Mad Money w/ Jim Cramer 04/17/25
43:01 Share

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Hey, I'm Kramer. Welcome to Mad Money. Welcome to Kramerica. Other than my friends, I'm just trying to make you a little money. My job is not just to entertain, but to educate, to teach you. So call me at 1-800-743-CNBC. President Trump, what took you so long? This man went almost 100 days before he finally said he'd like to see Fed Chief J. Powell ousted for keeping interest rates too high. I thought he would have done it weeks ago.

Of course, it's illegal for him to fire Powell as the Fed's an independent agency. But it certainly sounds like the White House wants more control over the Federal Reserve. I guess this was expected because it didn't really have much of an impact on the stock market. Dow seeking 527 points. Hey, that was a huge chunk of it explained by a shortfall from United Health. While the S&P advanced 0.13 percent and the Nasdaq declined 0.13 percent.

The fact is, the president wants lower interest rates to help offset the pain from higher prices that are going to be caused by the tariffs. But higher prices represent inflation. The Federal Reserve never cuts rates when inflation is out of control.

which it very well could be once the tariffs are all in. I think the Fed chief wants to find out if that's going to happen. I like Powell. You know that. I think he's generally done a good job. Good public servant. Unfortunately, now he's stuck between a rock and a hard place. Now, history says he should be doing exactly what he's doing. But history is now in the eye of the beholder. And there's only one beholder in this whole country. And it ain't Jay Powell. Hey, with that in mind,

That's about as political as I want to get. Believe me, I'm getting real tired of this political stuff. Let's talk about the game paper for next week. Good. We're talking stocks. That's what I like. Now, we're getting right into the thick of Ernie's season. And that means snap judgments, Washington overlaid on Wall Street. The roar of the grease paint, the smell of the crowd. Yeah, it's still that kind of kind of weekend.

When I look at it, it's very daunting, frankly. I can't see everything I'm doing every night next week and the week after because you can't do a good job if you're me. Now, it all starts with the banks, specifically two really incredibly boring banks, Comerica and Zions Bank Corp. Now, both are considered suspect. They have high yields. You can tell that.

But the banks have been outstanding in this environment. No tariff exposure, low charge off decent loan growth, and hopefully some boost from deregulation down the road, which is what a lot of people voted for President Trump for. OK, now to me, though, the bank don't.

is on Tuesday. That's Capital One, which you probably know from the credit cards. Capital One is the last resort credit card for people who have a hard time getting credit. They've mastered the business of lending to the less credit worthy, and now they're trying to acquire Discover Financial, a competitor that also owns a payment group. Now, we own this one for the trust, and I can't wait for this deal to close. Talk about deregulation, please, because Capital One plus Discover could put up a real fight against many of the credit card companies, but also Visa and MasterCard.

One relative bright spot in this market has been aerospace. An airplane engine maker, GE Aerospace, reports. They had great grass margins last time. They report Tuesday. This has been a huge winner since the old General Electric started its breakup over two years ago. That's Larry Kolbs been engineering that, and he runs GE Aerospace. It's one of the largest backlogs in the business. Tremendous visibility into its outlook. We don't see any reason why that changes now. They have a terrific business that is just in repair and remodel.

I've been liking the defense stocks lately because if our trading partners want better treatment from the Trump administration, the traditional go-to move is to go buy some planes and go buy some military hardware. Northrop Grumman, RTX, and Lockheed Martin all report on Tuesday morning. I think each one can be bought, but let me tell you something right now. RTX is the one that's the best of the lot. People love the soft goods today. They like Procter & Gamble and Colgate, right? I say take a look at Kimberly-Clark.

it's really gotten its act together under CEO Mike Shue. I don't think people realize that. They ought to. Now, no earnings season is complete without Tesla. OK, it's kind of like Netflix. Yeah, great number of Netflix. No kidding. People keep talking about how Tesla needs to redefine itself as a technology company replete with life-size robots and a game plan for the national rollout of self-driving cars. Without that, this is just some struggling EV play. Elon Musk, bring on the humanoids. It's their time.

Give him a break. Wednesday is a nightmare. It starts off with ATT, which I still think will have one more good quarter. After stumbling initially, it's now one of the strongest stocks in the entire market. Then we have pretty much the opposite with Boeing. Now, I want to own this stock because nothing cures a trade deficit faster than buying dozens of airplanes from Boeing. That's assuming most countries decide to play nice rather than antagonizing the White House. Just one problem. Boeing has a hard time making planes, so its cash flow is weaker than I'd like. But if they can cure it, you'll have a buy.

I want to see the cash flow. I have told Jeff Marks that if the cash flow here is turning up, then you must own the stock of Boeing. Now, not that long ago, everyone was jazzed about the prospects of GE Vrnova. That's the old General Electric Power Division.

These days, it's essential to build out the electric power for the grid, which no longer has enough juice to fuel and cool all these data centers. Of course, the moment the data center stocks went out of style, Gia Vernova got hit. It's still up nicely versus last year, but without a recognition that the data centers continue to be built, this stock could languish.

People have cooled on the stock of Chipotle with the excuse that it's too expensive to give you the same huge same store sales numbers that we used to have. I disagree. Have the critics even tried the new Chipotle honey chicken limited time only option? I think Chipotle could ignite here when it reports after close. I usually split it right in half. OK, when I do at lunch, I save the rest for dinner. I ate the whole honey chicken. I shouldn't have done that. It made me too full for dinner. OK, now here's an intriguing one. People are concerned about

about service now alright is enterprise software powerhouse has too much government business at a time when doge doesn't like paying consultants from what we can tell that's one reason why the stocks down 27 percent for the year now I am betting its CEO Bill McDermott many people say best in the business is going to prove these people wrong when service now reports after the bill matter of fact I'm counting on the company to be able to do better than expected alright that's what I see anyway

One of the most reliable companies reports on Wednesday, and it's usually greeted with a burst hire. That's IBM. Ever since the spinoff of Kindrel, the legacy business, this thing's been hunting as a consultant. They've been winning a lot of contracts, lucrative ones. I like that. I like the stock. Now, there's been an awful lot of talk about how much tech we sell into China, right? And when it comes to American-made technology, intellectual property, it doesn't get any better than Lamb Research, the seven-decker capital equipment maker.

Lamb's so good, but it's already had to take a hit in the Chinese business. The government didn't like how much they were selling. Kind of like what NVIDIA's doing. Wow. I told you about NVIDIA. What can I say? Will Lamb be hit again? Look, our government's eviscerated Lamb's China business once already. Can it do it again?

Does whatever it wants, doesn't it? Now, we had a rotation of the soft goods going on today, and I don't know if it's going to last. But if it does, then there is a chance that Procter & Gamble will, when it reports, blow the numbers away. By the way, they really benefit from the weaker dollar. I know all the buzzing heads say, listen, weaker dollar bad.

But again, as I will emphasize almost every night because they keep emphasizing it, it's good for our companies. We're going to hear from PepsiCo. That's going to be a tougher lift. They used to be recession resistant, but Procter's a lot of business in China. PepsiCo's got potato chips that become too expensive. The airlines, they've been a mixed blessing between Delta, bad, United, good, the weak and the strong, which is Southwest and which is American. I think they're in the Delta camp, but their stocks are cheap. They may not stay that way.

After the close, we have a very compelling note. We get results from Alphabet, and I'm not sure how the core Google business can be doing if people are starting to use Chak-T-B-T, Grok, Claude, and even Alphabet's own Gemini, although I used that last. There's too much cannibalism here.

At the same time, the company was just dealt a severe legal defeat in its ability to handle both sides of the advertising business. Tonight, we have on the former Justice Department lawyer who originally brought the case to help figure out what this all means. I am sure Alphabet will tell us not to worry. They always tell us not to worry. You know, when people tell you not to worry, what do you do? Exactly. All right, now here's what you need to know.

You can't model the advertising gross margins in 2027 because of that lawsuit loss. So if you can't model 2027, then you can't model it. And now we discover why it sells at 16 times earnings, because it may be expensive. Next, T-Mobile. Listen to this. It's been roaring again. It's the most aggressive of the phone companies. T-Mobile has

excellent deals to get an iPhone. Go to Costco if you want to. That's where I got a really good deal. But you've got to switch, of course, out of Verizon. Now, as long as Mike Siebert is running the show at T-Mobile, T-Mobile's got it.

Now, people want gold stock, right? I got one. I got the only one you need. It's an Eagle Eagle. It's the best. It has the highest quality of ore, and mine's in North America, which, last I looked, is a lot safer than a lot of other places. On Friday, we have two recession-resistant stocks. And historically, they've done really well, Colgate and AbbVie. The last time Colgate reported, it was only fair to Midland. They don't do fair to Midland twice in a row, so that stock's going to do well. AbbVie stock is volatile, but when it reports, you typically see some really good numbers that send it back towards its 52-week high. I would buy the stock of AbbVie.

heavy ahead of the quarter. I wish I owned it for the trust. I'm trying to figure out whether I should buy still one more drug stock for the trust. But we got a lot of drug stocks. Here's the bottom line. I know it's supposed to be a terrible time, right? I mean, like, whoo, scary. But I don't know. The companies themselves, they keep delivering and delivering. And you know what? I don't think next week's going to be any different. Hey, why don't we go to Amy in California? Amy. Hey, Jim. Thanks for taking my call today. I'm glad you called. What's going on?

I have a question about Nike. I bought it six months ago. It's tanked ever since. And I'm worried about what's going to happen with the new tariffs and with the import and export with China. Well, I'll tell you, you got Elliot Hill there. He's an old hand.

You have a 2.8% yield, but it is China. The stock's still $82 billion. Maybe it shouldn't be $82 billion. I think the stock's going to do very little. We own Starbucks for the travel trust, and a lot of people feel that's the same way. And I think Starbucks is a better company than Nike. So just understand that if it's got China in it, people just say, so-so-so-so.

And then there's nothing more to say. All right. Markets are volatile and there's a lot of political rhetoric to parse. And I can't stand that. But companies seem themselves keep delivering. And I like that. Oh, man, money tonight. Fresh off an antitrust loss for Google today. I'm getting to an expert read on the ruling with the guy who actually did the government side. Attorney General Assistant Attorney General Jonathan Kitter. He's a former, though, and now he works for CBC.

Don't miss his take on the case. Plus, Abbott bucked the market trend today. Eddie in the green after most yesterday, but I'm writing about it today. I'm checking up on the health care stock to see if it has more growth ahead. And later, I'm sitting down with the CEO of Snapple, an old friend of the show, to hear how businesses are bracing for future tariff impact and whether we still know how to make things in America. So stay with Paymer.

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Earlier today, a federal judge in the Eastern District of Virginia ruled that Google holds illegal monopolies in publisher ad servers and ad exchanges. This is the second major antitrust loss for Google in the past year, as a separate federal judge ruled that they've been exploiting their dominance in online search to crush the competition last summer. The immediate impact wasn't that wild. Google's parent alphabet only dropped 1.4 percent. Some of its competitors put up big gains. But the longer term implications here are enormous.

We've got two different federal courts ordering Google to either sell assets or change its business practices. It's not a good sign for the company that they keep losing these antitrust cases. Fortunately, tonight we have the perfect guest to walk us through this. CNBC contributor Jonathan Cantor is the former assistant attorney general for the antitrust division under the Biden administration, who originally brought this exact case against Google. Mr. Cantor, welcome back to Mad Money.

Great to be back with you, Jim. Well, it is terrific to see you, Jonathan. I think if you don't mind, could you walk us through what happened here? Because this was a huge victory. And a lot of times Wall Street doesn't seem to understand how big something can be. This is an enormous victory for the Department of Justice and state attorneys general. Essentially, when we think about advertising, people people often think madmen.

But it's actually more like an equities or commodities exchange. People buy and sell ads the way they would stocks or commodities. And the allegations here were that Google represented the buyers, they represented the sellers, they owned the ad exchange, they bought and sold on their own ad exchange, and they manipulated markets. And the judge agreed with us.

Well, if that's the case, anybody who used their exchange, I think is aggrieved and has a right to be able to get some money back. This is the consequences here are enormous. So let's think about publishers, people in the news industry. They create original content news to work really hard to bring information to society. And they need to monetize that through advertising. They rely on this infrastructure that Google provides.

And today the court concluded that they have been wronged and that publishers are making less money because Google has monopolized the advertising infrastructure and machinery.

Well, it's pretty clear that until this, I think a lot of people didn't realize that if Google took both sides, they can pretty much hide how much they make if they want to. I'm sure hides a pejorative. They can make as much as they want, basically. But if there were two different representatives, one representing the publisher and one representing the advertiser, the publisher would get a fairer price and the advertiser could get a fairer price. But the only people get fair price right now is Google.

It's common sense, right? The buyers are using Google as a representative. The publishers, the sellers, are using Google as a representative. Google's coming up with the algorithms that determine the terms of trading. And then they're buying and selling on their own market in order to pump or de-inflate or deflate demand or supply at any given moment in time. These are basic principles that were violated, and the trust of the industry has been violated. But Jonathan, I would think...

everyone's just saying, oh, big deal, doesn't matter. But when I think about it, one of the remedies could be that Google can only be on one side. If that's the case, then Google is much less lucrative a company.

That's exactly right. And it's important. You mentioned in your opening, Jim, that this is now the second case in less than a year that the Department of Justice won to find that Google has violated the antitrust laws as a monopoly in advertising. The first case involves search advertising. This case involves advertising everywhere else on the Internet.

Where does Google make money? Advertising. It has monopolized the antitrust cases here go to the monopoly around Google's core businesses, the core businesses that generate revenue advertising. The remedies in both of these cases are going to deal with advertising. I think that there are a lot of people who are pretty jaded. They've seen court decisions and the court decisions don't really impact anything. Or in the end, hey, listen, the company's worth more.

That's an in the end situation. I looked at this and I said, now, wait a second. Google is an immensely lucrative company, but it is, according to the other decision, a monopolist. And in our country, you are not allowed to be a monopolist, which does not mean, therefore, let's find even more ways to have you make money. It means that we're going to punish you.

Well, this is about exploitation of that monopoly power. And so Google not only illegally maintained its monopoly, but it used that monopoly to screw over others in the industry.

And the interesting thing here, Jim, is now this is the third antitrust case in a row that Google has lost. There's a search case that we brought at DOJ. There's the ad tech case that we just won today. But right before that was a case that Epic Games brought against Google for abusing its app store and overcharging developers. And it lost that case, too. Now, I've studied antitrust with Phil Reed, a smart fella, which you are still with us. But more importantly, I've read the book about about about Standard Oil.

And I've read Tarbell. But, of course, I've read Chernoff.

And one thing is certain, that when you're a monopolist, you drive others out of business. It's not just that you get it and it's like really terrific because you earned it. It's because you drove others out. I question, has Google driven or almost driven many companies out that did a lot of things, both publishers and companies that tried to help publishers get the best amount for the writer's work?

That's exactly what happened in this case. So Google monopolized the exchanges and the tools that publishers rely on to make more money, that advertisers rely on for fair dealing. Right. This is so in the result of that. And this is something we're seeing throughout the economy, frankly, is these intermediaries, these middlemen are grabbing out more money out of the system. And the people who actually make the products, in this case, news publishers,

And other content providers are getting less for their return on investment for their original content because the infrastructure is being monopolized and they're being overcharged and underpaid. Now, Jonathan, one of the things that happened are companies that do represent one side.

Their stocks went up. And I wonder whether that's in part because maybe there are some people who are recognizing, hey, maybe we're being ripped off. I mean, no judge would rule in favor of the government unless they thought that we were being ripped off.

Yes, somebody's ox is always being gored in an antitrust case. And so who is being harmed here? Well, it's the entire ecosystem. It's the inability of publishers to get a return on investment. It's the inability of other ad exchanges who might want to offer better matching, better services at better prices, which the court found being excluded from the market, which the court found they were. And then, of course, it's the opportunity for advertisers to get access to all that infrastructure.

That's real harm for real people. Think about advertising, again, whether it's search advertising or others. It's actually one of the most significant costs for most businesses. Lead generation online advertising, it's for all businesses, not just online businesses. The corner store needs search and display advertising in order to drive people to their shops.

This is one of the most significant costs for businesses and one of the most significant costs in our economy. And this case is really important to help reduce those costs and open the market up for businesses who want to innovate, compete and take advantage of advertising in order to drive customers. One last question. The cynicism is just so rife.

I heard over and over again, well, it's a justice system. It's going to be years. It's going to be maybe two. You're not going to have to even worry about it. When I read the decision and the previous decision, by the way, I didn't feel that way at all.

I felt that there might be some expedience here because of the harm and because the idea is sure you can appeal, but the justice system doesn't always crawl. Sometimes it acts with alacrity. Is there a chance that this goes faster than the cynics think?

Absolutely. So sometimes the wheels of justice move at the speed of a Pinto. This case moved at the speed of a Ferrari. We filed it in January 2023, and now we have a decision here in 2025, and we're going to move to remedies. The remedies in this case, as well as the search case, are going to be forward-looking in nature. They're not going to deal with the market as it was when the case was filed.

but it's going to deal with the market as it exists today and will exist in the future. That means the infrastructure for selling advertising against AI, for example, is going to be highly relevant to formulating the remedies in this case and hopefully will create opportunities for new businesses, new technologies, and new innovations to monetize AI through advertising through means other than Google. I've just got to ask you one last thing.

I've been following the career of Mr. Vance, Vice President Vance. He completely agrees with your view from what I understand. And I wanted to know, people should know that this new Justice Department isn't going to walk away from this. They actually share your orientation.

Yeah, well, I certainly wouldn't speak for this Justice Department, but I will say that so far all signs are that this Justice Department and this administration will continue to support the work that we've done. I will say when I was in my job at the U.S. Department of Justice, I received bipartisan support for antitrust cases. There is wide recognition across the political continuum that if we believe in capitalism, if we believe in businesses and markets, we need to have lines on the road. We need to have

opportunities for new businesses, old businesses, and everyone in between to succeed. The antitrust laws do just that. Well, I want to thank you, Jonathan, for explaining to people. There are way too many people who don't understand the importance of this. Now, I will confess, I mean, as the person who started thestreet.com, I saw this happen, never thought that the government would ever figure it out, didn't know that the government could be smarter than the people who are doing this. Jonathan Cantor is the former assistant attorney general for antitrust at the

Department of Justice, and I am proud to say he is now a CNBC contributor. Jonathan, thank you so much for being on the show. Thank you, Jim. Great to be with you. Absolutely. Mad Money's back after the break.

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As you know, every day we're staggering our way through this brave new world, searching for stocks that can work under the new tariff regime. It ain't easy. But if you look hard, some stocks are genuinely working here. And I bet many of them are going to keep working. I want you to consider longtime Kramer fave Abbott Labs, which we own for the Charitable Trust. Yesterday, Abbott reported an excellent quarter, one that was strong enough to send the stock up 2.8 percent, even as the broader market got poleaxed.

It didn't even matter that management refused to raise their full year forecast, citing tariff uncertainty. At this point, the stock's now up almost 16 percent for the year versus roughly 10 percent down for the S&P 500. I'm glad we stuck with this one for the trust, because after spending a few years lost in the wilderness, Abbott stock plummeted.

is on fire again. Now, this is a medical technology company best known for its cardiovascular, diabetes, and diagnostic franchises with smaller neuromodulation and generic drugs and also a nutrition business. Now, we owned Abbott for the Charitable Trust from February of 2018 to March of 2022. That was a terrific position. Their diagnostic tests sold like crazy during the pandemic. But then

decided to ring the register on this one as cove faded from the headlines another really good call stock then tumbled in 2022 before languishing for almost the entirety of 2023 now we finally circled back to abbott labs for the travel trust at the beginning of last year because the company had gotten over its post-covet hangover and its corpus never really deteriorated in the first place unfortunately the abbott story got totally hijacked again last year by what should have been at most a minor subplot

Around this time last year, we started seeing lawsuits against Reckitt, Benckiser, that's a European company, and then Abbott Labs over a specialized type of premature baby formula. Planners claimed that it was causing a rare, potentially fatal disease called NEC. Terrible. And they won the first couple of court cases. I don't want to get too deep in the weeds on this one, but this was actually...

Quite frankly, insane. Every major regulator and medical organization said there was nothing wrong with these baby formulas. And this was a tiny business for 9 million in revenues, something they only made because it was so essential for the health care system. They kind of did it.

I don't want to say it's like pro bono. It feels like a law firm. How about that? Thankfully, this issue started to fade away last fall when Abbott won its first big jury decision for one of these trials. While the litigation scared some people away, the actual position was terrific with tremendous strength in medical advice, especially for cardiology and diabetes care. My thesis on Abbott Labs has always been that the fundamentals are great, but there always seemed to be some distraction that made things tough to own. Now those distractions, gone.

When we last spoke to CEO Robert Ford in January, he told a great story of how the company's invested heavily in R&D and manufacturing, while also returning an enormous amount of capital to shareholders. Classic Abbott. He sounded very, very confident about Abbott's prospects. About a week later, we found out why. As the company reported, a solid quarter with strong four-year forecasts. The highlight was organic growth. So hard to find these days in the drug companies.

Abbott delivered better than expected 10.1% organic growth ex-COVID, guided for 7.5% to 8.5% organic growth for the year ahead. The stock rallied in response, reaching fresh three-year highs. And as the broader market-wide sell-off got rolling in late January, more and more investors piled into safety stocks like this one. Abbott's a textbook recession play because their medical technology sells just as well on a bad account. If you need this stuff, you're going to get it regardless of the macroeconomic outlook. And besides, your insurance company is the one that pretty much pays for it.

Eventually, the stock got ever so close to a new all-time high, peaking at $141 and change in early March. That was a huge rotation that was going on. It's about a point away from its all-time high at the end of 2021.

After that Abbott pulled back a bit, in part because of tariff concerns, just like everything else in the market. That took the stock back down to 120 and change a couple of times earlier this week. And it sat at 126 as of Tuesday night, heading into the latest earnings report. So what did we learn yesterday morning when the numbers came through?

Well, first, Abbott Labs technically reported an oh-so-slate revenue miss. Bear with me here. Bringing in $10.36 billion, Wall Street was looking for $10.40 billion. Now, usually that's going to kill a stock, but this is practically a rounding error. And the entirety of the miss came from their diagnostics division. That's because of a larger than expected decline in sales of those COVID tests that you always see at the drugstore. At this point, I just want that business to go away, frankly, allowing investors to focus on the core of the company. One more point. Abbott

That took a big hit from currency fluctuations thanks to the strong dollar. But with the greenback getting weaker now, look out. That could be less of a problem going forward. In fact, I'm calling it a tailwind, a helpful breeze that will take numbers even higher. A lot of people on Wall Street don't understand that. And they're constantly chattering about how a weak dollar is bad. But that's because they don't know what they're talking about. And you're certainly allowed to not know what you're talking about and still be on TV.

Now, when you exclude COVID testing, Abbott put up 8.3 percent organic revenue growth, which was much better than expected. On top of that, all of their key profitability metrics exceeded expectations, including a two cent earnings per share beat off a dollar seven basis. Nice. Now, Abbott's largest segment, medical devices, led the way in the first quarter. Get this 12.6 percent organic growth. Other drug companies would kill for this.

With medical device, diabetes care put up 19.8% organic growth. Structural heart at 14.7% organic growth. Heart failure at 12.4% organic growth. Those are very strong numbers. In fact, other than diagnostics, which was weighed down again by the endlessly falling

COVID sales, all of Abbott's major divisions beat expectations and beat them big. While the companies declined to raise this four-year forecast, they mentioned on the conference call that they'd been planning to raise numbers before the big Liberation Day tariffs were announced and threw the entire economy into chaos. Given the tariffs, though, CEO Robert Ford felt that simply reaffirming the four-year guidance was already a pretty strong statement.

Plus, when looking at the potential impact from the trade war, Ford said that their damage from the tariffs would only be, quote, a few hundred million dollars, end quote. It just doesn't sound like it's a big deal to Abbott's business. That's what you need if you're going to stick and win in this environment. The weak dollar will be a nice offset. So let me give you the bottom line of this fantastic story for this particular moment. Despite the new mass tariff agenda from Washington, D.C.,

I'm feeling pretty darn good about Abbott Labs after these strong first quarter results. This was a name where we had to overcome some red hurries that shook a lot of people out of the stock last year. But we stuck with it for the travel trust because we had conviction in the strength of the core business. Now Abbott's become one of just a very few stocks that are working in this crazy market. And I bet it keeps working because Abbott's long been the gold standard, the paradigm for a great American company. And it's not too late to buy it.

I feel like taking some calls. I'm going to start with Jim in California. Jim. Hey, Jim. It's Jim from California. Hey, how you doing, buddy? I'm doing great. You know, I want to start by saying I really appreciate how pragmatic you are. You've cut through all the froth and you get down to the bottom line. You just say this is life and you got to deal with life. And, um,

I've been watching. Thank you. Not let my not let my poor 401k turn back into a 201k like it did during the financial crisis. We're going to help you. We're going to help you make sure that that doesn't happen. And we're going to do it a variety of ways. Sometimes we're going to say raise some cash. Sometimes we're going to say start. I don't buy that. It's too wild. It's too crazy. Sometimes we're going to recommend dividend stocks. Maybe that's too boring for people, but we're going to keep that from happening. How can I help you?

Well, I'm in the boring stock. I've been watching Pfizer go down from 60 down to about 25. And I thought one of my rules is never try to catch a falling safe. But this time I might have caught one around 25. I want to park some cash and just get a good dividend. Thinking Pfizer, all they do is keep increasing their dividend. But now it's down, you know, it's down more. Yeah, you know, this is a quandary. And I'll tell you what.

Dr. Borla is a terrific guy. He bought Cgen. I think it's going to be great. Right now, it's caught in a vortex where they can't seem to be able to produce things to offset things that are coming on patent. I want to stick with it, but that 7.7% yield is not a sign of strength. It's now a sign of weakness.

I'm feeling pretty darn good about Abbott after its earnings. I think this could be one of the few stocks that can actually keep working in these turbulent times. We've got much more money ahead, including my post-earnings exclusive with tool and equipment maker Snapple, and it wasn't a good quarter. Plus, after Trump's latest comments on Powell's tenure at the Fed, I'm looking at where the macro environment stands against the backdrop of uncertainty from Washington. Of course, all your calls rapid fire in tonight's edition of The Lightning Round. So stay with Crane.

All right, what is going on with Snap-on? Yes, Snap-on Incorporated, that's the maker of tools and diagnostic equipment for the auto repair business, along with agriculture, aviation, construction, and the military. I mean, the sporting step reported a tough one, a tough quarter. Sent the stock tumbling 8%.

culprit. Management blamed heightened economic uncertainty. In other words, just the jitters caused by the trade war already caused Snap-on to take a hit in the first quarter. The technicians who usually buy from them have apparently begun to pull in their horns, and the numbers they provided made me believe this is not just some excuse. It really happened.

This is a very important story. So let's take a closer look with Nick Pinchot, who hasn't been on the show in a very long time. He's the chairman and CEO of SnapOne. To learn more, Mr. Pinchot, welcome back to Mad Money. Thanks. Good to see you. Yeah, it's great to see you again. I want people to know at home that I've known you for 20 years, and you're a straight shooter. And so when I saw the numbers, I didn't think it was any excuse making. You really have a problem with people who are cash rich, but

confidence poor right now. The technicians are cash rich. They've been that way for a while. They were worried about the two wars, the tit for tat with China, the high prices, things like that, the border. And then what happened in the first quarter when the administration got in there, they started to see this rapid fire stuff in Washington. You know, the idea we're going to shake up the government. They want the government lower, but they're seeing everything changing. And they

then they hear Gaza and Greenland and Panama. And then, of course, the tariff bombs we've seen. And so you can see it in consumer sentiment. Consumer sentiment since December is down 30%. So what happens is you go into these garages and people are cash rich because the

because the people are still spending more money 10 percent more in the first quarter then than last year on our home repair and the household repair so they have the cash but the worried that boy this is like a Space Mountain is going left and right left and right left and right and it's going so fast it may go off the rails before they get to the final destination which they agree with me this I think you have to explain to people that the equipment that you sell is the best

But it's not cheap because the best isn't cheap. And sometimes people have to borrow money to get this. So it's not like they have to pay. They give a check and feel better. They have to borrow. And that is worse. Exactly. That's exactly what's happened. One third of our activity is for bigger ticket items. Like a tool storage box might be 10,000 bucks. Right.

A downtown billion record database might be $5,000 or $6,000 or $7,000. And so people finance that. So what happens in this uncertainty is that technicians say, wait a minute, the world may go off the rails. I don't have the cushion to survive that. So I'm going to pull back from the things I have to finance.

and commit to paying over three or four years i'm willing to buy the smaller stuff right that that maybe i can pay off over twelve weeks now it's not cheap either off a ratchet we have a hundred fifty but we we sell the best but people can pay it off over a hundred for uh... you know fifteen weeks and so that that com comfortable with that so our tools group has been pivoting provide more and more that more focus on the shorter payback items the problem was in the first quarter that spike in all the news the hits just keep coming from washington

raised the uncertainty and overran the progress the tools group was making. What surprised me is, given the fact that the tariffs are going to cause people to probably keep their cars longer, if I were in these people's shoes, I would be wanting to get as much good equipment as I could because I think there's going to be annuity stream from people who don't.

want to give... And I think when it calms down, that'll happen. It'll happen. That'll happen. Now, you look at our other two groups, the one that sells to repair shops, they had a boffo quarter. They were up and they set a record in terms of profitability. The group that sells to the commercial people like aviation and oil and gas and industry and mining and so on, they also had a record quarter. It was the tools group in the middle that sells to the technicians directly. You see, we call on a million technicians right away. Raw steel comes in the back of an American factory.

goes through there, forged in internet shape, heat treated to make it durable and flexible at the same time. A black art, by the way. We put it right into the hands of the end user. And that's the population we're seeing. Hey, I'm a little worried. I may be better pulled back. They're not so dumb. No, but if it was a more constructive view in Washington, I think they would not be...

Exactly. Exactly. They would get used to this kind of thing. That's one of the problems is, I mean, you think about it, you've got to believe that this is one of the most uncertain times we've seen in a long time in terms of the headlines. But there's also a lot of misinformation. You can help us. It is true. Maybe it takes a long time, although I know in Arizona it took three years, but they've got it. They can make semiconductors. But in fact, you guys have been making semiconductors.

really top-notch equipment, best equipment in your shops, in your factories for a long time. We can bring it. We can bring it. No kidding. This is the thing. I mean, look, here's the thing. I don't think we need the tariffs at all.

I don't think we need them at all. Really? You know, because after the pandemic, when Xi Jinping closed Shanghai and closed the ports, it interrupted this long and efficient supply chain, like putting a piece of dirt in a really tightly machined equipment, and it

screwed up the supply chain. So industrialists found then that we couldn't depend on those supply chains. They wanted to bring stuff back. Not enough workers. We need to upskill the workers. 500,000 manufacturing jobs open now. And then the regulation here piles on top of, on top, on top. And so the National Association of Manufacturers says that the average manufacturer pays $25,000 per year per employee on regulation.

if they ease those things, upscale the American workforce and start to talk like manufacturing people will come back. They don't need the tariffs. They should listen to you. And I'm glad that you're not that you speak the truth.

because sometimes people are cowed and yet the truth always wins out. One of the things I'll tell you is that we're not shaking in our boots over the tariffs because we already make here. The tariffs, if they keep the tariffs in place, it's going to be a race to kind of adjust. Well, our factories are already here. We have 15 in the United States. And here's the most important thing. We make almost everything, a version of almost everything we sell right here in America. So we have the know-how. It won't be three to five years for us, but for other companies, it will be longer.

You know, somebody tried to build hand tools, you know, try to automate it. People say it'll be automation. It'll happen quickly. That's wrong. Automation makes a startup harder. It brings productivity in. Right. And so we'll be able to we'll be able to have an advantage in the in the in the tariffs. We're not immune. We'll pay. No, but that's why I think, you know, I rarely see your stock down and I know you're stuck long enough and you long enough that

you buy when the stock goes down. You don't sell. One of the things I want to say before we leave, I want to say, look, people worry about bringing stuff back, but one thing they shouldn't worry about is the American worker. The American worker is not a question. The American worker is the answer. Thank you. Let's keep that in mind, everybody, including Washington, okay? Because we don't need all the rancor. The rancor is starting to really get under my skin. I hear you. All right. Nick Pinchik is a...

It's a real American, all right? You're chairman, president, and CEO of Snap-on. Hey, by the way, a dividend for how many years? Dividend since 1939. We have paid a dividend every quarter, and we have never reduced it. There we go. Mad Money's back after the break. It is time. It's time for the White House. It's time for the White House.

And then the lighting round is over. Are you ready to keep that done? Let's start with Brandon in Kansas. Brandon. Hey, Jim. How you doing? How you doing, buddy? With all the new movies coming out this summer and next summer, I was wondering if AMC Entertainment could get some more growth like they had back pre-pandemic. No. The answer is that they should have reorganized by now, and they haven't. They have way too much debt. I want you to stay away from that one. Let's go to Weston in Colorado. Weston.

Hello. Hey, Jim. Hey, Weston. How you doing? I'm Weston. And I'm doing pretty good. Good. Well, I just got a question about Cal Maine. I know that you almost... No, eggs have had their day in the sun. All right, let's go to Charlie in California. Charlie. Hey, Jim. So, I got an IPO. I released this week. Monster Spike is kind of settling down now. What do you think about Webull?

Wee Bowl is missing one word after bowl. I'm going to say absolutely no to that one. No, I'm not done. I guess I'm done. And that lays the conclusion of the lightning round. If we're going to recession, someone should tell all these people who are using their American Express cards they need to scale back.

amex reported today and while it didn't blow away the estimates it did put up excellent growth tons of travel entertainment spending as well as very few charges once again we saw hordes of young people taking down cards no doubt because of the ample perks and i was astonished at the lack of restraint these people show of course not everyone can get in a market's best card so it's not like we're looking at a great cross-section of the country but you have to be astonished at the contrast between the sheer level of negativity in the air and the ridiculously elevated level of spending at the cash register

I put all this positive out because it always helps to remember that as long as the markets have jobs and they remain in abundance, the idea of a recession might be a little further off than most journalists think.

Just saying it. Now, I know this time is a little different because we have no idea where the global trade war is headed. There's a real chance that it does a lot of damage to the economy. China's like a squid with its tentacles and everything from auto parts to rare earth minerals to anything made of plastic and almost all textiles. Very hard to wean our economy off that merchandise overnight. We're about to find out if people will keep spending as much on the American Express car when oil prices are higher.

Alas, there's a price to pay for tariffs, the potential cessation of international commerce. And that's what happened the last time he laid down big tariffs right before the Great Depression. Sometimes I think that Fed Chief Jay Powell is the only man in Washington who's read a real history of the worst financial disaster in the 20th century. And now President Trump wants to get rid of him.

When I grew up, which is now ancient history, we knew two names, Smoot and Hawley, whom all the teachers told you were stupid senators and a moronic representative, two knuckleheads who teamed up to help throw us into depression with a ridiculously high set of tariffs. And those Smoot-Hawley tariffs look relatively tame compared to the Trump tariffs.

So, call Powell worried. He's read the history. He knows his facts. So, I wonder if President Trump wants to fire him. Powell's considered style must just drive this man crazy. The fact that Powell wants to wait and see gives him the cachet of a Carole King, who should be recruiting too late baby in anticipation of the tardiness that Trump's complaining about. If I were Trump, I'd stop trying to fire Powell, which he can't do, at least not legally, and keep him around as a whipping boy if we really do go into recession. Hey, that's what Reagan did with Paul Volcker. It worked out great.

In the end, we all know that we could wake up and see someone else, maybe former Fed Governor Kevin Warsh, coming in earlier than Powell and installing himself behind Powell's desk and refusing to leave. Trump can then get, I don't know, Paul Weiss or any of the law firms he's rolled, have them sue Powell for trying to go to work. Then, boom, we got a constitutional crisis. I can see the Netflix stock. Two men enter, one man leaves. It's a master blaster Fed contest, televised, of course. Powell's a good man. Here's the thought. He deserves better.

I like to say there's always a bull market somewhere. I promise you I'll find it just for you right here on Mad Money. I'm Jim Cramer. See you Monday.

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