Mad Money w/ Jim Cramer 1/3/25
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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 Mad Money. Welcome to Kramerica. Other people are my friends. I'm just trying to help you make a little money. My job is not just to entertain, but explain how we have explosions like today after a whole week of bad. So call me, 1-800-743-CBC. Tweet me, at Jim Kramer.

You short this market at your own peril. After a couple of negative days, today pretty much everything rallied from the speculative to the sane. And unlike the last week, the animal spirits had enough staying power to finish strong. By the end of the session, Dow was up 340 points as it became 1.2% and the Nasdaq pole vaulted 1.77%. Palace of pleasure. It was a welcome to the New Year rally after what looks to be a couple of profit-taking days and no more. The

The most salient driver of this move, an astonishing blog post by a fellow by the name of Brad Smith, totally bankable, delightful too. He's vice chair and president of Microsoft. He was talking about how bright the tech future is and how his company's going to invest $80 billion on AI data centers this year. That's in pretty much anything related to AI, roaring from electricity and power plants and saving dollars, especially, of course, NVIDIA, the beating heart of the data center that looked like it was having a coronary just a week ago.

Yes, here I am. This is called the pocket. Now, man, with that in mind, what's the game plan for next week? This one's extremely consequential because on Friday...

We get the non-farm payroll report. Now, the market's been roiled by a fractious 10-year Treasury bond that won't come down. Just won't come down. Friday's employment numbers need to show lower wage growth and disappointing hiring. Now, that could bring down the yield in the 10-year and therefore make people feel like that the Fed will be back on schedule to start cutting the rates again. We got to get them back into that groove, you know? On the other hand, if hiring and wages remain hot...

Well, then anything good that happens next week could be repealed. The labor report's that important because other than autos, housing and materials, I fear the economy may be too hot to give us what we need to push it straight slower. Now, what parts of the economy are actually driving things? Well, one of them is the purchasing managers index. Yes, we're getting some incredibly strong readouts in these various purchasing manager reports, like the manufacturing one we got this very morning. On Monday morning, we got the...

We get the PMI composite index, which gives us a great look at the economy. And any bull might be perturbed by still one more hot number. Tech was strong all day today. You know, it's the leader again, in part thanks to the buzz around NVIDIA CEO Jensen Wong's speech at CES on Monday night, Vegas. Right now, as I've stressed in my morning meeting show for CNBC Investing Club members, 1020, by the way, I think we could be dazzled by the use cases for NVIDIA's latest chips.

especially the video component any company that buys the platform gps and software can make a fortune from it that's important because we keep hearing that amazon wants to compete head-to-head with the video something by the way i don't even believe customers want cheaper chips amazon's trying to make them that said if jensen can give his customers

four times return on investment. That's what he's going to talk about. And show us how that on Monday night, actual cases of how that can be accomplished. I doubt Amazon or anyone else could compete with that. And maybe Nvidia actually goes to a new all-time high. Now, we get a job opening things on Tuesday. It's called the Jolts. It

You know what? It might give us some clues about Friday's employment number. I've been mulling over these job openings numbers, and I keep thinking about how President-elect Trump might reverse the high levels of immigration we've seen under the Biden administration. But if you deport a huge group of people and you close the border tight, as Trump says he wants to, then you have to pray that we hear a lot about robots at CES, because we simply don't have enough people in this country to do mass deportations without jacking up wages. Robots may be our only hope.

Wednesday, oh, interesting. We've got some very meaningful earnings reports. I'm going to start with Albertsons. Yes, this gigantic grocery store chain was trying to merge with Kroger to create a powerhouse just so it could compete actually with Amazon, Costco and Walmart. But the deal was blocked. And I think that might have really hurt Albertsons in the interim. I want to hear if there's still a lot of food inflation to come.

I also want to know if they've seen any decline in the consumption of salty snacks and cookies and candy alongside the rise of the GOP-1 drugs. Cornell Business School just put out this really amazing study. It shows a meaningful decline in the consumption of these categories, which is exactly what you'd expect. I'll follow up on this study later in the show, but anything that reduces consumption by double digits in some categories is going to actually hurt Albertson's profitability, along with that of the processed food companies.

Then after the close, we hear from an outfit that you may not know, but I follow pretty close. It's called Jeffries. It's a Jeffries Financial Group. This stock's been a total winner. Get this. It ran from $39 and changed it this time last year to $81 today. That is stellar. I think the change at the FTC, where a chief who's ideologically opposed to big business is about to be replaced by someone with a more traditional approach, will mean many, many, many, many, many more takeovers. And that means very big earnings per share for Jeffries, which consults on these deals.

to hear about their outlook for 2025, as it will certainly infuse mine.

Now, what was the Fed thinking when it talked about taking the rate cutting more slowly than we thought after that last meeting? Maybe we'll find out when we get the minutes of that meeting at 2 p.m. on Wednesday. Thursday, well, the market is closed for the funeral of Jimmy Carter in keeping with tradition following the death of a president. There's not a lot of corporate news of any consequence, but a recently minted IPO, Service Titan, which is software as a service company to help tradespeople, is going to report.

And I think it's going to give us a great quarter, maybe one that is so good that it will be worth buying ahead of. Besides the favorable Friday employment number, we've got a few important quarters. Now, first there's Constellation Brands. This is the STZ kind. It's a bedraggled liquor stock we own from my travel trust that's been up and down and up and now mostly down.

It's a bit like a bit of a Job stock. Right now, alcohol is under siege by everyone from the Surgeon General this morning for a link to cancer to the GLP-1 drugs, which blunt the craving to the, in the case of Constellation, potential tariffs on its Mexican beers, Medela and Corona, plus an endangered population of drinkers of some significance, the Hispanic immigration cohort that could be hassled or deported by the authorities under Trump. I know that's a heck of a list of negatives. I'm not even talking about the healthier lifestyle of younger people are

embracing or the cannabis competition. So why own this darn thing? Simple.

Constellations views cash. It's growing and maybe the president could elect president-elect could exempt imported beer from tariffs. It doesn't deserve to be punished like this, which is why we actually bought some for the trust last week. But sometimes you have to take a lot of punishment to make some money on the conference. We want to hear about this gigantic brewery that the building in Mexico is almost ready and the costs for building it are behind them. That could lead to a voracious buyback much bigger than one they currently have.

I know it's a dicey one. I don't feel good about it. But what can I tell you? Sometimes you just don't feel good before you make money. Delta reports, too, I think it'll be stellar. The airlines are a changed breed. They're no longer building up capacity to meet prospective demand. Instead, they're doing their best to keep capacity tight and prevent ruinous price wars. It's still the right time to own Delta because air traffic remains robust and profits are flowing like never before. Finally, there's Walgreens Boots Alliance. That's the ailing drugstore chain. It needs to do something, anything to reverse its forces.

Now, I believe and I have tremendous faith in CEO Tim Wentworth. I don't think he's sitting idly. I think he's working on a change and he might even have buyers lined up for some parts of the company.

And maybe not all. I would not bet against this man, but it's still pretty hard to bet on Walgreens. So here's the bottom line. It's a light week, but still impactful, except that people will be on edge ahead of Friday's employment report. Still, I think you should do some buying if the market gets hammered. As we saw today, it's not nearly as bad out there as so many think. Let's go to Jennifer in Alaska, please. Jennifer.

Booyah, Jim. Booyah. Costco has fallen about 80 points in the last month, but it beat earnings, raised membership fees, and implemented technology to increase memberships. Why is the stock going down, and where do you see it going in the near future? Oh.

I'm really glad you asked me about this because I'm very close to it. Here's what I'll have to say. One is when the stock is down this much from its high, you just simply buy it. Two is that this sells at 50 times earnings. People are a little worried about that. I'm not. And three, all those things, the good news is you got the membership increase, you got the special dividend. They're all behind. So we were saying, what is there to move it ahead? I'll tell you what there is to move it ahead. The single best retailer in the world. And that's why I want you to buy.

as we own it for the travel trust. And believe me, even though our basis is so much lower, I am tempted to buy more. Hey, how about we go to Monica in New Jersey? Monica. Hey, Jim Booyah from Paramus, New Jersey. Oh, holy cow. You said stone's throw from our old place. I got to tell you. How's it going over there in Paramus? A lot of traffic. Darn it. Traffic is a bummer. I know. I always say that. What else? So,

So I've been buying SoFi incrementally since September 22, based on your recommendation that you liked it, especially at the price of the time. My average return, about 130% now, and considering the recent downfall, I'd love to tell you more. Time to put coffee, sell outright, or hold?

When I hear somebody up that much, here's what I say. I don't really care about the stock. I say I want you to sell half and play with the house's money. Why not do that? Can you imagine I bump into you at Paramus, maybe shopping at that mall. That mall looks like a million bucks. It should be worth like a billion bucks, but it looks like a million bucks. But here's what I would do. I bump into you. You know what you say to me? You say, hey, Jim, thank you. I live for that. Let's do it.

Next week will still be impactful despite the lack of earnings reports and get ready to do some buy-in if this market gets hit in response to that Friday's job report. Watch what happened today. See, it's not that bad out there on Mad Money Tonight. I'm revealing the top 25 questions I have for 2025, starting with a look at how the election and more could affect the macro environment. You need to know the questions before you can figure out the answers. Then I'm going sector by sector, giving you the stories that stand out to me in each of these categories. And later, from robo-taxis to software, I'm running through the top 10

Top themes that could shape the action in the most important sector of this market. Tech. I suggest you stay with Kramer.

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At the start of every new year, I always try to figure out which stocks can work best over the next 12 months. This year's different precisely because there's just so much we don't know about what's coming. While that's always true to some extent, this year the stakes feel higher given that the S&P 500 has put up two consecutive years of 20%.

20% plus gains for the first time since the late 90s. So rather than making a bunch of predictions about what might happen in 2025, I got an idea. I want to walk you through my thought process and share 25 of the most pressing questions in this market. 25 for 2025, because these are the things we need to figure out in order to make good decisions here. We'll start with a big picture of questions, then we're going to get into some specific sector areas. That'll be after the break with the 10 biggest questions about tech coming after the following break.

First big question, does the yield on the 10-year Treasury sink to 4% or rise to 5% first? Or does it just sit here in the middle? This is the most important question in the entire market. As I've told you repeatedly, we've been in this weird situation ever since the Fed started cutting short rates in September. From the moment we got the first cut, long rates, which are set by the bond market, started soaring. Highly unusual. The yield on the 10-year has climbed from just under 3.6% the day before the first rate cut to roughly 4.6% now.

And we know the 10-year yield peaked at 5% in October of 2023. So is it headed in that direction or will it reverse and go lower? As far as stocks are concerned, I think they'll do well if the yield on the 10-year peaks out and goes lower.

Even if it basically sits here between 4.5 and 4.6, the market should do fine. However, if long rates keep climbing with the 10-year reaching 5%, well, it could be truly miserable for the stock market, at least short term, because ultimately we'll be able to deal with higher long rates as we did in the 1990s, which was a great time to own stocks, even as the 10-year Treasury yielded a stunning 6.6%. Hey, sometimes when you're older, you can actually remember this stuff. Second, big picture question, will the labor market remain tight?

Even though the economy softened in recent months, it's still very strong in absolute terms, largely because unemployment remains ridiculously low. This resilient labor market is the reason we could have a soft landing after the Fed's ruthless series of rate hikes in 2022 and 2023. While the unemployment rate has been drifting higher for the past two years now, from 3.4% in January 2023 to 4.2% in the latest reading, I got to tell you, that's an insanely low read by historical standards. Typically, anything below 5% is considered full employment.

So can the labor market stay strong this year? Right now, I'm betting it can. Remember, the labor market was great during the first three years of the original Trump administration. We had 3.5% unemployment right before COVID hit and everything fell apart. Plus, if Trump pushes through mass deportations, more on that one later, it could cause a major labor shortage. If anything, we probably should be worrying about whether the labor market will get too tight, causing severe wage inflation. Still, this is something I'll be watching closely, starting with the December 24th

non-farm payrolls report. That actually comes out a week from today. We want continued strength in the job market, but at the same time, we don't want it to get too strong because that could trigger another wave of inflation and force the Fed to stop cutting rates entirely. We need Goldilocks big time.

Third question, and this is kind of a catch-all, what's going to happen in Washington? With the second Trump administration taking over in two and a half weeks, we still don't really know what the plan is. We don't know what's the priorities here or what they'll be able to push through Congress, even though the markets had nearly two months to process the election results. Really, this Washington question could be 25 questions on its own. Is President-elect Trump serious about large, widespread tariffs, or is the tough talk just a negotiating tactic?

How serious is Trump about mass deportations, which, if enacted, would likely have an impact on the previous question about the labor market?

How much benefit will companies see from deregulation? And how soon? What can we expect in terms of corporate taxes? In extension, the 2017 Tax Cuts and Jobs Act, which seems like a given at this point. But will Trump go even further? And considering that last question, here's a doozy. Will the bond market continue to tolerate big budget deficits from the U.S. government? Some would argue the bond market's already taken a tougher line on the national debt, given that big increase in Treasury yields over the past few months. They may be right.

But for the purpose of this tidy 25 questions for 2025 exercise, let's leave it as a simple what's going to happen in Washington? Just like that. Difficult to answer because as we learned last time, I mean, Donald Trump is not a predictable president. Great for cable news ratings, but sometimes frustrating when you're in the business of making predictions. Hmm. Maybe a higher cash position than normal could beckon. Fourth question. And this one's key to the stock market.

Will we get the robust corporate earnings growth that Wall Street's been betting on? When you look at the consensus estimates for the S&P 500 in the aggregate, the analysts are looking for 12.2%.

percent earnings growth this year, followed by 11.9 percent growth in 2026. That's pretty far away. Now, that'd be pretty darn good. And it's a major reason why people are willing to pay nearly 22 times this year's numbers for the S&P 500. Now, that's a big premium versus its average forward multiple of 17.7 times earnings over the past decade. Buyers are comfortable paying up because they believe in across the board corporate earnings growth of about 12 percent. You can buy two times that percent and still feel comfortable. So 24 percent. But is it achievable?

I certainly hope so. Via some combination of the strong consumer, continued strength in capital spending deregulation, and international markets like China finally bouncing back from the pandemic. Later, 24 times earnings. It sounds like if those things happen, we could be in no shape here. Really good shape. Perhaps starting in 2026, additional tax cuts could provide another easy tailwind for corporate growth. But there are also things that could trip us on that path to 12% earnings worth. It's so much keys on like tariffs, higher interest rates or worse,

an erosion of consumer spending we'll get some clarity on what to expect from corporate earnings growth in 2025 over the next several weeks as companies report their fourth quarter results and issue their initial full year sales and earnings forecast any meaningful disappointment in the full year guidance will likely cause the aggregate earnings estimates to come in which would be real bad news for the averages you'll be paying much too high a price during small bottom line those are my four

Big macro questions. And those are huge, right? But this year has so much uncertainty that we're just getting started. I've got 21 more, 21 gunsalut of questions that go over every sector of the market. I say stay tuned to everything, and Mad Money is back. Coming up, Kramer's posed some big questions about what 2025 holds for the market. After the break, he's getting curious about what a new year might mean for each sector. Next.

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Like I told you before the break, rather than making big predictions about 2025, I'm posing 25 questions that we need to answer to get some clarity on the future. Earlier, I walked you through four big picture questions that loom over this market. And now I've got some sector specific ones going rapid fire.

through the 11 official sectors according to the global industry classification standard. That's what people use. We'll go down a descending order of performance from last year, starting with communication services, which is an amalgamation of sleepy telecom and cable companies, some tech giants like Alphabet and Meta, and media and entertainment companies. Here we need to ask if the

advertising market will hold up. That's who pays the bills. We almost take it for granted at this point that ad spending will keep shifting towards digital channels like search at YouTube ads for Alphabet, Instagram ads for Meta. The only thing that could truly throw them off their game would be an overall downturn in ad spending. I don't expect that unless the economy takes a meaningful turn for the worst. But it's something we've got to stay carnal. We've got to watch it.

Sixth question, will there be any tangible benefit for the financials from deregulation this year? A lot of people buzzing about that. Financials roared right after the election as Wall Street's betting Trump will give us a more laissez-faire set of regulators. Still, those are all theoretical benefits now. This show will be watching to see how quickly these perceived benefits from deregulation materialize. I am already seeing some small caps trying to merge that might not have otherwise done so. I think big ones are weeks, not months away.

Thank you, FTC, for, well, whatever. You know my view on the FTC. I don't need to go over it. New FTC head, though. Seventh question. For the consumer discretionary spaces, the consumer's starting to get tapped out. This one's a bit of a cop-out because we've been asking for two to three years now, right? And the answer has proven to be a resounding...

No, each time. Still, it's worth asking again. Now that consumers are demanding value these days, we'll get some of the first clues here over the next week and a half when dozens of consumer discretionary companies presented the ICR conference in Orlando. But we also tend to do a, you know, we tend to get a lot of pre-announcements down there and maybe some great color on how the holiday season went. I once went to that fantastic conference. I enjoyed myself. Got a lot of behind the scenes news. Question number eight, technology. Can the AI investment boom continue? I'll

I'll keep this brief because we're doing a whole section on tech questions after the break. But this has become a huge theme and it's something we need to keep an eye on. Although we got encouraging news today when Brad Smith, president of Microsoft, said in a blog post that Mr. Swafty will be investing a cool $80 billion to build AI data centers this year. I say NVIDIA.

Question nine, can the utilities actually meet our nation's increased need for power? I'm not sure about this one. Now, the Utes were up 19.5% last year thanks to ridiculous demand for electricity from all these data centers that are being built. I think they deserve to work, but they can't keep running unless they're able to generate more transmission capability. Is that a safe assumption? I'm not so sure. I'm concerned that consumers will have their electric bills jacked up so that the utilities can meet demand center needs. I think that those nuclear power stocks are getting a little too old.

you know, overheated. Question 10. Which of the leading industrial themes will prove to be the most durable? The sector's tough to talk about in the aggregate because it's made up of subgroups that are highly dependent on their end markets. Whether we're talking about agriculture, equipment, aerospace, defense, the contractors, HVAC, you know, heating, ventilation, air conditioning, all sorts of industrial services providers.

If I had to make a bet, I'd put my money on groups like aerospace, which seems unassailable. Years worth of demand there. Plus HVAC companies, electrical equipment specialists, and really anyone selling into the data center. But I'm less bullish on other industrial areas like ag, not too good. Defense, a little too expensive. And any group whose end customers require significant financing, given that long rates remain high. Question 11.

This one's for the consumer staple skin. The packaged food goods beat the rise of the GLP-1. These revolutionary weight loss drugs make people want to eat less, and they put real pressure on the food stocks, even though not one of the packaged food operators will even admit they have a problem. I bet it stays a problem. This study just published by Cornell Biz School discussing a decline in household spending on processed food makes me feel like the packaged food guys, well, they don't have the horses.

Question 12. Will the oil and gas industry production discipline remain as we return to a drill, maybe drill era? Now, we know the incoming Trump administration will be a lot more fossil fuel friendly than the Biden administration. It's hard to be worse than the fossil fuels than Biden was. But as I've voiced several times, my biggest concern is that Trump's people will be too friendly to domestic energy production.

too friendly. See, if the energy industry is encouraged to produce as much as it can, that would crush oil and gas prices. We saw that happen in the last Trump administration. Now, for the last few years, the oil and gas producers have benefited tremendously from the fact that they've been remarkably restrained with their production growth, managing for cash flows and profitability rather than production growth at all costs. That discipline has been fantastic for earnings.

But it's historically unusual. Can they hold back on production with a friendly White House that wants them to drill like crazy? Maybe a good edge by some of the pipeline stocks. They win either way.

Question 13 for real estate. Will we see more retail bankruptcy and store closings putting pressure on the retail-oriented real estate investment trusts? A lot of seers come on these shows, and they tell us that we should be more worried. Now, we did see some of this in 2024. Big box retail or big lots. Did you really ever go there? They declared bankruptcy in September. Many of the stores are closing. At just the end of last week, the container store filed for bankruptcy. Never understood why that went public. And parties see one another. Ever been to one of those slop shops?

All of that's pretty manageable. But when we see more of these retail failures in 2025, will it extend to companies we actually like? Will any major retailers start running into trouble to the point where they have to close hundreds or thousands of stores? I hope not. But I'm watching the struggles of the pharmacy chains and the dollar stores closely. Put enough of these together, and it's a real problem for the real estate investment trust landlords. Question 14. How will RFK Jr. actually impact health care? The whole health care cohort just got obliterated after the election. I don't know!

Especially after Trump picked Bobby Kennedy Jr. for Health and Human Services Secretary, a big-time critic of the pharmaceutical industry. Trump said he let Kennedy go wild on health. So how wild will RFK Jr. go? Frankly, I'm less worried about this than other people on Wall Street, especially after briefly speaking with him on the floor of the New York Stock Exchange a couple weeks ago. I hope he focuses on making food healthier rather than stopping vaccines. So RFK's appointment will continue to wail in the healthcare sector until we get some clarity on his agenda.

Those stocks have not been too hot, I got to tell you. Finally, question 15. Can lower-priced commodities see some price increases? The worst-performing sector in 2024, the only one to finish negative territory, was the materials cohort. All sorts of commodities, from metals like copper and steel to certain agricultural commodities like soybeans and wheat, are at particularly low levels. And if we're hoping for a construction boom spurred by lower interest rates, well, that got taken off the table when the bond market refused to play ball.

So to see the materials group do better, we need lower rates. And we also need to see some of these commodity prices start to go meaningfully higher. Oh, and China's got to come back in a powerful way. I think all of these could happen except China. And that's why commodity markets look pretty darn ugly right now.

Bottom line, these are 11 of the key questions that we'll define this year. Stick around and I'll give you my 10 pressing questions for the all-important tech sector, which has been the real power behind two years of 20% increases to the averages. Patrick in Minnesota. Patrick. Hey, happy New Year, Jim. Happy New Year to you, Patrick. What's going on?

Hey, do you think any risk the Department of Government Efficiency poses to the F-35 fighter program is now baked into the price of Lockheed Martin, or do you see that falling further under the incoming administration? I don't want to own the stock because even up at 79, I'd rather own Palantir because they're figuring out how to hit

fix this defense procurement problem. And the problem is that these companies make too much money and the taxpayer doesn't get the bang for the buck. So even though Lockheed Martin's come down nicely, it looks like it's going to find a level here to buy. It only yields 2.7 percent and it does have powerful enemies within the administration. Richard in California. Richard. Hello, Mr. Kramer. Thank you for taking my call. Happy New Year. Of course. Same to you. What's going on?

Thank you. I am a sports fan, and long before Ohio State blew out Oregon on the Rose Bowl, Nike has been fumbling the ball. They got a new CEO, and I've seen multiple CNBC episodes highlighting Nike as a buy or at least a hold. But since I purchased Nike in last May of 2024, it has been a disappointment, but

So should I continue to be really patient, which I can do, and hold on to it? Should I buy more or should I just dump it? Okay, now remember, we're dealing with an animal here that had changed management. The stock is going down for what the previous CEO did. My belief in Elliott Hill is unassailable. I would not have you sell it. I want to see if the stock breaks down one more time. But Elliott Hill, he is a guy that makes me want to...

And thank you for your confidence. The answers to these questions will go a long way in determining how each sector performs in 2025. So buckle up as we find out together. Much more Mad Moneyhead, including my breakdown of what could shake up stocks in the tech sector this year. Plus, it's a tale of two chips in the market. I'll explain and dig into new data that should set some light on the GOP-1 impact on food players. And of course, all your calls rapid fire tonight's edition of the lightning round. So stay with Kramer.

Today, we're ticking through our top 25 questions for 2025. And now I want to round things out with 10 questions for the tech sector specifically, because tech has been leading this bull market for years. So let's take them one by one, starting with question 16. How will the AI infrastructure trade evolve going forward? So far, we've seen big gains in all sorts of hardware that goes into the data center, especially NVIDIA, of course, but also Broadcom, Marvell Technology, Arista Networks.

Will that change this year? Will there be any real challengers to NVIDIA GPU dominance? Will Dell and HP pull away from Supermicro in the server space? Lots of ways this can change, even if the underlying theme maintains its momentum. You know what? I'm thinking that NVIDIA's the king, right? The king. But I'm also mindful that there are four kings in every deck.

Question 17, which companies will merge as the initial AI software winners? The ones that can actually make some money from it? At this point, we've got a small subset of the enterprise software cohort that's introducing AI functionality into their product suites. Now, the one that's most obvious is Salesforce, which has now rolled out its agent force AI platform for sales and customer relations management. ServiceNow has done the same with many back office functions.

Palantir could probably make a case for itself here, even as its valuation has gotten pretty stretched in the last few weeks. Retail buyers just taking it up. Adobe might be included, though I'm not sure if they're a winner from AI. That last quarter wasn't so great, but I don't want to be too dispirited here. You know what, though? My money's on Matthew McConaughey and Woody Harrelson, which is another reason why we own the stock of Salesforce.com for the travel trucks. Question 18. Is the AIPC story dead on arrival?

Or is it just delayed? In retrospect, the AIPC theme proved to be one of the biggest disappointments of 2024. Never really materialized in any meaningful way, did it? But if you look at what some of the PC makers were saying late last year, they still expect it to happen just later than expected. So are they right or will the AIPC just disappoint us again? Well, they have to make it more prominent and more useful. Right now, it is indeed dead on arrival.

Question 19. Can the cyclical portions of the semiconductor sector start growing? At this point, well, let me think. We've got a tale of two semiconductor industries, the AI part that's on fire and everything else that's languishing. So can the more cyclical portion of the industry put in a real bottom this year and start growing again? It feels like some of these cyclical chips makers, they've been trying to bottom for the last few quarters now, but they keep disappointing, like Micron, which I like so much, but you can't pull the trigger.

Cell phones have got to get better before this one can get off the schneid. Question 20. While improbable growth tech names still stay hot,

Or will they be finally losing their mojo? Now, I talked a little bit about this last night, the quantum computing bubble. Look, I believe in quantum computing, just not the stocks that are being taken up other than Google. There are other components of this trade as well, like some small tech companies seem to be rallying slowly because they have AI in their names again. Can you believe that stuff's back? Some fintech, ad tech stocks, some drone-related companies, smaller cryptocurrency miners. Look, I don't like this kind of behavior. I really don't, OK? I mean, I think that it's going to really lend itself to some...

I feel much better about the entire market if people just stop betting so heavily on speculative companies with little revenue and huge losses. We saw too much of this in 2021 before speculative stocks flew too close to the sun, and we had a huge correction in 2022. So I am asking now if the Unprofitable Growth Tech group can stay hot, and I'm hoping that the answer is no.

But I get that at the beginning of the year we always see this kind of stuff. I just hope it ends soon. Question 21. Can the legacy tech giants continue to run?

We saw some big moves here late last year. Cisco finished up 17 percent of the year. IBM gained 34 percent. You know what? You could also put Dell and Oracle into this category, although I think they deserve more credit for their AI exposure. Oldies, goodies, even HP Enterprise, you know, it's got a lot of game. Actually, I think it's doing really well. You know what? I'm also kicking the tires on Kindle, although it's run an awful lot.

My bad for not featuring it earlier. Instead of kicking the tires, I should just be kicking myself. But we need to figure out if these companies can keep winning. If interest rates continue moving higher this year, I think the legacy tech cohort could become a nice safe haven within the sector. That said, the legacy players need to keep generating growth because it's not enough just to have cheap stocks. Question 22. Will cybersecurity remain unbeatable?

Now, we know cybersecurity offerings have become essential staples of the enterprise tech world. You need robust cybersecurity tools or you're pretty much guaranteed to be hacked, which can lead to devastating consequences. Thanks to that, well, we've had some huge gains in Palo Alto Networks and CrowdStrike for the charitable trust. Like I said, this group is unassailable. Even when CrowdStrike had a horrible incident last summer, a glitch, not a hack.

causing widespread tech allergies and millions of damages for the customers. Its stock only went lower for about three weeks before coming right back. You had to buy it right then, although, you know what? You can still pull the trigger now. That's how much I like it. I bet, you know what, cybersecurity is going to be big again in 2025. Just while we were out last week, we learned that AT&T and Verizon and other telco companies have been hacked by a Chinese cyber espionage group called Salt Tycoon. And even the Treasury Department sanctions office has been hit by Chinese hackers. That was really bad, by the way.

So yes, I bet cybersecurity stocks keep winning. Question 23. Hey, who's going to win the robo taxi race? Alphan subsidiary Google remains the leader in the space for now with Waymo. But Tesla's made some huge progress on autonomous driving. It's just not talked about enough. We already knew that Tesla had a data advantage in self-driving cars and it's called NVIDIA. But it's simply not on the road yet testing its autonomous vehicles while Waymo's been doing that for a while. However,

However, Elon Musk is in such good terms with President-elect Trump that you have to believe that his company will have the advantage. As long as he stays tight with Trump, I bet Tesla's the winner. Look, the interstate, the federal interstate highway system, it's going to be the real battleground here.

Doesn't Musk have an edge on the federal interstate system? And that's going to be where we see a lot of self-driving cars. Question 24. How will Trump's trade policies impact tech? Remember, President Trump implemented widespread tariffs on Chinese imports during his first term, and then President Biden went ahead and kept most of those in place in its entirety for four years.

The Biden administration even went a couple of steps further, blocking the sale of advanced semiconductor, semiconductor capital equipment products to Chinese customers. And we did share that on the show. So will Trump continue that approach? Major implications of the semiconductor space. I get input from both sides on this one. Not sure. Finally, question 25. How will Trump help the cryptocurrency ecosystem? Obviously, President-elect Trump has seen a much more friendly environment for a crypto than Biden. There's a reason that Bitcoin's a

up over 40% in less than two months since the election.

But how will Trump actually help crypto? There's been lots of talk about a strategic Bitcoin reserve, some of the strategic petroleum reserve, except you can't use it in a crisis and it's not liquid and it's not in a salt cavern somewhere. But that would likely require an act of Congress. Would it pass? I feel confident saying that the Trump administration's SEC won't pursue crypto as vigorously as the Gary Genslow-led SEC. You know, Genslow really was after these guys. But what are the implications of that? Could it lead to a rise in scams?

Wouldn't that actually hurt crypto if people lose confidence in its validity? I say stick with Bitcoin, by the way. Don't go for the others. Conversely, we know that many industry leaders have said that they're craving clear rules of the road from the federal government about crypto, something the Biden administration has been reluctant to do, preferring to regulate via enforcement. That was not an unusual way. Biden did that constantly. So maybe the crypto ecosystem gets these clear rules and flourishes in the end.

We don't really know how Trump will help crypto, and we're looking forward to some clarity on that front, but I would not bet against Bitcoin. Bottom line, there you go. Those are more... That's my 25 questions for 2025. Now we move forward looking for answers, but hopefully you'll come away from tonight's show with a better idea of what you should be watching out for this year so you can make more informed decisions as the answers come rolling on down the road. Mad Money is back after the break. ♪

It is time. It's time for the Light Round. Christmas. And then the lighting round is over. Are you ready? Ski down. It's time for the Light Round. Christmas. Over to Andy in New York. Andy. Hey, Jim. How are you? I am good, Andy. How are you?

Great. Happy New Year. Healthy New Year, really. All the best, first of all. Thank you. Great. So I'm calling you about SoundHound. I've kind of jumped into it a couple times. About six months ago, had a nice spike. I jumped in and jumped out.

and about a week or two ago i was following it so it started moving didn't jump in fast enough but jumped in about 13 took a good position oh 13. it said 20 now you gotta take ring the register on some of that here's the problem with saturn it's just a chronic money loser uh

And because of that, it actually I think if I were them, I'd sell about 50 million shares right here down in the hole. And they can so you never worry about cash position because they do have some interesting technology. But at this point, it is a short squeeze and a short squeeze only until they do that stock and make it so their balance sheet is better because they keep losing money. There's a whole plan right there. And then pay me a dime for it. But it's right. Linda in Florida. Linda.

Kim, I am so excited to be talking to you tonight. Well, here we go. Here we go. My wife's not. I just checked and she's like, not at all. She's like, yeah, call me after the show. I got a picture. Anyway, go ahead. My question concerns Happnia Limited, which is a stock symbol AKFN.

Oh, look, we got that huge dividend. It looks so juicy. Those are stocks that you must avoid. You've got to trust me on this. You'll get a dividend or two, but those stocks are saying, the dividend's saying, look out below. Now we want to go to Mark in Illinois. Mark. Hey, booyah, Jim. Happy New Year to you. Same.

Calling to ask about Home Depot. I bought it back. I like Home Depot. Jeff and I, Jeff Marks and I, we're going back and forth and back and forth. I wanted to pull the trigger and buy more. He reminds me, look, we already bought some at this area. But let me tell you something. Got a head and shoulders pattern. People are going to break down. I want to buy, buy, buy right into that alleged head and shoulders problem. Now let's go to Johnny. Oh, in Missouri. Johnny. Booyah, Jim. Happy New Year to you. Same to you.

I've got two tickers for you to look at. The first is Riot Platforms, the stock I've traded over the last year. Okay. Well, Riot Platforms, I have to go to my chief scientist, Ben Stoto, on that. He points out that it's a Bitcoin miner. And can you get a better business than mining Bitcoin? Ah, yes. Okay, what else? Go ahead. That was it. Yeah, hey, let's take someone else. Why don't we go to Drew in Minnesota? Drew.

Hello, Jim. Drew, is that true? You know, the Vikings are for real. Can I just get that out there? And I'm going to do that. What is it, the Diddy? What do I have to do there? Okay, anyway, I'm with Jefferson. They got Jefferson, they got Madison. All they need is Washington. Right? I mean, they got the whole Founding Fathers thing. Where's Lincoln? They got the whole Founding Fathers. Go ahead. What's happening? Well, I'm a new member of your club, and I'm a retired U.S.W. steelworker.

Oh, my God. Really? Yeah. And with all that's happening in the U.S., with the U.S. steel company now, especially in light of today's news, Cliff Cleveland Cliff did, who I used to work for. They're they're good for U.S. steel might still happen. So I'm just wondering. I know I was I was into the company trying to get them come on tonight's show. Now, here's the problem, honestly.

The steel stocks are the worst stocks in the market. And I think that you could buy this stock. And if you're willing to take a point or two down, then I think it's OK. But you have to accept the fact that that's exactly what could occur. And that, ladies and gentlemen, is the conclusion of the lightning round. The lightning round is sponsored by Charles Schwab.

Today, we saw colossal buying in chip stocks as traders flocked to last year's darlings that's thought out last week. NVIDIA led the group as usual, but we saw some terrific action. Some of the beaten down semis like AMD, ARM, Qualcomm. I think this move could last as these companies have great earnings momentum going into 2025.

But there are some chips that, frankly, can't seem to get off the ground. The potato chips, which fare particularly badly at a little notice. New study out of Cornell's business school that shows the GOP-1 weight loss drugs are having a real impact, a meaningful one that commands attention. There's a definitive drop in processed food sales in this country, and it is being linked to these GOP-1 drugs. First, some background. In the middle of last year, a wave of fear...

Came over the food group, these GOP-1s from Eli Lilly and Nova Norris were viewed as grim reapers, slashing Ernie's wherever they went. We figured food sales would come down, then Ernie's for supermarkets could get hurt. And at one point, at the height of fear, an analyst tried to assess the impact on aerospace and airlines if more people got thin. It all got pretty darn fanciful, and especially eventually rationality returned, along with buyers for pretty much everything.

Now the hysteria is over, but maybe there was real cause for concern. This Cornell study that I like so much took a look at use patterns and concluded that, I'm going to quote here, households with at least one GLP-1 user reduced grocery spending by approximately 6% within six months of adoption. End quote. The study goes on to say, quote, given an average monthly grocery expenditure of $630, this translates to an annual reduction of $416 per adopt

End quote. Hey, that is big money for most Americans. The GOP does want drugs. Also, reduce food consumed away from home, with breakfast spending declining by nearly 4%, and dinner down 6% fast food, particularly hard hit. I think you might see something about this when grocery chain Albertsons reports next Wednesday. At the very least, the supermarket's management should have to address this report's findings.

But it's the packaged food companies themselves that have the most to fear. As the report comments, quote, In fact, the Cornell report directly posits that sales weakness from Kraft Heinz and Campbell's might be attributed to the GOP-1s. A quote.

According to the report, the food companies can protect themselves by changing package sizes, offering smaller portions, producing foods that are healthier and more convenient. I think that makes sense, but in the end, these companies are all about processed foods. Come on. It's awfully hard for them to change their stripes. Now, lots of investors have turned on the makers of the GOP-1s last night. I got a call from someone who complained about how miserably Eli Lilly's stock has done, in large part because he bought it in the 900s. I

totally get that. I know the stocks plummeted to the 700s to sicken a great many shareholders, but I think that these drugs have multiple benefits and their staying power, questioned by many negativists, may be stronger than the critics think. The pattern seems ingrained already and the pain the processed foods we're supposed to experience might finally be arriving.

To me, it's simple. You should buy one kind of chip that's changing the world, the semiconductors, and avoid another kind of chip. Free delays. It's ironic. We used to regard the foods as safety stocks and the semiconductors as high flyers with huge downside. Now there seems to be nothing safe about the foods. But the semis? Lots more staying power than anyone ever thought. I like to say there's always more market summer. I promise I'll be back just for you right here on MadMoney. I'm Jim Cramer. I'll see you Monday.

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.

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