Mad Money w/ Jim Cramer 04/22/25
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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 entertaining, but I'm trying to teach you. So call me at 1-800-733-CBC. Tweet me at Jim Kramer.

All day. All day I heard that today's rally was just a bear market rally, okay? There was a phony spike, and the market will go right back down the moment the president posts that there'll be no compromise on tariffs. Who knows? Maybe Fed Chief Jay Powell should be deported. We keep hearing that the Dow gained 1,017 points as we climbed 2.5%, and Nasdaq jumped 2.7% on a bogus set of facts about a possible deal with China. A deal that doesn't exist.

But then right after the close, we get incredible news that is sure to drive this market higher. The president said he has no intention of firing Fed Chief Jay Powell.

which, by the way, was the approximate cause of yesterday's collapse. Never will, Trump said about a prospective firing. Yes, he said he wants Trump to be more active about lowering interest rates, but so does everybody else. So now we have to ask ourselves, can we still call this a rally in a bear market? No, I think it's got to be at least something bigger.

Nevertheless, we have to ask ourselves, now that it's off the table, what can take us higher still after what we have to expect is a nice follow-through rally tomorrow, maybe tomorrow morning? First, of course, it's entirely possible we resume the decline after a short, sharp spurt higher on the welcome news of Palestine. That's what happened last time after we heard that there'd be a three-month pause on most of the tariffs. I don't deny it's a possibility, a very real possibility, because it happened before it was a fairly good possibility it could happen again and we might just go back down.

Second, though, there's a great misunderstanding about how real recoveries get started. They always start as bear market rallies, for heaven's sake. They're rarely based on hard facts. There's usually tremendous skepticism toward these advances because of previous failures that only the most bold or the most foolish catch the beginning of.

Now, look, just because the president doesn't want a constitutional crisis and is going to keep Powell doesn't mean we have more to go on. For example, there's been no sign of change from the administration on the trade wars. I mean, he's talking about maybe one of zero, maybe 45. I mean, he's not giving us anything beyond the amorphous close to our statement attributed to Treasury Secretary Besson that the China tensions are not sustainable. Well, that seemed almost cheesy in his prurient derivation.

But again, when you get this kind of rally, it doesn't happen because someone gave you the green light to start buying. You don't get a statement from the president that trade war is over and everything's back to normal.

By the time there's definitive proof, usually the rally's been going on for a while. Usually you've missed the rally. So what could happen positively? Again, this is still most likely a bear market rally, one that could be rolled back at any moment. There's still plenty that's wrong. But you know what? There have been many rallies that have started like this. After all, we've gone up 38,000 points since I first bought stocks 45 years ago. And during that time, we've had a bunch of bear markets that ended on nothing but a whimper or a whimper that only led to something bigger for graduating into a

full blown rally. Let's go over some of the clues to the next move because I think history is instructive. First, we've seen the headline in the journal, Dow headed for worst April since 1932 as investors send no confidence signal. Now, can we agree that as terrible as things may be, it's a long shot to repeat the Great Depression here? We put tariffs on countries that are higher than tariffs that partially led to the Great Depression. But man, we had 23% unemployment in 1932. And by the way,

You pseudo-historians out there, the market bottomed in the summer of 1932. So if you're going to start drawing comparisons, it means we could be headed for bottom now, even as it's covered with silt and can't be seen. Second, it's entirely possible that one of our trading partners actually blinks. Where is it written that every country on Earth, even Lesotho, will defy the president of the United States? Don't you think someone can't?

What happens if India orders 40 Boeing planes on top of those rumored fighter jets from Lockheed? What if Korea agrees to take only our natural gas and all of it? What if NATO decided to take every missile that RTX makes or perhaps some bigger European countries buy RTX's missiles and donate them to Ukraine, which could be hapless without them?

What if Germany announces it will close several of those gigantic Mexican car plants and open new ones, especially designed American industrial zones and specific red states that have higher unemployment? How about if Japan says it's totally agrees with President Trump and is willing to break down right now, right now, this minute for Tokyo Electron super plant in Dothan, Alabama, or perhaps Shreveport, Louisiana?

I don't think any of these are particularly likely, but if it only takes one, one of them changes the whole game. It will be this, not that. Like with the law firms, Trump only needs to roll one. Roll one, roll them all.

Third, we get actually some soft numbers, economic numbers. They would make it much easier for the Federal Reserve to, you know, cut rates. Weak unemployment. Hey, how about lower car prices? Stranger things have happened. Powell would take action. Fourth, say President Xi invites someone to China. Maybe Secretary of State Besant. Maybe Elon Musk.

I don't know, Tesla quarter here or there. OK, yeah, I got that out of the way. And the situation is so out of control that maybe he says, you know what? Instead of this, let's go for this. OK, because we're obviously at this point headed for some sort of confrontation and it won't be about trade.

Is this possible? Musk has been there plenty. He can be he can ask about Tesla and then come back with something positive about trade. If China is willing to come to the table, it's important that President Trump not gloat that we can't have that. You got to say you got to say face got to China say face. I mean, it would be hugely positive for China to get rid of these tariffs. I'm sanctioning the president to say to she that he has finally chosen to get breaded up.

But that's about as outrageous as I'm willing to accept. I mean, Musk can be the man to get it done, though. I mean, who doesn't want to be the man? I want to be the man. Fifth, in the next 30 days, we could see five big mergers and five big IPOs because this drives bill has now gotten ridiculous. In every case, the sellers have come to their senses and recognized that they aren't going to get what they want. OK, they can't always get what they want, but they can get what they need.

Totally reasonable. Hey, we just need five of each, OK? I mean, that would do it. I'm telling you, that would do it. Business as usual. Six, perhaps oil truly does crash. Why not? Who's to say it can hang on at this level? The president can threaten to do something to the major Middle East producers that we don't even know. And next thing you know, we're flooding the world with crude and it drops to 30%.

At 30, the Fed has the flexibility to cut rates. And now the pal's back in the president's good graces. I mean, wow, you know what? He probably wants to do it. I think that the long rates set by the bond market will go down if the short rates get cut, if oil collapses. OK, now notice I'm not even calling for a return of the mag seven remake. I'm not saying the data center is alive and well. I'm not saying that Tesla shouldn't be up 11 or 12. And it is.

I'm not calling for Temu to start advertising again. I'm not asking for ByteDance to be sold to President Trump so he can dole it out to followers on True Social. None of that has to happen for this market to start running. Not one bit. But the bottom line, I just gave you six potential positives, and you only need one of them for everything to start getting rolling. And this will be counted as a real rally and no longer dismissed as you know it was all day today. You heard it. You heard it. You heard it. I kept saying to my guys, hey, I was saying, hey, come on, Dylan. They could be real. And again,

And it's real. What are the chances that all six of my ideas go wrong? Inconceivable. Sooner or later, somebody's got to blink. All right? Doesn't matter who. And when that happens, we'll be in much better shape. And you're going to be hearing not this, but this. Philip in New York. Philip.

Yes, yes, Jim, a big Irish booyah for you over here from New York State. Good afternoon, and how are you? I got a question for you. I am doing fine, thank you. The president of the United States is going to stay. Tesla's up big. I mean, what is not to like? Okay. Listen, I got to love it. I got a question for you. UPS. UPS is actively expanding their global operations and investments in their network, making enhancements to facilities all over the world.

all the way across Asia Pacific and Europe. These were strategic moves that were made by UPS. Jim, I've been in this stock strategically placed, very nicely placed for the last 18 months. However, my backside has a little rug burn on it from the slide that it's been doing. Well, look, I think that, you know, rug burn aside, and by the way, I like Mohawk carpet on that.

I do think that you're going to run into a little trouble because world trade is not what we think it is. And look, I really like FedEx and I'm not just sitting here pounding the table from FedEx either. So we've got to be careful. But I appreciate your call. We've got to be careful. Let's go to Thomas in Minnesota. Thomas. Yes. Good afternoon, Mr. C-Notes. Hi, what's going on?

I'm just curious on your thoughts on if Target is financially healthy enough to be invested in at this time or... Well, it's down 30%. It sells at 10 times earnings. But the tariffs are going to hurt it. And I think their pricing is not reasonable enough.

And that makes me reluctant to pound the table. I've got a lot of stocks where there's questionable stuff and I can't pound the table on them. If anything's questionable, everybody's got to be totally buttoned down. But I got to tell you, I see the Tesla's rallying and that can really help.

And along with that, obviously, if Powell stays, we're going to have a hard time keeping to call this a bear market rally. And the people, by the way, who said it was a bear market today, they are going to look very funny and they better wear some bear suits tomorrow. Every rally has to start somewhere. Sooner or later, someone will blink and then we'll be in much better shape. And you know who blinked tonight? President Trump.

I'm everybody tonight. After a jam-packed morning of aerospace and defense reports, I'm taking a closer look at the post-earnings action to see which stocks could fly higher from here. Then you called in, you put a small medical device player on my radar. I did my homework. I got a quick turnaround there. And, you know, it was like when I took the generals. I got a sumo in the generals. I performed absolutely nothing.

Later, Salesforce has been falling this year. I mean, but is that isn't that enough already with the falling? I don't know. Let's give a jingle to Mark Benioff. So stay with Kramer. Kramer.

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The U.S. and China are competing for global leadership. The country who wins will define the world we live in. U.S. international assistance is vital to our national security. It helps prevent terrorism and avoid costly wars. It fights diseases and saves lives. It helps keep America as the number one economy in the world.

U.S. international assistance protects our interests at home and abroad. If America doesn't lead, China will.

Coming into earnings season, I was feeling pretty good about the aerospace and defense industry. That's one of the few sectors that seem to be holding up just fine. The aerospace side has been strong throughout the turmoil of the past few months. Insatiable demand for new planes, massive industry backlog, make it easy to look past the near-term noise related to tariffs. On the defense side, it felt like the Trump administration had backed off on spending cuts at the same time that they're really leaning into geopolitical conflict.

But this morning, we got a big update when we heard from GE Aerospace, RTX, Lockheed Martin, and Northrop Grumman. And boy, I thought they were all over the place. Let me take you through them one by one. Let's start with the best, GE Aerospace, because that's the closest thing to a commercial aerospace pure play. It's got the least defense exposure by far. Not coincidentally, it's also the only one of these stocks that roared in response to earnings, jumping $10.83. That's more than 6%.

Even though GE Aerospace posted a small revenue miss, they gave you a monster 22-cent earnings beat off a $1.27 basis. Madden said the total order scooped 12% in the quarter. That's really good. The company reiterated its entire four-year forecast. Now, look, in a normal environment, really reiterating your outlook after such a big earnings beat would be considered to be, let's say, a big win, but nothing that would make you go crazy about it. This day is huge.

GE explicitly said that their outlook now includes the impact of the administration's tariff policies, including less air travel. Wow. Here's how GE Aerospace Chairman and CEO Larry Cole put it. Quote, the macroeconomic dynamics we are operating in today requires us to take a number of strategic actions, such as controlling costs and leveraging available trade programs.

Based on what we know today, these actions, along with our solid first quarter and commercial services backlog of over $140 billion, enable us to maintain our four-year guidance, end quote. Basically, GE held CERB. They delivered a solid beat for the first quarter and found a way to reiterate their outlook, which was good enough to send the stock up.

much higher unfortunately the market was less sanguine about another company i really like rtx the second largest of these four companies with a business that split fairly evenly between commercial aerospace and defense as with ge rtx had a solid early speed for the first quarter and unlike ge they were able to pair that with the solid revenue beat also like ge rtx reiterated its four-year forecast but there was a catch the company said explicitly that their outlook did not incorporate the impact

of the recently enacted tariffs, did not. Now, there's a world of difference between these two forecasts then. Reiterating your guidance without baking into the tariffs is a de facto guide down. Well, the conference call management went into detail about the impact of tariffs. They're talking about a potential $850 million hit to profits.

from the tariffs already in place. And then management added that these estimates don't include secondary tariff-related impacts, such as changes to customer demand. These secondary impacts are also pretty important, too. Personally, I like the first quarter numbers from RTX, and I applaud management for their transparency. But boy, oh boy, the market did not agree to that. RTX saw its stock fall $12.37, nearly 10% in response to the quarter this morning.

Wow. I got to tell you, I'm all over this one. I think there's more to it than that. I'm going to tell people, members of the club, that we may have a look at this one. Now, let's talk about the two pure play defense contractors, starting with Lockheed Martin. Coming in the new year, Lockheed was the poster child for worries that Elon Musk's Doge would make big spending cuts at Pentagon.

Things looked even worse after the Trump administration picked Boeing over Lockheed for the military's next major fighter jet program. That was a big surprise. But the stock stabilized over the past couple months. And this morning, Lockheed Martin managed to turn in a decent set of numbers. Clean top and bottom line beat. In fact, they earned $7.28. Wall Street is only looking for $6.34. That's magnificent.

Now, Lockheed Martin also reiterated his four-year forecast. But like RTX, Lockheed said their forecast, quote, doesn't include the evolving impact of tariffs or related recoveries. And, quote, at the same time, it also doesn't include new rules from the Trump administration that makes it easier to sell weapons to our allies. Initially, the stock reacted like RTX after a flat show up and it sold off and was down as much as 3.4%.

at its lowest around 10 a.m. But shortly after the conference call began at 11, Lockheed started to rally, turning nicely positive before finishing the day up modestly. I'd like to tell you it was something management said on the conference call that turned things around, and there were plenty of positives.

But I think the rebound had nothing to do with Lockheed specifically. See, shortly before the call began at 11, I reported to WIRE that Vice President J.D. Vance offered to sell India Lockheed Martin F-35s during a meeting with Indian Prime Minister today. If that comes to pass, it would be a nice order for Lockheed. I wouldn't be surprised if these fighter jets turn into a major chit in our trade negotiations with other countries. That's how it has worked historically in the past.

Finally, there's Northrop Grumman, which was the dud of the day, reporting a severe top and bottom line miss for the first quarter and cutting its full year earnings forecast pretty substantially.

Now, there's some important context here. Both the miss and the forecast cut were related to Northrop Grumman's next generation B-21 bomber program. They're taking a hit on the higher costs as they try to ramp up production. That said, even if you add that back, the impact from the B-21 charge, Northrop Grumman still would have missed the sales and earnings estimate. It just would have been a smaller disappointment.

These Northrop Grumman results simply weren't up to snuff. So the stock had its worst day since 2008 today, falling $67, or nearly 13%. This one's now in the penalty box. So what do you get when you put these four together? First, the commercial aerospace side of the industry still looks to be the better place to be. That's the GE aerospace side. Instead of the pure defense contractors like Lockheed and Northrop Grumman, RTX is somewhere in the middle.

But in terms of individual names, GE still seems very strong, given that it's been able to absorb the impact of tariffs and still expects to make its four-year guidance. RTX and Lockheed both had strong first quarters, but were less clear that they'd be able to make their four-year numbers if the tariffs remained.

Hey, by the way, despite the better performance of Lockheed today, I'd still lean toward RTX, of course, to choose between the two. I think the RTX got punished for being too transparent, which doesn't seem right. While Lockheed benefited from the potential India sales headlines, not the performance of the actual business itself. Then at the back of this group, there is this Northrop Grumman, which I wouldn't touch until they start putting up better numbers. I feel bad about that. I usually like a bargain like that, but it doesn't seem like a real bargain. Bottom line, so far it looks like aerospace is doing just fine.

Defense, a lot more questionable. Bad Money is back after the break.

The U.S. and China are competing for global leadership. The country who wins will define the world we live in. U.S. international assistance is vital to our national security. It helps prevent terrorism and avoid costly wars. It fights diseases and saves lives. It helps keep America as the number one economy in the world. U.S. international assistance protects our interests at home and abroad. If America doesn't lead, China will.

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EY, shape the future with confidence. So last night we got this call from Alex in Oregon. He wanted to know about a small medical device company called Lemaite Vascular. That's L-M-A-T for you, home gamers. I didn't know it. So I say I take a closer look and I'll come back with an informed answer. Turns out this stock's been an incredible long-term performer, climbing from the high single digits a decade ago to an all-time high of $109 last year. Although it's now pulled back to the mid-80s like a lot of other stocks.

Now, that certainly warrants a closer look, especially since this is a medical device play. And that's one of the few areas that can work in this tricky environment. Medical device makers are essentially recession-proof. And according to the biggest players in the industry, their tariff risks are pretty manageable. So let's talk about the major.

This company has been around for over 40 years, and it's now grown from a small family business into a $2 billion company that's a heavy hitter in several niche open vascular surgery categories. Originally, they got their start with the valvulatone. That's a device that makes it much easier for doctors to cut valves in your peripheral veins.

Very important for all sorts of surgeries. LeMay remains a dominant player in that business, although now they make many other devices and implants like carotid shunts, biologic patches, and various types of grafts and catheters. This company is the number one or number two player in nine of the 12 markets where it operates. That's incredible. I can't believe I didn't know that.

Basically, they've taken control of a bunch of niche surgical markets, and they don't have much in the way of competition. Now, that's how MoMate can consistently put up solid numbers. The company's guiding for 10% organic revenue growth this year, double-digit. Down a little bit from the past few years, but still pretty darn good.

LeMaitre is also nicely profitable and while their earnings haven't grown as smoothly as their sales, the numbers have still been trending higher. Last year, the company earned a record $1.93 per share, up 44% from 2023. This year, they're projecting a 16% earnings growth at the midpoint of their forecast. Really, really good. But let's talk about the not so good. LeMaitre operates in the open vascular surgery space, which is at best a stagnant category, maybe even a shrinking category.

All sorts of new technologies have made their products less important. Some analysts seem to think that they'll be ultimately fall by the wayside thanks to all these new minimally invasive devices for vascular surgery. But at least so far, that hasn't seemed to hurt LeMaitre's numbers. In fact, these guys have been aggressively growing their direct sales force all over the world. They keep buying local distributors for their products and getting a big boost to sales by running them directly.

That's given LeMaitre accelerating growth in markets like South Korea and Thailand, and they recently brought out their chest distributors in the Czech Republic and Portugal. I think they've been focused on international expansion because the new minimally invasive endovascular technology is much more popular here in the United States. The rest of the world still relies heavily on open vascular surgery, which is LeMaitre's bread and butter. Now, one reason this company has been able to grow is that they've had incredible pricing power. It's something they repeatedly boast about in their corporate materials.

Given that LeMay dominates multiple niche markets, it makes sense that they have a lot of bargaining power. It doesn't hurt that it's relatively easy for hospitals to get reimbursed for the stuff. Hardly anyone gets vascular surgery if they don't need it. But can LeMay keep pushing the prices higher?

Management believes they can, saying recently that they're in the sixth inning of the repricing story, although some analysts believe that the company might struggle to raise prices as aggressively going forward. Even if they do have to back off from these price increases, LeMay could keep growing via acquisitions. Over the past 17 years, they've done 24 deals, although most of them are very small. However, the company hasn't done much M&A since completing its largest deal ever in 2020. That was the $72.5 million purchase of Artogram, which gives them one of their top franchises.

Basically, this technology lets them transplant animal tissue into humans. I think LeMaitre's getting ready to make some more acquisitions again, especially if it raised $172.5 million last year via convertible node issuance.

How about their tariff exposure? Fortunately, LeMaitre makes his products here in the good old USA, mostly at his primary manufacturing facility in Burlington, Massachusetts. Now, maybe they'll face tariffs for some of their components, but the fact that the company makes its products here in the U.S. gives me hope that any tariff burden won't be too excessive. However, I'm not saying that about LeMaitre's exposure to China.

Greater than the entire Asia-Pacific region only makes up about 7% of their sales, but one of its top products recently got approved in China for cardiac procedures, and they're trying to get it approved for additional indications over there. Suddenly, it's very hard for American companies to sell anything in China with that 125% retaliatory tariff from the Chinese Communist Party. Given that much of their growth comes from overseas, the multi-front trade war is less than ideal for this company.

The last thing I'll say about LeMaitre is that the stock's on the expensive side, currently trading at roughly 38 times this year's earnings estimates. Looks pricey, but it's not actually that expensive for a medical device maker with decent growth. Intuitive Surgical, which just reported this evening, sells for nearly 60 times earnings.

Boston Scientific, long a favorite of ours, sells for 33 times earnings. So LeMaitre's at 38 times earnings doesn't seem all that unreasonable to me, especially when the stock's already pulled back dramatically from its highest last November. All things considered, I think that Alex in Oregon has a pretty decent fine here with this LeMaitre vascular. I like the space that the company plays in. I like its long-term outperformer with a stock that's meaningfully off its highs. I like the growth in the profitability profile. And I think there could be upside from additional M&A. Plus, given that the company itself is pretty small,

With its sub $2 billion market cap, it wouldn't surprise me if LeMaitre became a takeover target for some larger players in the industry. Bottom line, thank you, Alex, and thank you all of our viewers for putting LeMaitre on our radar. I think it's a quality company with a stock that could work here as long as you follow it very closely. I am impressed. Hey, speaking of being impressed, let's go to some more callers. Let's go to Jeff in California. Jeff.

Hi, Jim. Jeff from sunny San Diego, California. Great to be on. Oh, I love San Diego so much, Jeff. Go ahead. Let's go to work. It's beautiful here. Centene Corporation, CNC, with Michael Neidorf gone now. And I know he was a friend of the show. Yes. We're Centene-headed. It's range trading for some time now, nowhere near the analyst targets. Just get your thought on it.

Well, you know, like I heard today, Medicaid may be involved. Medicaid, Medicaid could be cut back. And that's not good for Centene, as I read it. Centene, though, sells at eight times earnings. I really think it's a gem of a company. But then again, as you say, I am biased because the late Michael Neidorf taught me so much about health care. But I'm going to say thumbs up to Centene at eight times earnings. Do we have time to go to Joel in California? Joel. Hi, Jim. Hey, Joel.

So I've been invested in this company for a couple of years now trying to get your take on Biohaven. Right. First, in pure disclosure, Biohaven, I'm working with them. They bought a drug from me that I made for me and a terrific guy, Larry Newman, Dr. Newman, to help biohazards.

solve tinnitus. So I always want to tell people that the stock at $21, I think therefore is too cheap. But you might say, oh, that's just Jim talking because he sold his drug to them. But no, I think the stock is very cheap. And Vlad Shorts, who's the CEO, I think is really terrific. So I would be a buyer of the stock. Now,

I like the medical device market right now, and I think this LMAT looks like a really good under-the-radar way to play it. Much more mad money ahead, including my exclusive with Salesforce. Here are the companies responding to the turbulent tape and to charges that it's not doing well. Then as earnings season heats up, I'm giving you my take on the latest tariff talk. It's pretty funny. And all your calls are having fun. It's just a little lightning round. So stay with Kramer.

It's been a tough year for the stock of Salesforce, not Salesforce itself, but the stock. It's down 27 percent for 2025. Now, some of that's because the company gave softer guidance than some analysts expected when reported in February. Some of it's because the entire enterprise software sector has been way out of favor. Hey, that's the way it is. Despite the free fall in the stock, that didn't stop some analysts like a D.A. Davidson from downgrading Salesforce on Monday to a sell. That sent the stock down 4 percent. It recovered a big chunk of it today in a good market.

But the hits keep coming. So we got to ask ourselves, is there any reason to get positive down here? And you know, my travel trust owns it. Let's check in with Mark Benioff. He's the co-founder, chair and CEO of Salesforce. Get a better view of the situation. Mr. Benioff, welcome back to Mad Money. Jim, it's great to be with you. I'm thrilled to be here. I miss you. It's been too long.

So, Mark, there is a perception that enterprise software is going out of style. There's also a perception that you are too far ahead of the world with agent force, which is obviously you're doing a lot with agentics. It's supposed to be the next big thing. But the next big thing seems to have soured on people. And I want you to put it in perspective. Are you neglecting the old business for the new or is it holistic?

Well, Jim, it has been an amazing six months since we first started talking about agents and agent force on this show. I think I might have been the first one to mention the word agentic and agents on Mad Money. And now you can see the whole industry is fast following us because we can see that agents are what AI was meant to be in the enterprise. And you're right, Jim. We have pivoted our company hard and fast, right?

to completely absorb agent force into all of our products. So now agent force is a core part of everything that we are doing. And of course, it's part and parcel with our data cloud as well, which has been our fastest growing product. And in the first quarter, you know, we gave our guidance about a month ago when we delivered our fourth quarter results that

that we had already seen that agent force and data cloud and AI was going to get into this incredible multibillion dollar revenue zone. It's really an exciting moment. OK, so, Mark, we we know some of that. We talked about Lenore last time and we know that we Formula One. But, you know, you've got some new instances, which I think are really, really important. For instance, we keep waiting. What happens if we call an airline? I don't want to be on hold for an airline.

And you've got an airline that a lot of people may not know, but it's got a huge number of passengers that has adopted this.

We've been talking about airlines going fast and furious in agent force. We talked about Singapore Air. In fact, David Faber and Sarah Eisen and I had dinner with Go, the CEO of Singapore Airlines, just a couple of weeks ago in Singapore when we were there for the CNBC conference. And what we heard from him was airlines are going to massively benefit. Of course, they've invested in our sales cloud and our service cloud and marketing. They've even invested in Tableau and they've invested in Slack.

But we've put agent force into all of those things, Jim. And now we're able to deliver an agentic layer on top of the airline. And the new airline that's doing that is that Finnair. And the cool thing about Finnair, Jim, which, you know, has about 11 million customers,

Well, they're having this great experience with their customers, but all of a sudden we got this great metric from them that their employees are onboarding 25% faster because the agents are able to augment the capabilities of the employees. So you get the employee capability and you get the customer capability. And that's not the only airline we have going. This is just a moment where

I think I mentioned we have about 5,000 customers all working at various levels of deployment of the technology. And yeah, we're starting to get these exciting new stories. Well, good example. I know that accountants are very concerned because a lot of their work is dull. OK, it's dull for them. It may not be dull what you need doing. And this 1-800-ACCOUNTANT is exactly what I was kept hoping that something that an agent could do for me.

Well, we just finished tax season and thousands of the customers of 1-800-ACCOUNTANT used AgentForce to complete their returns totally autonomously. No humans got involved. But of course, the power of AgentForce is that humans with agents can work together because our apps and our agents and our data cloud are all one unified platform. There's no more separation at Salesforce between all of these different things that we have. You saw last week in San Diego, Jim, we discussed that

At the Tableau user conference, we introduced the new version of Tableau, which is called Tableau Next. And that has Asian Force built inside it. It has our data cloud built inside it. But it also can run in Slack. It can run in our sales cloud and our service cloud as well. This is an opportunity where we've really been able to elevate the entire platform with this agentic capability. All right. So when I read a story of DA Davidson, don't know this fellow.

neglecting the core, downgrading to underperform. We see this as the year Salesforce completes its transformation from a SaaS pioneer to late stage technology company and perennial share donor. Well, I don't know who D.A. Davidson is and I've never heard of the analyst, but I can just tell you, Jim, that I've never been more excited about Salesforce. And I've never been more excited about agent force because we have never gone so fast in

from an idea, which was the idea was only about a year ago, to delivery where we delivered the actual code in October to where we have all these amazing customer stories. And, you know, one of those customer stories that we first talked about was OpenTable. Right. But just this week, they've now turned it on for consumers, not just for their employees. That is really exciting. So when we work with Glenn Fogle at Booking, we can show him we're going to deliver a new. So you're throughout his organization now? He's the biggest. Yeah.

We are working on really proving out that we can do this. And we've talked about these amazing customers who are deeply pioneering this product, like Booking, like Disney, like all of these great companies that are doing so many. And we're even starting to see some great international success, too. We saw...

Grupo Global, which is the world's second largest TV network, start to deploy agent force. And all of a sudden, they went from having consumers who had kind of these modest retention rates to increasing retention by 22% because the agents are able to directly work with the consumers when they're working to a tread or some other type of activity. And here's another cool story. Smartsheet, which is this great piece of software, actually use it. This idea is kind of a next generation spreadsheet.

They've built AgentForce, Jim, directly into their product. And their customers can not only do amazing things like, oh, reset my password or, hey, I need help on this. But if the customer wants to add users or increase or change their subscription with Smartsheet, it's all done now with AgentForce directly in the product itself. Pretty cool. So you look at these customers over time.

Well, you know what else I wanted, Gene? I thought that this was fantastic for information technology service management. You've not done it yet. Well, I just think that you're 100% right. Across the board, we are really seeing a huge shift into the importance of data. That is this idea that our data cloud is part and parcel with agent force. That's why it's our fastest growing product.

That's why we saw that as just like I said, the 120% growth that's shooting that AI and data segment with agent force into the multi-billion dollar category. We talked about it. The quarter was so huge, Jim, in Q4, that even though it was only on about six weeks ago, I think people might have missed.

We said we're going to do $40.9 billion in revenue this year. We're going to deliver $14.5 billion in cash flow. Our margins are increasing to 34%.

What other software company is doing more than, you know, 14 billion in cash flow? None. That's why I'm glad you came on. I'm glad you came on. It's ridiculous. And our customers look at us as keeping them at the very tippy top of technology. That is this idea that we have revved our entire platform. Very important. AgentForce is not some separate product, Jim. Right. That's what people are making it out to be. AgentForce.

These are people who do not understand our technology. Our apps, the data cloud, and the agentic layer is one piece of code. And that one piece of code now has the power of AI, data, and apps as one system. And that is what allows humans and AI and agents to all work together. And that is what is exciting. I'm glad you came on. I got tired of people saying that there's nothing new under the sun here. I know it's not true.

I've used it. I'm going to tell you a funny story. I got a text from Elon Musk. And Elon Musk said, hey, I'm looking at all these government contracts. You've got a lot of products at Salesforce. I said, I know, Elon. He's like, I thought it was just the sales cloud. I said, no. Slack? Yes. Tableau? Yes. MuleSoft? Yes. Service Cloud? Yes. Marketing Cloud? Yes. All of these products are

He's like, why are you calling your company Salesforce? I said, I don't know, Elon. Should we call it AgentForce now? He goes, thumbs up. Yes, let's do that. Well, let's hope that Doge puts you into some of these places, saving fortune.

You never know. They're using us to manage their operations. So we work very closely with them. All right. Elon Musk never hurts to mention that he likes your product. Anyway, Mark Banev, co-founder, chair, and CEO of Salesforce. Thank you for coming on and explaining things, Mark. It really is quite valuable. Great to see you, Jim. Great to see you. Thanks for having me on.

Before we start the lightning round, we got a call last week from Matt in Washington who told me I should write another book. Well, it's been a busy few days, but Matt, here you go. How to Make Money in Any Market is Hitting Shells This Fall. My last book came out a

dozen years ago. The market's changed a lot since then. So I wanted to create an updated guide for you about how to make money over the long term. For experienced investors or those just starting out, I want to help you make money in any market. Hey, speaking of let's make money together, it is time. It is time for the lightning round. Play this out.

And then the lightning round is over. Are you ready? Let's start with Mark in Florida. Mark. Jim, I've been listening to you since the day you started. Oh, my. Good to have you. Okay, this stock is the Amazon of South Korea. They have $6 billion in cash. They do $30 billion in sales. They're growing at 20% a year.

Okay, and what's his top? Coupang. Coupang.

I think it's an interesting spec. I like it. I like it. I don't really know what Stanley's up to because I haven't seen him in a long time. He's a very, very good investor, but I like the idea. I think it's a good call. Let's go to Don in Washington. Don. Hi, Jim. My question is on USA Rare Earths.

Too speculative, my friend. As we saw from Alcolow tonight, we've got to go in a little bit more calmed down because we don't know whether tomorrow or the day after tomorrow we're going to go right back into the badness. Let's stay away from that. Let's go to George in Arizona. George. A big old Tuesday. Booyah to you, Jimmy Choo. Okay. Let's go to work.

All right, let's go to work. I like to talk about a stock that's got a $32 billion market cap, nice price action, a decent little dividend, 18.5 forward-facing PE, FERG, F-E-R-G, Ferguson Air Prices. Oh, I like Ferguson a lot. Now, Ferguson is part of a whole cohort of stocks that I like. They got brought down when people decided they didn't want the data set anymore. That's a mistake. I think it's in good shape. Let's go to work with Darren in Illinois. Darren.

Boo-ya, Jim Cramer. Boo-ya, Darren. From Chicago, Illinois. Thank you. Thank you for trying to help us in these turbulent times. Oh, you betcha. But we stick together and we make money. All right.

All right. So there's a great American company I wanted to ask you about. CRWV, Corweave. They're from Jersey. Corweave will give us up $3 today, and that's a big move for Corweave. I am a believer in the data center, but I got to tell you, I feel very lonely out there. I'm not going to hang my hat on it. Let's go to Raymond in Texas. Raymond. Raymond.

Hey, Mr. Mad Money, this is Raymond from Opelso. Is it really? What's happening with you? I'm wondering how you feel about Cinemark in the present and in the future and how they compare with their competitors in the industry. Not bad. Not bad. Not great. Not bad. I mean, a lot of these stocks are kind of like just out there. I don't have an edge on that one. I want to go to Noah in Indiana. Noah. Jim, long time listener. What's going on, brother? Um,

PWR stock. We love... All right, this is a Stephanie Ling favorite, Quanta. I agree with her. I think it's a buy. I would take some. Yeah, right here. And that leads to the conclusion of the lightning round.

My advice to our multitude of trade stars in this country, show some discipline, show some attention to detail and recognize the big issue is the problem of the supply chain, just like we saw during the pandemic. So far in this preferring season, we can see that many businesses truly rely on foreign countries for key parts. Some of those parts and ingredients we have, but others we don't. Often they're from Asia and China in particular.

It happened. It's not anyone's fault. We used to have a good relationship with China. I mean, we got a lot of stuff from Mexico and Canada, too. Hey, they used to be our buddies, our pals.

What we need, but we aren't getting, is a roadmap to wean us off the countries that Trump doesn't want us to trade with. We're approaching all this with a meat axe. We aren't thinking this thing through. Just look at what the president said tonight. Tariffs on China won't be 145 percent, but they won't be zero. Okie dokie. But we need a clean and elegant way to move that Chinese manufacturing somewhere else to our shores.

Most importantly, we need some time and a recognition that if we want to keep inflation down, the administration has to help companies pay for the technology that would make it feasible to manufacture the stuff in the United States. What I don't get is why isn't this obvious? Why doesn't the president set up a team not to give tax breaks, not to hand out money, not to have a chips act?

but a team that will set up a timeline and help gather the technology leaders to figure out how to make all this essential stuff that we don't already have in this country. Think about it. We haven't put AI to work developing the crucial parts and the ingredients that we now import if our economy is going to be self-reliant. We have to. I'm not

saying we should be totally on our own because it's expensive, but that's Trump's vision. Maybe I sound like a polyanimal. I say technology can solve this problem, but man, technology made us energy self-sufficient. That's what fracking's all about. 20 years ago, energy independence was unimaginable.

And look, even if AI-powered technology can't solve every supply chain problem, it can certainly solve some of them. So why not put our importing companies to work with our tech companies? Why not give them the time to solve these problems, maybe by phasing in the tariffs gradually over the course of multiple years? Don't laugh at this. We can't just...

of tariff without figuring out where we're ultimately going to get all the stuff we'd normally get from countries being targeted. You need to combine it with industrial policy to help create this stuff domestically, or else you just end up with higher prices, much higher prices. And of course, none of these companies can make plans for the future unless they know where our trade policy is headed.

If we had something like this, we could put hundreds of thousands of people to work as the plants that would make these new ingredients using generative AI could be placed in towns where factories pulled out a long time ago. One of the most discouraging parts of the whole tariff movement is that we only have one side figured out, the side that jacks up inflation and gets the Federal Reserve all bent out of shape. We aren't trying to make the stuff we need here at home.

or at least finding new sources for it overseas. It's as if President Trump is surrounded by Luddites who only know that if we could bring back the seamstresses and the cobblers, we could solve our nation's problems. But do we really want to be a nation of seamstresses? No. And if we had some tech people actually doing tech things, as opposed to, say, Elon Musk busy firing a few federal workers who will save us about a day's worth of the interest and the debt, we could help these companies get the job done.

Although we learned tonight that Musk is going to be spending less time with Doge and more with Tesla, and by the way, that's sending Tesla stock up, even a fraction of his time we better spend using his AI, his considerable AI prowess, to create the materials of tomorrow that would eliminate our dependence on anyone, Mexico, Canada, or most important, the People's Republic of China. I like to say there's always bull market somewhere. I promise I'll find it just for you right here on MadMoney. I'm Drew Bremmer. See you tomorrow.

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