The bank stocks and the oil plays are so beaten-up that CNBC’s Jim Cramer can’t recommend them to investors, even as his positive long-term outlook for the sectors is still intact, he said Thursday.
“If you own the oils or the banks, it’s hard not to feel like an idiot,” he said Thursday on “Mad Money.” “There’s no catalyst in the near-term or medium-term future to change this.”
Right now, Wall Street is making the call to shed these stocks because with commodity risk, a potentially slowing economy and concerns around the yield curve, “the banks and the oils … have no natural defenses,” Cramer explained.
So, even though stocks like Goldman Sachs and Anadarko Petroleum are cheap considering their fundamental strength, he couldn’t tell investors to buy them now for fear of them being unable to make a quick comeback.
“Sure, the banks and the oils represent value here, but that doesn’t mean they’re going to go higher in the time frame most investors care about,” Cramer said. “It’s a question of opportunity cost: for the moment, there are so many other sectors with better prospects and beaten-up stocks.”
The economy is showing signs of weakness that should make the Federal Reserve think twice about raising interest rates after December’s widely anticipated hike, Cramer warned on Thursday.
“There’s enough conflicting evidence that the economy is slowing, perhaps even dramatically, that I think the Fed should wait and see before taking any additional action,” he said.
While U.S. employment is the strongest it’s been in decades, Cramer has also seen distinct signs of economic deflation, or when the average prices of goods and services fall. Generally speaking, the Federal Reserve’s task is to keep a lid on inflation, or the rise of said prices.
In recent months, Cramer noticed costs for various goods sliding in lockstep with recent declines in oil prices. Both home prices and home sales have also declined, often a “prelude” to a downward spiral of lower and lower prices, he said.
Still, with “incredibly low jobless claims,” rising employee wages and seemingly strong holiday retail sales, “it’s easy to see” why the Fed would greenlight one more interest rate hike, Cramer said.
“I’ll let the Fed give us the expected quarter-point hike next week, [but] it’s not ideal,” he said. “However, after that, they would be nuts to keep tightening, and even one more rate hike … could be the rate hike too far.”
Click here to read more.
With its acquisitions of Magento Commerce and Marketo, Adobe has officially become the “only” one-stop shop for both consumer- and business-facing enterprises, CEO Shantanu Narayen told CNBC on Thursday.
“When you think about what Magento does, it really completely closes the loop with respect to everything we’ve been doing for [business-to-consumer] companies in terms of having the leading commerce solution, and that’s off to a great start,” Narayen told Cramer in an exclusive “Mad Money” interview after earnings.
In its fiscal fourth quarter, the software giant generated year-over-year revenue growth of more than 20 percent for its digital media and digital experience segments and delivered slightly higher-than-expected top- and bottom-line results.
Magento, an open-source e-commerce platform on which businesses can build online marketplaces, exceeded Adobe’s internal revenue expectations in the few months since the deal closed, Narayen said.
Click here to read more and to watch Narayen’s full interview.
Even high-quality stocks can become victims of circumstance, Cramer said Thursday, as he reviewed the prospects for newly public Chinese music streaming service Tencent Music Entertainment.
A subsidiary of Tencent Holdings, a Chinese conglomerate made up of various technology and internet-related companies, Tencent Music went public in the United States on Wednesday in a highly anticipated initial public offering. It marked the biggest U.S.-based IPO by a Chinese company since Alibaba’s debut in 2014.
But even though the company raised more than $1 billion in its IPO, is showing “incredible” revenue growth and has an inexpensive stock, confusion around U.S.-China trade relations makes buying shares fairly risky, Cramer said.
“In a vacuum, Tencent Music Entertainment would be a screaming buy here. But in context? I’m going to give you my blessing if you want to speculate in the stock, just don’t put it in your retirement portfolio,” he warned.
Click here for his full analysis.
In Cramer’s lightning round, he fired off his responses to callers’ stock questions:
Edwards Lifesciences Corp.: “That is a fantastic stock, and it’s got, by the way, the best technology when it comes to the heart.”
Appian Corp.: “Good software. Good, good software. This is business processes and I do like it. Now, remember: all of these stocks have had big moves and they’re all coming down. It’s like Zuora – someone asked me the other day about Zuora – down a lot, subscription economy, I like it, I’m not giving up on these, but understand they’re houses of pain right now.”
Disclosure: Cramer’s charitable trust owns shares of Goldman Sachs and Anadarko Petroleum.
Questions for Cramer?
Call Cramer: 1-800-743-CNBCWant to take a deep dive into Cramer’s world? Hit him up!
Mad Money Twitter – Jim Cramer Twitter – Facebook – Instagram – VineQuestions, comments, suggestions for the “Mad Money” website? madcap@cnbc.com