Mad Money w/ Jim Cramer 1/15/25
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I'm here to level the playing field for all investors. There's always a bull market somewhere, and I promise to help you find it. Mad Money starts now. Hey, I'm Kramer. Welcome to a special San Francisco edition of Mad Money. Welcome to Kramerica. I'll be with my friends. I'm just trying to help you make some money. My job is not just to entertain, but to explain. So call me at 1-800-743-CNBC or tweet me at Jim Kramer.

You get some positive earnings. You get some good inflation numbers. Then suddenly you end up with a fantastic day for the bulls. Dow surging 703 points. S&P jumping 1.83%. The Nasdaq pole voting 2.45%.

Lately, there have been a lot of days where I have to come out here and explain how the hidden boogeyman of the bond market crushed stocks. Other days, I have to explain to you the concept of beat and raise, how stocks don't go up just because companies beat the earnings estimates. They have to raise their forecast, too.

But then there are those rare days, rare perfect days when it all comes together. And we try to figure out why this can't happen all of the time. So let's go over what really happened today and why stocks roared. First, for two months, we heard that inflation is raging. But when we got the consumer price index numbers this morning, they were fine. Not perfect, 3.2 percent core inflation. But there were so many people betting that the inflation numbers would be horrific today.

leading to rising bond yields, falling stocks. It was almost a gimme when we got an inline inflation reading. You could see it coming. When everyone's expecting an overheated number, basically inline one equals success.

As an aside, no one doubts that inflation is too high. 3.2 percent for core inflation is still about a point higher than we're willing to live with. You could argue that inflation is what decided this election. Normally, when you get 4 percent unemployment in the stock market, there's a move. But the incumbents unbeaten. Right. But people really hate inflation. It's what crushed Gerald Ford. It's what crushed Jimmy Carter.

I don't want to talk politics, but when I saw this morning's earnings and more important, when I talked to the executives who run the institutions that reported today, the banks, there was a palpable sense of optimism about the future. Even among those who might know lean Democratic. I heard a lot of horror stories today about how the Biden administration is so hardcore anti-business and that attitude won't miss it.

Just today, we got news of restrictions on high-end semiconductors. Yes, again, again. And then another surprise to the industry that deserves better. And we got restrictions on some biotech equipment sold to China. Thank you. I come back and say, what the heck? The clock is ticking, people. And you guys keep throwing incoherent monkey wrenches at business people who've tried hard to play by the rules, which keep changing.

They've got less than a week left and they're still pulling this stuff. I don't think there's anyone on TV that is tougher on China than I am. But I'm not going to throttle our companies with lists of who can and who can't get large amounts of van semis. We don't do that in this country. We don't pick favorites and tell Jensen Wang, who is the CEO of NVIDIA, here are your countries you can do big businesses and here are the ones you can't. Just so wrong. Just palpably painful and totally off the reservation.

But given that this should be a day of celebration of the ownership of equities, I want to take a moment to talk about all the obstacles you had to clear in order to get to this point, where you could profit from owning stocks on a great day like this one. First, for months, the whole conversation about this market wasn't talking about stocks. It was talking about dominated by the bond market and the Fed.

But whenever you focus exclusively on what we call macro, you're presuming that CEOs are nothing but statues waiting to get hit, getting torn asunder by powerful forces they can't control. And that, my friends, is dead wrong, as we saw for the banks today. The smart ones can make a ton of money in this environment. So I want to urge you not to focus on the Fed head gas bags or the economists who practically

on endlessly about how many rate cuts we might get this year or not. That is a total abstraction. As long as the Fed generally wants rates to go lower, you're fine. The details are not important. It's easy to shoot your mouth off about this stuff, but it doesn't necessarily help anyone making good investing decisions, which is what we do with Mad Money. Stop being scared by them. They are not there to help you. They are not there to help you make money.

Second, profits can make a lot of things work. Respect strong profits as they turn into higher stock prices. Third, you may think that the market has thrived under Biden, but much of that strength came from the Magnificent Seven. And the real issues that perplexes the American people is how much more everything costs than it did four years ago. If we can finally beat a rollback inflation, then ordinary people will be as optimistic as the CEOs are now.

under a president who likes to talk to CEOs to see what's going on. Hey, say what you want about President-elect Trump. He's not afraid of a photo op with a farmer or a tech or a fossil fuel CEO. No, he don't mind. CEOs, come on in here. Let's go like this. So put it all together, and you can see that the optimism is indeed contagious. I've been on so many bank conference calls where they've had positive earnings, but then it downbeat for the future.

didn't happen this time, which is why you got some tremendous follow through in their stocks. And that follow through may not be over. Remember this. The people who chatter endlessly about interest rates, they are not your friend. They can shake anyone's confidence. Instead, you got to keep your eye on the prize, how management's doing, the profits, the ring up and the belief that you can spend money to make money. If you were focused on anything else, your money would have been withering in a CD today. Do you

Do you know there's really only a couple of great days like this one in any given period of time? If you're scared out of the stock market, if someone told you to get out now and you listen to them, especially because of the Fed, I can't help you. Here's the bottom line. All the big gains for the market happen on a handful of days around here. This was one of those days, and I sure hope you got a piece of it. Let's take calls. Let's go to Tyler in California. Tyler.

Hey, big boy from California. How are you doing, Jim? Man, you're down the block from me. I'll be there in a snap. What's happening? Speaking of snap, what's your take on Snapchat with the looming ban of TikTok coming? Well, I sure didn't mean to mention snap in the same breath of snap.

You want to do that. There are there are so many more companies that are better prepared for this. I'm telling you, I wouldn't even go with Meta. And by the way, he's jacked and he's got the guns and it's really terrific. I watched that on the Joe Rogan show. So he's got every every box checked. I say go with Meta. I want to speak to Cheryl, Louisiana, Cheryl.

Jim, hi. I want to thank you and your staff for educating all of us about investing. Your lessons have helped me to become financially independent. That's what I want. That's why we do the show for 19 years. Thank you, Cheryl.

I love it. My question today is about Cotera, a stock that you like in the natural gas arena. It currently makes up about 10% of my portfolio. Last week on Squawk Box, you said you think that natural gas will go down to about $2 this year. But currently, Cotera is doing well with natural gas at approximately $4. How do you reconcile that and what is your recommendation? Should I hold or trim?

Yeah, you got a whole big, big, big, big, big, big possession of a portfolio for the Chapel Sauce. Why I just said it could go down is because there could be a lot of people who drill and it's going to be a very helpful regime to fossil. So it might drive the price down. But you're right. It's making a ton of money right now. And it's hit a 52 week high. Look, most of the market's gains come from a handful of days. And today was one of those days. I hope you were able to take part in it.

I'm rounding out my time on the West Coast with another slate of exclusives you do not want to miss. From utilities to tech, I'm checking in with CEOs at Cisco, Arm Holdings, and PG&E. Plus, I'm hearing from the new mayor of San Francisco, Daniel Lurie. So I want you to stay with... Bye, bye, bye! Crazy.

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Ever since the tragic wildfires in Gulf of Los Angeles, utility stocks with California exposure, they've all gotten eviscerated. Even if they have absolutely nothing to do with L.A. Take PG&E, one of our favorite. This is the parent of Pacific Gas and Electric. Only operates in central and northern California. No L.A. whatsoever. And they've done a lot of work over the years to make their systems fire. But have you heard PG&E?

management say that on our show yet pg e stock has tumbled roughly 15 since the fire started i gotta ask you could this be the buying opportunity been waiting for let's take a closer look with patty poppy she's the cpo of pg and a to learn more miss poppy welcome

Thank you, Jim Cramer. So nice to be with you, as always. Welcome to our great San Francisco. We're happy to have you. Well, I want to give you a chance first to speak to Southland because I know that you understand the problems they have. First of all, our hearts go out to all of the victims and the entire community. It's a devastating situation and

We're thankful for our first responders who are doing valiant work, and I'm thankful to my crews who are down in support. We've got hundreds of people who traveled down to L.A. to support and on the rebuild and the restoration that is going to be important work to be done. Now, you have expressed to me over and over again that you've spent a considerable amount of time even just considering the notion of fire in your November 7 conference call. You did say, as you know, our stand here at PG&E is that catastrophic wildfires shall stop.

How can you make them stop? We can make them stop with technology. We can make them stop with our layers of protection. We've proven that our system has never been safer. Our wildfire risk has been reduced.

over 90 percent and that's because we do inspections, restorations, rebuilding, hardening of our lines, making sure that our equipment is de-energized when it's in high-risk fire situations. This wildfire season, this last 12 months has been significant. Fires of over 10 acres are up

one and a half times to almost three times previous levels. And yet we've had zero structures damaged as a result of PG&E's safety measures. That's excellent. And so I'm proud of the team. And yet there's more to do. We're still not satisfied. But what's important for investors to understand is that there is a wildfire fund that is designed to protect both victims...

and of the damage as well as investors in utilities. California has a model our policymakers put into place, a model that is the envy of the nation. Every other state is looking at how can we replicate the California protections for both victims and investors. Well, you expressed that when we first saw you when the stock was in the low teens.

It was rather remarkable because I was skeptical. You made me a believer, and that was the right thing to do. Now, I do want to ask you in terms of that technology. We've been out to see NVIDIA. It's obviously, Jason was a wonderful man, but he says that the way that you can spot the hot spots and then get to them ahead of time is here. Do you use that kind of technology? Yeah, we use AI-enabled cameras.

that identify where an ignition has occurred and infected cal fire uh... chief was testifying to uh... the state legislature talked about two hundred occasions on which those cameras notified first responders instantaneously and in nine cases

there was never a 911 call never so the only way first responders knew was because those ai enabled cameras who can differentiate between a barbecue and a real fire who can see the difference between fog and smoke can get first responders on the job instantaneously it's a huge enabler to safety

Well, I want people to understand that you've been a visionary. When I first met you, you talked about how we're out of power. We need the nuclear power industry. And a lot of people felt that nuclear power was the wrong way to go. You were obviously correct in that. What's going to happen in terms of the power generation that we need for these data centers? Yeah, I think, first of all, we have to utilize our existing assets

best and most efficiently. So our Diablo Canyon nuclear power plant extending the life of that plant. That was so smart. It was very smart. I was there when they created the idea. It was of course the left wing and we all thought it was a horrible thing. You knew. You knew we were going to need Diablo Canyon. Yeah and Diablo Canyon provides essential power, carbon, greenhouse gas free power for California. I

I think also we have new technologies to optimize the utilization on the grid and some people worry that EVs will strain the grid combined with these data centers. I say that's actually the light at the end of the tunnel. We can finally

Bend the cost curve and start to stabilize energy costs for customers by leveraging new load, new customers, grow demand for electricity in America, grow demand for electricity in California, help customers have more affordable access to energy. Now, do I have to worry about the at-the-money offering that you're doing? I think it's great that you always want to raise money because you've got more demand than any utility.

But has that hurt the stock, do you think? Or is it really just this guilt by association, which is wrong? Yeah, I think investors are worried about the longevity of this fund. And what I think is very important for investors to know, number one, capital is going to be essential for rebuilding California. California has gone through crises before and has always risen to the case and to the cause.

And our policymakers know that we need to have healthy investor-owned utilities in California to enable the clean energy transition. I have confidence in our policymakers. If a change is needed to this construct, if there's an improvement that is required, they will definitely step up to make sure that our policy

state is open for business and that we will overcome this most recent challenge. California always does. Well, I have confidence in you. You have been true to your word the whole way, which is wonderful. We don't have many CEOs like you on this show. That's Patty Poppy, CEO of PG&E. And yes, indeed, I think it's a bi-stable crime.

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After spending our first couple of days in San Francisco, fully focused on the JPMorgan Healthcare Conference, let's not forget the Silicon Valley, for heaven's sake. Well, yesterday we took a quick trip to Palo Alto for Cisco's AI Summit, where they rolled out the new AI defense platform. I had a chance to speak with Chuck Robbins, Cisco's chairman and CEO, along with Jeetu Patel. He's the EVP and chief product officer. I would need you to take a look at this launch.

Chuck, we're at the AI Summit and I've got to tell you, I'm chilled. You are talking about lots of companies, even after all the big hacks, that are completely unready. How is that possible? Well, Jim, first of all, thanks for being here today. We're really excited. We have a great agenda of the who's who in the AI industry, candidly. And we have over 100 customers. We kept it very intimate. I think probably 40% of the Fortune 100 are here. And so we're pretty excited about it. This is actually...

a big announcement in this space because we think the advent of AI is going to just exacerbate the cybersecurity issues. And so, G2 and the team have done an amazing job of building this first wave of security products, and it's going to be a big day for us. G2, first, great to meet you. When I read who's at the conference and then what I know, let's just say the PRC, what the Chinese are doing,

I feel like they're ahead of us. You've got pacesetters from your report, but then we have chasers, followers, and laggers. That's three groups that are just ripe for the picking, aren't they? Well, you know, the thing is there's only going to be two kinds of companies in the future in the world, Jim. One is folks that are going to be really good at AI and know how to make good use of it. And the second class is the ones that are going to struggle for relevance. And the first class, the great ones,

They want to move fast, but they actually get held back by this AI safety and security quite a bit.

And so there's a common interest right now in saying, what do we need to do to make sure that we don't trade off safety and security for speed? And we need to make sure that we have both. It's not a good trade off to make. Well, and I see the client list that's here and people are speaking. I see, for instance, the banks. And it makes me worried because that's where our money is. I always fear that I can wake up one day and the money's gone. How do you make it so that what are you guys doing and talking about that we cannot let

This should make you feel better that they're here. That's true. Because they will know more after this conference. But are we okay? Just tell me, are we okay? I think there's always going to be risks that you have in security. But then you always have to stay a little paranoid. But if you think about what's happening right now, the architecture of how applications are getting built is fundamentally changing.

And so, you know, if you think about models, they have this characteristic of being non-deterministic, which means that they're very unpredictable, right? And you've got to make sure that you ensure that there's some guardrails around that so that the applications you build in the next era

are predictable and that a bank doesn't have a surprise that happens or a manufacturing company doesn't have a surprise that they didn't want as a result of AI. And that's what we do is we're launching a product around safety and security to make sure that those guardrails are enforced. - If you think about it, Jim, one of the big things is that we're moving from

the models consuming all this public data and really moving the models into the enterprise and taking advantage of a much larger data set which is what exists in the enterprise. So this is timely because that's where this is going to become even more important. Now you guys uniquely understand the role of the enterprise. That has always been your strength. Enterprise is really starting to spin. Can you do something that I've always hoped would happen? The enterprise has a mixture of humans

and agentics, make it so that the machines are really good and can help the humans be better.

Yeah, go ahead, G2. Well, if you think about it, the workforce composition is going to completely change over the course of the next few years. Right now, 100% of the workforce is humans. I think in the future, you're going to have agents, you're going to have applications, you're going to have robots, you're going to have humanoids. And when that happens, the security risks also get completely refactored.

Well, my worry here is that they may, they, the proverbial people who went in, they have access to everything. They have great robots. They have great AI. How are you ahead of them? Well, that's why this is so important. And I think, you know, just to add on to what Jitu was talking about, then we'll jump to that.

I also think about this. There's a whole debate around replacing people versus augmenting people. Yes, and your business roundtable hat. We know it's going to be with the new administration. I think the way the CEOs that I know so well are thinking about this, it's just going to make us more productive and give us the ability to move faster. I think that's what this is ultimately going to boil down to. On the security front, I think this has existed forever. Look, when we...

If you go back to the 90s when everybody, every enterprise was an island. We had some security, we had viruses and all those kinds of things. Then you fast forward, then you had the internet explode. Then you had cloud come into play and then you have virtualized building of enterprise networks across the internet. So we just continue to evolve and this one is a step level increase.

But I think that's why it's so important for us and other security companies to be ahead of this thing and candidly to partner. I firmly believe that the security industry has to partner together more effectively than we have in the past in order to help keep our customers safe. I think it's interesting when you bought Splunk, you told me that you would have a holistic, a unified approach that the corporation, the clients would really love. I think a lot of people were saying, well, how can it really work out?

it's a testament to who's here. And by the way, it's a testament that you're on the 52-week high list. And, you know, I'm a stock guy. I think these are all coming together. And Splunk was a great acquisition.

Yeah, we feel really good about where Splunk is right now. We'll obviously talk about its performance in a few weeks on our earnings call, and I suspect I'll... I don't want to frontrun that. Yeah, we don't, obviously, but I think that Nikesh and I have talked about it. Others, other security companies, we've talked about the only way we're going to ultimately protect our customers is if we share real-time threat intelligence, real-time.

so that we can correlate what's going on, that something they're seeing is something we're seeing might actually help us resolve the problem as opposed to us seeing what we see, they see what they see. I just really believe this is really important for the future. It's highly unusual. We're talking about Nikesh Arora. We're talking about a very competitive individual at Palo Alto. It must be a crisis if mortal combat companies are getting together to help combat. If you think about it, the true enemy is not the competitor, it's the adversary.

And so if you can make sure that as a community we all kind of band together, we will be able to beat the adversary. And it's very clear who's good, who's bad in this equation. I don't think it came out of us believing there's a crisis. I mean, there's certainly issues. But he and I were speaking at an event a year ago, actually. And we just started having a conversation. And we're friends. I know. We interact. So...

But we just started talking about the industry, and we both agreed that this is the only way we're going to ultimately solve it. And I just want to ask a question, again, for your business roundtable. There's a level of optimism and constructive thinking that I know I, myself, and I think Jay Powell of the Federal Reserve are kind of surprised by. What the heck's happening in the country that there's just a

clouds lifted and I'm speaking to Democrats. I'm not speaking to Republicans. I'm speaking to Democrats too. Well, you're speaking to business people. And I think that's the issue. And regardless of what you are,

The reality is the incoming administration is very pro-business. They're focused on delivering next generation tax reform. They're focused on solving these immigration issues, both the border as well as the H-1B issue. We need to work closely on the whole notion of trade and tariffs because that obviously is a big part of what they're thinking about.

and bringing manufacturing back to the U.S. and all those things. But we have an incredibly low unemployment rate. The stock market went up. I mean, these are typically the things that we would say were signs of a successful business administration, but it was almost in spite of the government.

Well, I think when you look at areas like permitting reform and other things like that and some of the -- certainly some of the regulatory that we face and the tough stance that was taken on M&A that you've talked about quite a bit. Right.

Those, we would expect, will actually free up and will make business more effective. Well, look, I want to thank you for having us here for AI Defense. By the way, the 2024 AI Readiness Index that you put together, 29% of the survey feel fully equipped. That's what made me afraid, but I do feel better that everybody's here. G.J. Patel, thank you so much. Great to meet you. Such a pleasure. Chief Product Officer. And, of course, Chuck Robbins, Chair and CEO of Cisco. Always great to see you. Great to see you. Great to meet you. Thank you so much. My pleasure.

While we're out here in San Francisco, we've got to check in with some heavy hitters in tech like Arm Holdings, the huge semiconductor design outlet. This has been one of the great performers of the past couple of years after it came public. September 2023 recommended immediately, but for most of last year, the stock traded sideways. However, just in January, Arm has shot from 123 to 147, including a 5% gain today alone. So is it time to get excited about this one again? Well, you know who I am. Let's check in with Rene Haas. He's the CEO of Arm Holdings. We'll find out.

Rene, welcome back to MidMoney. Thank you, Jim. Okay, so a lot of people tell me, Jim, why are you backing a CPU? It's all about GPUs. And I say there are no GPUs without CPUs. Well, you know, I've never seen a GPU without a CPU in a system. GPU beside being NVIDIA. I'm sorry, I'm being too... But I've seen a lot of CPUs stand by themselves. So the CPU is fundamental, Jim, to just about every digital device you can imagine, whether it's your automobile, your ring camera...

Your iPhone, your Android phone, the data center, you have to have CPUs, and they run a lot of workloads. And we're happy to combine with a GPU or any accelerator, but you have to have CPUs. Well, we listen, of course, to Jensen Wong at NVIDIA, and he talks a lot about Grace Blackwell. And you would say, OK, I've got to be in his kinds of chip. But his kind of chip doesn't chip with your kind of chip. Oh, absolutely. And there were some really cool announcements that they made at CES. One of them was digits, or project digits, as he called it.

which is kind of an AI mini computer, if you will, which ships with 24 ARM cores and a Blackwell GPU where you can run AI on your desktop. A very good example of just really what you can get in terms of the ARM CPU along with a GPU from NVIDIA.

I did not know that. I didn't know that. I think that when I say didn't know that, there are a lot of people who think, I have some knowledge of recovery, but a lot of people say, I mean, Jim, look, I don't think you can outrun the cell phone industry. And I say, well, it doesn't need to outrun the cell phone industry. That's the old arm, not your arm. Yeah, I mean, we've expanded our business so much over the last decade, whether it's the data center, whether it's automobiles, again, security devices, computers.

We estimate that 70% of the world's population uses ARM in some way, shape, or form. And last year, over 30 billion ARM cores shipped, which is a gigantic number. Just to give you an idea, 200 million laptops ship a year. Oh, my. So if you have 30 billion ARM CPUs,

Clearly, you're in a lot of other places besides phones and PCs. - Will people ever get excited about a regular AI PC? I don't see people interested in them. - You know, I think the new PCs that are coming out are really great on battery life that are ARM-based. You'll see more and more of that, I think, over the upcoming years. There's a lot of rumors about new suppliers getting into the market. The ARM-based AI PCs are not just about AI, though. They're really about super snappy performance, but multiple days of battery life.

And that is really the game changer for anything that's ARM based. We've seen that with the Apple ecosystem. And now that's coming to Windows, which will be just great for consumers. OK, so what is the state of things? I mean, we do hear that cell phones are slowing. I'm not so sure that is. I know that there was a critic of Apple on Joe Rogan. I usually I'm not I don't catch show regularly, but very negatively about Apple. But it made me think, wow, maybe growth is stunted here. And yet when I talk to you, I still feel pretty good about the growth of the industry.

There's two. The mobile phone has really segmented. So what you see is now the premium segment where people don't upgrade as often. Right. But when they do upgrade, those are the phones they upgrade to are the more expensive phones. So what we're seeing is people holding on to their phones longer. But when they upgrade, it's the more expensive phones, the premium phones. And why is that?

They want to run the latest apps, the latest games, AI. They need to be future-proofed. So the premium segment is doing really quite well. And the very, very low end is. The mid-range has been slower. But it's those premium phones, which are a lot of profit for the mobile phone guys, that

Very good for ARM, quite frankly, because we derive most of our revenue from the high end, our version 9. So we're very pleased with the growth of the cell phone industry. Okay, good. We need that to be strong. We also need to have a strong competitor, Intel. And yet when I look at the balance sheet, Rene, I am concerned. We can't have Intel go down.

It's a tough thing, right? You know, the change that took place in the executive management. Not well handled. Yeah. And then, of course, Intel being so critical to U.S. manufacturing. We have a new administration coming in. You know, CHIPS Act was something that some debates on how successful that was or popular that was. It'll be interesting to see what the new administration does as they look around chip manufacturing in the U.S. Because whether it's Intel or anyone else, it's super critical for us. And China, what's...

We know that we don't want to give China the latest and greatest, but are we punishing companies? Like, you're partners with NVIDIA. They put out a list of 18 countries that NVIDIA can do a lot of business with and then not a lot with the others. Do you think that stands in the next administration?

You know, I don't want to opine too deeply on the politics, but I will say that all these regulations coming in at the 11th hour of the exiting administration, I think the new administration will probably take a fresh look at things. So we'll see. We comply with everything. As you know, these regulations, they don't hit us too badly, these new ones. But more importantly, I think we'll see what happens the next few weeks. I would not be surprised to see some of these things change. You and me neither. I will say...

that I do think that there was, we're doing a lot on AI. It looks very constructive and you're deeply involved. ARM is everywhere. One of the things that I like to say is that you can't really run an AI workload without ARM. And I think that'll just increase over the next coming years, Jim, because what's happening as these large language models start to move from big cloud to your phone, your camera,

They need to run in a low-power environment, and we're seeing that already happen today. And when you think about security and things of that nature, it's going to naturally run all on arm. Okay, do you think people are finally getting the message? When you and I were on Squawk on the Street, I saw the stock down seven. And frankly, I didn't even want to do it. I just said, that is ridiculous. Well, I actually cursed, but that is ridiculous. Do you think people are starting to realize that you're not a cell phone provider, but you are pervasive in everything? I believe.

I believe that we are doing a better job. It's something we can always get improvement on in terms of telling the message, but I'd like to think so. It's something we've spent a lot of time and energy on since we've gone public, since I became CEO almost three years ago, of just telling the Arm story, which from a bias standpoint, I think it's a wonderful story. And I think you're a great spokesperson for a terrific company. You're very kind. Thank you. Absolutely. That's Rene Haas, the CEO of Arm Holdings, ARM. You know I like it. I don't hold back. Mad Money's back after the break.

It is time! It's time for the lightning round. Let's start with Mark in my home state of New Jersey. Mark.

Quite welcome. Okay. And what's the stock?

Okay, they're after some brain stuff. And, you know, I was the spokesperson for the American Brain Foundation for a while. There's nothing tougher than brain. It's a good spec, 11 bucks, but understand it is indeed a spec. Dave in California. Dave. Booyah, Jim. Wanted to say thank you for all the hard work and making it fun and interesting over the course of the years. Really appreciate it. The staff makes it happen for me, and that's why we can do it. How can I help?

I have a question about Soropto Therapeutics. They presented at the J.P. Morgan Healthcare Conference on Monday. They exceeded expectations last year and reiterated for this year. And the price action was a bit confusing, so I wanted to know what you were doing. You're totally right. The RNA-based therapeutic companies are not doing well. I wonder why this isn't like a reverse halo effect because of Moderna.

I didn't quite understand. I agree with you. It is troubling. I don't want to be there. Paul in Colorado. Paul. Booyah, Dr. Kramer. Thanks for taking the call. Good to have you on the show. Absolutely, Chief. What's happening? I loved your enthusiasm on Squawk Box this morning. That was awesome. I get a little fired up now and then.

You know, the dog still got some fight, right? Yeah, why not? Yes! Yep. Yes! Last year, I bought Viking Therapeutics in the mid-60s, thinking that it was a great price since it was as high as $90 a few months prior to that. Dr. Kramer, I need a prescription.

Do I buy more at this price now, or do I hold on to what I have or sell what I have? I want you to sell Viking Therapeutics and roll it into Viking Holdings, which is a fantastic cruise line. Does not save lives, does not lower your blood pressure, does not make you lighter, but darn to have a good time. Let's go to Billy in Connecticut. Billy.

Hey, Jim. Happy New Year. Yeah, same. I don't even know when you should stop saying that. Question for another day. My good buddy Theo suggested I buy a rig. Do you dig rigs?

No, I do not dig rig. No, no, no. I do not dig rig. And I'll tell you why. Because if I don't like SLB, there's no way I can like rig because they're not nearly as good as SLB. So I'm going to take a serious, big, time-sized pass on your stock. Let's go to Grant in the Atlanta of Enchantment, New Mexico. Grant!

Booyah, Kramer. This is Grant calling from Santa Fe, New Mexico. I love Santa Fe. First time in a long time and a club member. Yes, thank you. You're welcome. Jim, before I joined the club, I was lost in a sea of too much information and a lack of knowledge.

Thanks to you and your team, I have been able to make sound decisions based on your rules for investing and the relevant information that you and your team provide every day. I could have not made the change. Thank you, buddy.

You're welcome, sir. I could not have made these gains without you. And I really appreciate your daily bulletins and your morning meeting. Well, you remember Jeff Marks sure makes it work. Ben Stoner, the whole team does a great job. How can I help you right now? Yes, sir. So today I have 13 stocks in my portfolio. OK, two of them have been losers lately. And I would like to make room for a winner.

I would like to eliminate one of them, but I could either lower my cost basis with DuPont and buy some more. Okay. Well, what is the stock that we're referring to?

Oh, Dupont. Okay, Dupont announced after the close that they're accelerating the spin-off of one of the divisions and they're keeping the other, and I think it's going to bring out more value. I say you hold on to Dupont. It's very cheap versus the rest of the group. And that, ladies and gentlemen, is the conclusion of the Lightning Round. The Lightning Round is sponsored by Charles Schwab.

I like this story. While we're out here in San Francisco, I can't resist the opportunity to speak to the new mayor, Daniel Lord. He just was sworn in. He's trying to bring back the lost to this city. One of the greatest cities on Earth struggled the last few years. Modern Democrat ousted the incumbent with a decisive 10-point victory promising to address some of the city's biggest problems. Fentanyl.

homelessness, crime, right out there. And he wants to stop the outlaw business from San Francisco and bring in new ones as quickly as possible. So what's the plan to turn things around? Let's dig deeper with Daniel Lurie. He's the 46th mayor of the city, county of San Francisco. Wow. Mayor, welcome to Mad Money. It's great to be here. Welcome to the greatest city on the planet. You know this. You know this. I love it here. Thank you for being here and thank you for having me. I love it here, but I need to know what your plan is. Well, first, public safety. It's...

Nothing else matters if people don't feel safe. The statistics are getting better. They are. Already? Already, but a statistic is not a feeling. And so we've got to make sure people feel safe. We've got to go after the fentanyl crisis. I just came from a meeting with all of our law enforcement officials who are committed to working together to make sure we get people off the street and into mental health beds, drug treatment beds.

And we are going to do this. And once we do that, we're going to create the conditions for business leaders to want to come back here. It's not my job to tell business leaders, you have to be in the office five days a week.

It's my job to create the conditions so that they want to. Look at how beautiful it is. It's 60 degrees here in San Francisco today. It's 30 in New York City. We love it here. But when Gavin Newsom was mayor, San Francisco had 2,500 police. Now it's apparently less than 1,400. How important is it to refund the police? We have to fully staff our police department. You're right. It's around 1,400. We should be at 2,000 officers per day.

I ran on that. I won with a mandate, as you pointed out. Fully staffed police, sheriff's department and our 911 dispatch office. Absolutely essential. And what we're seeing with the J.P. Morgan Health Care Conference, I know that's why you're out here. People are seeing law enforcement. They feel safe. And the energy is it's electric out here in San Francisco right now. I was this weekend. I went to Union Square.

I had stopped going. Canada, I used to go because I just marveled even from the days of the movie, The Conversation. I just always loved it. I couldn't go the last two times. I went this time. The police presence there was remarkable and I felt very safe. Well, we committed to Jamie Dimon and to the health care conference that we would take care of people and, you know, the...

Awful tragedy in New York City put everybody a little bit on edge, and we have stepped up. Our law enforcement has been working overtime. I went out there Sunday afternoon, Sunday night, Monday morning, making sure that everything is just right. You went. I went. Gold up sleeves went. I'm calling department heads every few hours. I called seven department heads on Sunday and said, we've got to make sure that San Francisco is showing off.

And we are. I've sat down with Jamie Dimon this week. He came to City Hall. It was an honor to have him in. And my message to him and to every business leader and viewer

San Francisco is open for business. No better place to do business in the country than San Francisco. But I still see more signs with two words for lease than I ever have. That you're a business person. How do we get that square footage taken? You're absolutely right. We have work to do. We are clear eyed about that. But that's where it's public safety.

That's where it's getting people off the street. We do that, people will come roaring back. We are the home of innovation. You know this. More venture capital funding here. More business starts here.

Jim, it all starts in San Francisco. It will again. We've fallen down over the last few years. We have neglected the important work. And it's a new day in San Francisco. And we welcome you all back. Do you have the money to really hire all those police officers? Yes, we do. We have a 16 billion dollar budget. Now, we are facing a nearly one billion dollar budget deficit. Right.

But we are going to ask department heads, and I did this on day one, where we have a hiring freeze, but not around law enforcement, not around public health. We are going to make sure that we cut the least effective programs. We have to spend our dollars more effectively, more efficiently. But no one can tell me that we need

$16 billion in terms of public safety dollars. We have the money, and we will hire those police officers. Excellent. Now, we've been thinking, if we like to come loaded for bear, what could we bring? We're thinking maybe you can make this the city...

of agentics, the city of robots, the city where you know the next generation AI. This is where you find the talent. You certainly have the schools for it. We are the home of AI, and we're going to lean into that. I mean, we've got Waymos going around town. I know you love your Waymos. We sure do. So we just have to embrace what we do best.

And, yes, we got Cal. We got Stanford. We got UCSF. We have the greatest arts organizations as well here. You do? We have it all. We just have to do the basics. Common sense is going to rule the day here in San Francisco. And I'm telling you, business is going to come flooding back.

Okay, I was there when Mayor Bloomberg turned around, I think, turned around in New York City. He was everywhere. He was at every gathering, every charity. He was there to be able to be seen and talked to. Can you do that? Do you have the energy of Mayor Bloomberg? Yes, I do. I was at four events last night, including, by the way, a SI, SH basketball game at Chase Center. I went to two different J.P. Morgan after-hour parties. I went to the keynote that Jamie gave and...

You are never going to see a mayor of San Francisco work more tirelessly than me. And I got the energy and I'm already one weekend. I love this. I like this. I like this. So Bristol Myers told me, OK, Chris Burns, fantastic CEO, that their Coben fee, which is anti-schizophrenia, could be a godsend for cities because so many of the people, it's schizophrenia kicked out of their homes. Can you you've got the bridge. You could talk.

this man. This is not just about law enforcement. This is about public health. And we have to get people the help that they need. And if we can do it with the biotech companies and the health care companies that are here, absolutely, we've got to investigate every way to get people the help that they need. Can the state help you? Absolutely, the state can help and the federal government can help. We're going to partner with anyone willing to help turn around a great American city. And when we are at our best,

This is the greatest city in the world. We all know this. Now, I know that just even in the last, you mentioned Jamie Dimon, in the last six months, people are still pulling out. Is there someone you can just reclaim? Go to Charlie Sharp, Wells Fargo. See, come on, put more of us in.

presence here. Listen, I'm talking to the head of Blackstone in person, John Gray. John Gray knows more about real estate than anybody. Nail him! We're talking later today. He's coming to City Hall. Jamie Dimon came to City Hall. And I'm going to go to New York. Sorry, New York. I'm coming out recruiting companies back. I'm going to Miami. I'm going to Austin. And I'm saying...

you know you want to be back in San Francisco. So, yes, we can do this. Not only can we do it, we are going to do it. Well, I don't want to be a mayor of Miami. I don't want to be a mayor of Austin. I don't want to be a mayor of New York if you're coming to get us. This is Mayor Daniel Lurie of San Francisco. Can you detect the energy? I sure can. Thank you. Thank you so much. Thanks for having me. 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 and in San Francisco. I'll see you tomorrow.

All opinions expressed by Jim Cramer on this podcast are solely Cramer's opinions and do not reflect the opinions of CNBC, NBCUniversal, or their parent company or affiliates, and may have been previously disseminated by Cramer on television, radio, internet, or another medium.

You should not treat any opinion expressed by Jim Cramer as a specific inducement to make a particular investment or follow a particular strategy, but only as an expression of his opinion. Cramer's opinions are based upon information he considers reliable, but neither CNBC nor its affiliates and or subsidiaries warrant its completeness or accuracy, and it should not be relied upon as such. To view the full Mad Money Disclaimer, please visit cnbc.com forward slash madmoneydisclaimer.

Mom, can you tell me a story? Sure. Uh, this is the story of Redfin. You mean Red Riding Hood? No, I mean Redfin. Once upon a time, there was born a real estate brokerage that was also a magical app. They called it Redfin.

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