyme. Isn't that something, let's say, you just need to keep an eye on? I want to take calls. I want to go to Kevin in Florida. Kevin. Booyah, Jim. Let's go Eagles. Let's do it. All right. Let's go, Birds. We've got a big game this week. We know that. But I'm a little nervous because, you know, look, I'm just, call me nervous. Let's just say that. And let's go, how about a stock? How about a stock? Boeing, Boeing, Jim. I love the new CEO. I think he's turned things around. But now they have another strike room. And it seems, I've owned this stock for years, and it seems like it's sideways.

31:29When is it going to finally get its stuff together and go? See, Kevin's from Florida, but he's got the same accent I have. So I'm trying to figure, you might have been from 10th and Christian. That's where I think. I think, you know, or 6th and Reed. That's how we always do it in Philadelphia. One street and then another. We're so local. It's crazy. I think that Boeing is ready to go up. But here's the problem. Every time crude goes up a dollar, the stock goes down a dollar. And think about it. That was actually the ratio. I did some work on this. And because today crude was down, Boeing went up$5.

31:58And it is just totally, no, it's so stupid. Because in truth, the airlines need more planes because the planes are more fuel efficient. So they actually do better in this environment. But nobody cares. They know that airlines have to borrow money to buy planes and rates are higher. And they think that oil somehow is bad. But what ends up happening is the stock does nothing. I think it's about to go up because I think oil might be peaking unless there's some catastrophe over there. I want to go to John in Florida. John. Jim, you know, Blue Horseshoe loves NVIDIA and loves Jim Cramer. Oh, man, I got an Anaconda Coppers next.

32:34Let me tell you. What's up? What's up? Thank you for confronting Jensen with a double buyback and following up days later with a quadruple buyback. Hopefully you will talk to Jensen about a quadruple dividend because TSMC is$1.11 and NVIDIA is only$0.25. My question today is, every time I looked at NVIDIA going up$1 or$0.50, AMD goes up$12. Should I be buying AMD? My conference call yesterday with the club, I admitted that AMD and Dell, I was confounded by my restrictions. Every time I was talking about on TV, we're probably going to buy AMD or we're probably going to buy Dell. Those are the two best stocks in this market.

33:20I frustrated myself. I couldn't I wasn't able to pull the trigger because of my restrictions. AMD is a fantastic stock, fantastic company. And Lisa Suze is great. Buy it. End of story. If you're worried about a repeat of the late year sell-off of 2018, maybe take a little off the table. The comparisons are really year-to-year. I'm seeing some real rhymes. Don't panic, though. And remember, I just want the cash so that you can buy stock back after they've come down. Watch when mad money is. I'm taking some more of your market questions after yesterday's very successful investing club back and forth.

33:53I thought it was a little visceral, though. And I'm taking all your calls, rapid fire, tonight's edition of The Lighting Round. And on the 25th anniversary of one of our darkest days in this country, I'm taking a look back at September 11 and its lasting impact, or at least an impact that I don't want to forget. Stay with Craig.

34:17Okay, all the major averages today bounced back from yesterday's decline, but with the market hovering near all-time highs, it's time we take a step back and address your questions about concerns about where stocks could be headed. Yesterday we had, it was actually a pretty great meeting, we had this Investing Club monthly meeting where Jeff Marks and I, we walk people through the club's positions. We show you how our decisions are made. We discuss our current holdings. And then we take questions from our club members. Well, that's my favorite part of the meetings, taking questions from you. But you know what?

34:48We never have time to get to all of them. So I'm going to give you an inside look tonight at what happens at the monthly meetings while also doling out, I hope, some much-needed market information. By the way, if you want to be a part of the next monthly meeting, join the club. Just scan the QR code here behind me, or even easier, I think, go to CNBC.com slash investing club. I think you're going to like it. I really do. I wouldn't be mentioning. Don't forget, I'm throwing in a book right now, How to Make Money in the Market, if you do that. All right. First, we got a question from Arlen in New Jersey who asks, has DraftKings drifted so low it has become a speculative investment?

35:25I bought this stock back in 2023, and I'd break even at this point if I sold it now, not counting the lost opportunity to invest in that money elsewhere over the last three years. Is it worth holding on to? Thanks for all you do for us. First of all, you're welcome. I think that's terrific. This is a very hard one. I'll tell you why. Because everyone's gripped by gambling, and so therefore a lot of sites are getting a lot of traffic. But I found that DraftKings is now, they're stretched like all the other guys. They have to spend a little more money, I think, to get customers. They may tell you otherwise, but that's how I feel about this group.

36:00So I'm going to say it's time. It's time that you move on. It's just too crowded a group. And while I like draft games, I saw Jason Robbins on the other day. He's a terrific CEO. The group is just too hard. And that's why I think you have to go. All right. Next, we have Scott from Colorado who asks, when you have a big gain in a stock, How do you know it is time to protect the gain and exit versus it being only a pullback before more gains? This seems exceedingly hard to tell because the story may still be very bullish, but the market, the herd, can turn and send the stock lower via selling. I love that, the herd, and that's how I think about it a lot.

36:41All right. So this is the question that was the top of my piece of that when I do a speech at the beginning of the monthly meeting, which is this is a cross discipline issue. And when you like a stock, but you have a big game and you're trying to figure out whether you might lose the big game, it's a very simple issue. You must take the game because we can't have a gain turn into a loss and we have to have discipline trumping conviction. So you've got a stock where you have a conviction in, right? But you have to protect the gain. You have to go with the game. It is plain and simple. I know it's hard to take those profits and you're selling a really good stock.

37:25But that's a dilemma. And it's only answered by that cross discipline of sell. Next up, we have Billy from Indiana who says, booyah, Jim. Booyah, Billy. And, of course, in Jeff. This American staple is down almost 20 % in the last 12 months. The price of beef is no doubt a factor. But come on, this is McDonald's, we're crying out loud. There's one on every street corner. Buy, sell, or hold McDonald's. Thank you for all you do. Okay, I want you to buy it here. I'm going to tell you why. I think McDonald's has plans. They are very cagey, but they are trying to reinvent the place. And I think that you're getting it at an exceedingly low level.

37:59I wouldn't recommend it if it were still at the 300 level because that's too risky. But where it is now, I'm with you. I think that they can do it. By the way, the other guys are not as well capitalized as McDonald's. But I'm going to give you a little heads up here. You might not want to hear it, but I'm going to give it to you. Jersey Mike's is better. Jersey Mike's spent some time with Charlie Morrison, CEO, the other day, also before when it came public. I think it's got a lot less risk and they can put up thousands of them. And it's got a terrific management. I like McDonald's, but I want you to consider this Jersey Mike's too.

38:29Now we have Bob who asks, at what 10-year treasury interest rate would you consider adding a long bond to your portfolio? I have older friends who continuously brag about buying 30-year treasuries for nearly 15 percent yielded maturity in the early 1980s. It would seem that even an equity investor could consider bonds at that point. And you are right, OK? Even right now, if you can get the 10-year for 5 percent, I think it's OK to put, depending upon your age, 50, you know, you're 50, you want to put some in. If you're 60, you put some in. If you're 70, put more in. I don't want you to get out of common stocks, though.

39:03I only want some in bonds because once you do bonds, even though they can compound, you're never going to make enough money because our country is a rapacious capitalist place. And you will not, if you start buying too many bonds when you're 50 or 60, have enough money when you get to 80 or 90. And don't bet against yourself. That's a card. They'll sit. Thanks again to all your club members. Look, I want you to join the club. Yesterday's meeting was really good. You've got to go back and let's do it. Thanks again to everybody. May the money's back. Coming up, you've got questions. Kramer's got the answers.

39:37Get charged up for a fast-fire lightning round. Next.

39:50It is time. It's time for the lightning round. It's time for the lightning round. It goes on. It's time to buy. Buy. Sell. Sell. No. Call. It's time. I stand for it. You plan. It's time. And then the lightning round is over. Are you ready? Steve Dax on the lightning round. Let's start with P.T. from American Samoa. P.T. Hey, Jim. Good news. I got Mark Sanchez in my fantasy draft this year. Mark Sanchez. Well, man, I tell you, you're a throwback. I'll tell you that much. I'll send you the jersey. His own. I got a sign one from that day. What's up? What's up is my best winner. Should I keep it? Sphere.

40:24S-P-H-R. Oh, yeah. Sphere is really, you know. I got to tell you, at one point I was telling the Dolans that they're not geniuses. I question that. I think Spears is amazing. Let's go to Anthony in my homestead in New Jersey. Anthony. Hey, Jim. Long-time follower. Love this show. Hey, quick question. I own Honeywell Aerospace. Should I buy, hold, or accumulate more? I can't counsel owning that because the fellow by the name of Jim Carter is the CEO. And he told Phil LeBeau three times that things were going quite well and they weren't. And I heard they were going quite well and they weren't. And so, therefore, I have nothing good to say about Honeywell Aerospace.

40:59Let's go to Brenda, California. Brenda. Hi, Jim. How are you? I'm good. How are you? I'm fine, thank you. I'm a club member. And I thank you so much for all you do to help us. Thank you very much. My situation, Jim, is I have a stock that was up 800%. It has pulled back to now. It's up 400%. The question is, should I ring the register and move on, or should I stick with it? The stock is at 11. Look, it can have a little bit of bounce, but the other big guys have come into that market, and that's why the stock's going down. I prefer you see it's down 51%. I prefer you to sell half now and sell half on the bounce.

41:44That's what I'm going to recommend to you. It's yesterday's story, so to speak. Hey, I'm going to go to Bill in Massachusetts. Bill! Hey, Jim, what do you think of Camco Corporation? I like your ADM. I like BWXT a little more, but I think that this Camco's for real. I really do, because I think we are going to embrace nuclear power. But it's a three to five-year issue. Remember that. Take three to five years before you see any real earnings. Well, they have earnings, but before you see any real growth in the industry. Let's go to Michael in Texas. Michael. Hey, Jim, my stock is in the hole. Should I stay or should I go?

42:17QSO. I am very surprised that Brad Jacobs is a winner. This is a loser. I don't think Brad, I don't want to give up on Brad, but I'll tell you, it's the same thing as Home Depot, except for Home Depot's got to yield. And people in the club who know, they feel like I'm wrong at Home Depot. QXO feels very wrong, but it's Brad Jacobs, and I don't want to bet against him. I want to go to Steve in Michigan. Steve. Dave, how are you? I am good, Steve. How are you doing? I'm good. Hey, Jim, I'm a longtime listener, first time caller. Okay. I accumulated large number of shares of this company through dividend reinvestment plan, made a purchase over a long period of time on a regular basis.

43:07Should I sell, continue to buy or hold Aflac? Affleck is not an expensive stock, and it doesn't have a killer amount of growth, but I don't think it has that much risk down here where it's basically unchanged. I think they're okay, not great, not bad in Affleck. And that, ladies and gentlemen, is the conclusion of the Lightning Round! The Lightning Round is sponsored by Charles Schwab. Coming up on the 25th anniversary of 9-11, Kramer's reflecting on the significance of that day. Next.

43:49Today we had two moments of silence for the fall at the World Trade Center and another moment of silence for those who were killed at the Pentagon on 9-11 25 years ago. It's visceral. As are the empty chairs for each person no longer with us placed in Bryan Park and the amazing nightlights that traced out the crushed buildings as if they were still standing. I salute all those efforts. They are sincere remembrances of all those who died that day. But they are not enough. I find myself wondering, why are we working today at all? Why three silent moments? How about a day of remembrance? When it first happened, we did our best to join together.

44:26Ever since then, we've read the names. We've offered beautiful commemorations. But a lot of time has passed, and a lot of people have passed on with them. Now, one third of the country was five years older or five years old or younger or not even born on 9-11. They can't or don't remember that day when America was attacked and thousands died. By the way, the people who died, they weren't soldiers. They weren't combatants ready for action. They were just regular people going to work on a beautiful morning and they lost their lives for that. Moments of silence and a reading of names just aren't enough to keep these people's memories alive.

45:01They don't fully reflect a gritty time when this nation actually pulled together. I'm concerned that we need to do more. We need to teach what happened that day to all those who will never know that anything happened at all. We need to have we need to have a day to ponder the horrendous nature of that attack. I know there's only one museum commendering 9-11, so you can't have thousands or tens of thousands of school buses arriving that day to go through the remarkable place. But if we had a National Day of Remembrance when schools are off, it would concentrate the mind. People would be drawn to downtown and to that incredible and incredibly sad museum to learn more about those minutes of terror.

45:40This is needed. September 11th changed everything. It will always be easy for me to remember. I was down here, close to the site, on lockdown, waiting to get out lest we be hit next. When security let us out, the towers had fallen. The sky was dark and it was snowing. Of course, the sun hadn't actually set. It was black smoke that blew away. The snow? Partially incinerated research notes. I held my hands out and caught some pieces of Dean Witter research. I didn't know what else was falling from the sky, but I had a sad feeling about it. As the fire department led me to the East River, where I'd be checked for medical issues, I trudged through three inches of that artificial snow.

46:20I never shined those shoes again. Back then, my family was living in Summit, New Jersey, a town that 60 Minutes profiled as among the hardest hit from the day's events. I coached kids who lost their dads. My daughters knew the children of too many fathers that never commuted home. We won't forget. The proximity to the events made it easy not to forget. But it's hard to imagine how, without a day of remembrance, the 114 million people who don't have any firsthand knowledge of 9-11 will ever fully get their heads around it or know anything about the how and why of Americans were attacked. That's why I think we need a day where people can learn about it.

46:59Make everyone in the country aware of that. Urge people, young people to come here to the museum. Learn what happened. Without that federal holiday, I fear that one day the cataclysm will be forgotten. The day will no longer live in infinite. There will be little difference between September 11th and the 10th or the 12th. We need to be better people than that. I like to say there's always a bull market somewhere, and I promise you I'll find it just for you right here on Mad Money. I'm Jim Cramer. See you Monday. Thank you.

47:58he 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. This episode is brought to you by Schwab Market Update, an original podcast from Charles Schwab. Schwab Market Update, an original podcast from Charles Schwab, provides an information-packed daily market preview on stock updates, U.S. and global economic news, monetary policy decisions, and key results and statistics that may impact your trading.

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