Mad Money w/ Jim Cramer 4/2/25
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Hey, I'm Kramer. Welcome to Mad Money. Welcome to Kramerica. Other people may be friends. I'm just trying to save a little money here. My job is to put this thing in context, and you're going to need it. Listen up. Call me, 1-800-743-CBC. Tweet me, Jim Kramer. Bring on the tariffs. Enough already. Let's just disrupt everything.

The president wants to do it. He wants to hammer Canada. He wants to hobble Mexico. He's all over Europe in Mercedes-Benz, VW, Lambo. Hey, Toyota, look out. Same with Nissan. China, forget it, Jake. Tough luck, Nissan. And Kia, see ya.

Yep, welcome to Liberation Day, where America does to all of our trading partners like we did to the Red Coast in days of yore. It's time to make a pay. Teach them a lesson. Don't tread on me. Just be going to fight. Whether you think it's good policy or bad policy, it sure seems like Wall Street's gotten tired of worrying about it and just says bring it on. Although today, in some sort of weird reprieve, the Dow gained 235 points, S&P advanced 0.67%, and the Nasdaq actually climbed 0.87%. You know what? That's kind of like a joke.

See, because that was before all the announcements after hours. And the trades after hours are painting a different picture, a horrendous picture. The one we had had dangled in front of us since Election Day. The one that's finally here. And it's every bit as horrible for stocks as many of us thought it could be. But tonight, you know what? I'm going Mr. Brightside. I'm doing it because I think we'll be making too big a deal of these tariffs tomorrow because we have been talking about how horrible they will be for ages.

And regular viewers know that I've never been a huge fan of free trade. It would be fine if everybody plays by the rules. But we're the only country that plays by the rules. I want fair trade instead, which means tariff those who tariff us just as hard. Of course, I've been hoping for reciprocal tariffs, and that's what we allegedly got, even if they were far more severe than I'd hoped for. With reciprocal tariffs, we hammer specific countries for putting up specific trade barriers or subsidizing specific industries. While we got reciprocal tariffs...

I never expected them to be this high, nor did many other people. From Wall Street's perspective, Trump might as well have used a meat axe, which is what we were most afraid of. The term reciprocal meant nothing in the end. The term punitive is more accurate. But again, we are going to make too big a deal of it. So in a few more days, we're going to have to start looking for things to buy. Ultimately, I think we've been looking at this president all wrong, though. This president turns out to be an equal opportunity hater.

He doesn't care what these countries do. Ultimately, he thinks they can't really hurt us. Why? Because they don't buy much of our stuff anyway. So why not clobber them with tariffs and at least get some money out of them? The president's view is simple. Our so-called trading partners will either eat the tariff or the people who sell the product will eat the tariff.

Companies will make less money. Farm businesses subsidized by their home countries won't make any money because they're simply being run as make work programs that dump the final product on us. And China, which has used every loophole to get into our markets, they'll be paying to big time. As will any of our companies that sell in there, because presumably the Chinese will now hurt our companies. There you think Nike. There you think Apple. That's what's happening.

We've been inured to this for months because the president has done it with such wrath. But his bite on Liberation Day turned out to be worse than his bark. It's confusing to most people because it was so poorly explained by the president. This morning, there was this trippy piece in The Wall Street Journal that talked about all the Chinese companies that moved into Mexico in order to use NAFTA as still one more way to get into our markets directly. If the president had told that story, I think we'd feel a heck of a lot better about what the heck he's doing. We don't really understand it. We just know it sends our stocks down.

For months, we've been bombarded with stories from the mainstream media about how crazy this trade war in the rest of the world is. We've been told that the president's making enemies and angering everyone as if these countries really buy our stuff because we have these persistent trade deficits anyway. We've heard all about how these tariffs will slow down business and cause inflation to get out of control while closing America off from the rest of the world. But the president has not talked about how often Chinese companies are involved in the goods we buy.

China's insidious octopus. They've burdened so many of our trading partners that if we hurt those partners, we're only striking back at China, too. Of course, we're hurting Korea. Of course, we're hurting Germany. And of course, we're hurting Japan.

So remember, my dad used to be a middleman in the gift wrap business. He watched government subsidies, Chinese mills wreck their American counterparts. Of course, he's always he loved dealing with Chinese. And they were much more accommodating than Americans. But you have to understand, this is about the damage that China did to these American factory towns.

President Trump knows these stories like my father's well, and he's sick of them. This is a real problem, and our government is finally taking action, even if not everybody's going to like it. And by the way, it's going to result in much higher prices for the consumer. Again, Trump doesn't care. He sees bigger issues than a small hike in price for things, even if you and I think it's going to be terrible for the average consumer. He doesn't care.

Let's talk consequences. The president has not said one word about investing in stocks during this period. He's not suckered you into this market. He hasn't told you to invest in America. He hasn't promised higher stock prices. He may have flinched when the S&P 500 was down 10 percent a couple weeks ago, but he follows the Dow much more than he does the S&P, and the Dow isn't even down that much from its highs.

More important, because Trump doesn't seem to care about the stock market this time around, why should he care about certainty, which I've said over and over again is what makes investors happy? He's not trying to make investors happy. He's not all about happiness for us. He's about making these countries bend to his will. And if it causes inflation, then it causes inflation. He never promised you a Rose Garden stock market, and I sure didn't see one in the Rose Garden today.

Not with huge tariffs on Taiwan that brings Nvidia stock down. Not on big tariffs with China that'll hurt Apple. Not on the stocks of so many tech companies that will be crushed tomorrow, even as many of these companies are from countries that were trying to build things here to appease them. The appeasement plan didn't work.

We keep asking, is it a clearing of them? What the heck does that mean? What does Trump put? What does that mean? We're missing the point. Yes, I want this over. Yes, I want clarity. I want some sense of how this can all end. But that makes me a fool like the rest of us.

We keep thinking that's the point. That's not how Trump sees it. Here is the point. We should simply be looking at companies that cater to small, medium-sized businesses that can't be hurt by tariffs. We need to accept the higher level of inflation because it's coming. We should take out some money and put it on the sidelines, betting that this will end someday, even if we don't know when. But right now, we have to get with the programs.

And the president, the program is taking down our training partners and hurting bottom lines all over the place. He doesn't care. He demonstrated that tonight. So you better get used to it.

Why is that his goal? Here's the bottom line. The stock market may matter to you and me. It used to matter to Trump. But that was then and this is now. He wants to punish our trading partners for taking advantage of us. And he'll do whatever it takes to make that happen, even if it crushes our stock market and results in higher prices of all sorts of goods for you and me in America. If that's what it takes to get it done, he's going to do it.

I say get over it and we will work together to find stocks that no matter what Trump does, he can't hurt us. Even as that universe grows smaller by the day. It turns out I was right. It really is the Walmart White House. Trump really does believe in everyday lower stock prices, not in the supermarket, not in the cereal aisle and not in the fruit aisle and not in any of the aisles. Only these aisles right here in the New York Stock Exchange.

Paul in Ohio. Paul. Booyah, Jim Kramer. How you doing? How you doing? I'm doing well, Paul. How are you doing? I'm not bad. Not bad, my friend. Hey, I'm a proud club member that would like to thank you for your advice and guidance. Thank you. Yeah, I'm calling about the world's largest asset manager with over $11 trillion in assets under management. I'm calling about BlackRock.

OK, BlackRock is doing incredibly well. And I read through Larry Fink, the CEO's letter the other day. Oh, my God, it was just a great letter. He's doing all these things that are really good for infrastructure. That's going to make a lot of money for the people who invest there. But that said, it's an American stock. And tomorrow, President Trump has issued an edict, which is that your stock's going to go down. Now, he didn't really say so much in the edict. I do the interpretation. Patrick in New York. Patrick. Hey, Jim. How are you? All right, Patrick. How are you?

Good. So as you're aware, uh, Newsmax, they went public on the market on Monday. And, uh, I was wondering, what is your opinion on Newsmax stock? Okay. That's a good question. Okay. It's, it's a meme stock. What does that mean? It means it's in control, uh,

by a few people who write. A meme stock actually means that it's determined by social media. It's not determined by buyers and sellers of traditional ilk. Social media was big on it yesterday, and it's turned on it today because we don't know what social media will do. It's therefore not predictable. It's no more predictable for me than who's going to win in a given game. And there's no line to help you. Jerry in Missouri. Jerry.

Hey, Jim, thanks for taking my call. Of course, Jerry. Thank you. Jim, with all the downtrodden stocks of late, I want to cut and run from this solar play, but it's so far down that any good news, I'm afraid, will make it outperform anything else.

What do you think, Jim? Should I sell out and buy Capital One or hang on for any good news in Enphase? No, sell out and buy Capital One. There will be no good news Enphase because you know why? It's not a company that the president wants to see do well. It means nothing to him. Nothing.

Since we still love the market, we're going to have to work together to find the fewer stocks that still work. It won't be easy to find because the president's made it tougher. He's got his agenda. We got ours. We both have to do our thing. Homemade money tonight is a power stock. PBH well suited for growth after this week's post earnings pop. That's a kind of interesting red hot griddle story for what's going on tonight. I'm going to break down the numbers to give you my recap. It is a good microcosm of what we're facing.

Then, fresh off today's tariff announcement, I'm turning to charts to see what volatility could look like in the days ahead. We need to know about these things. And speaking of tonight's headlines, I'm checking in with private logistics company Flexport to hear how bad it's going to be. This is David Kramer.

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Under Biden, Americans' cost of living skyrocketed. Food, housing, auto insurance. Lawsuit abuse is a big reason everything's more expensive today. Frivolous lawsuits cost working Americans over $4,000 a year in hidden taxes. President Trump understands the problem. That's why he supports loser pays legislation to stop lawsuit abuse and put thousands back in the pockets of hardworking Americans.

It's time to make America affordable again. It's time to support the President's plan.

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On Monday night, we got something very surprising. It was a much better than expected earnings report from PVH, and that's the parent company of Calvin Klein and Tommy Hilfiger. Now, nobody was expecting great numbers from the power colossus, but they delivered a nice top and bottom line beat with a terrific full-year forecast and a $500 million buyback to be executed this year. And that's why the stock jumped 18% yesterday, interrupting a nasty decline that had been dragging this thing down for the better part of the year. It reminded me of the old PVH, which is kind of what we used to call an up stock.

what made this so surprising okay pvh has been kind of a roller coaster since the pandemic from late 2023 through march of last year the stock roared higher but since then it's been steadily working its way lower what happened a year ago okay well on april 2nd of 2024 pvh reported an okay quarter but horrendous guidance and the stock fell 22 percent in response

Twelve months ago, this was $141 stock. By this Monday, it was a $62 stock, although it's now rebounded to nearly $78 thanks to the latest quarter. Ever since that awful forecast a year ago, PVH has struggled to get its act together. They kept reporting strong quarters with healthy full-year forecasts, but then they issued disappointing guidance for the next quarter forecast.

undermining all the positive things they said. Then in December, the company delivered another strong set of results. But again, it issued lowball guidance that it cut the high end of the full-year forecast. And that's where the stock really started melting down.

This thing's been a horror show. PVH kept making us worry about the future. So when consumer confidence started collapsing this year, nobody had high hopes for the company. That's why the stock was selling for just 5.7 times this year's earnings estimates on Monday, right before it reported, making this one of the cheapest companies in the entire market, right down there with the autos. People had absolutely forsaken PVH.

But then the company goes to report what was a surprisingly solid quarter. Isn't it funny how things work like this? Better than expected revenue, especially overseas. Actual growth in North America from Galvin Klein. Haven't seen that in a long time, even though the earnings were down year over year. They did make $3.27. Wall Street was only looking for $3.21. That's a big beat for this company. In a vacuum, these would not be considered excellent numbers. I know that.

The business is shrinking, mortgages are down. PBH is definitely not thriving here. But nobody expected good numbers from these guys. They feared terrible numbers.

And what they got was BTF, better than fear. More important than the quarter itself was the full year forecast for 2025. PVH is talking revenues being flat to up slightly year over year, slightly better than expected. Management also said their operating market should be flat to up slightly. Another positive surprise. Then there's the earnings. PVH said that they expect to make $1240 to $1275 per share. Wall Street was only looking for $11. I mean, come on, that's fantastic.

Now, some of that's because they plan to buy back $500 million worth of stock this year when you shrink the number of shares that naturally boost the earnings per share. And right now, half a billion dollars could retire more than 12% of PVH's share count. But even if they get there with some financial alchemy, we're talking 6% to 9% earnings growth for 2025. And that is nothing to sneeze at.

Of course, even though the numbers were better than feared, PVH's management still can't get out of its own way. Once again, they gave us a softer forecast for the current quarter, although it wasn't as bad as we've seen in the previous quarters. I call this a less disappointing quarterly forecast versus what we've gotten used to. But thanks to the strong full-year earnings outlook, buyers were willing to overlook the quarterly guidance. See, the stock had finally come back down to the point that it mattered. And the numbers matter down here. But what's the story with PVH, the company?

On the conference call, management offered encouraging commentary about each of the major geographic regions. They conceded that Asia still has a challenging macro environment, but noted that the company still delivered its third straight year of constant currency revenue growth in that region. In North America, where the company managed modest growth for its two main brands, PVH had a significant increase in profitability. And a lot of exciting things are happening in Europe right now. Strong wholesale and direct-to-consumer businesses over there.

Now, for nearly three years, PVH has had in place what was called a self-help plan. It was called PVH Plus plan. Although it's kind of been vague, stuff like win with the best product, win with the best consumer engagement, win in the digitally led marketplace. Now, I haven't really focused on the plan because, well, look at the stock. But how great could PVH Plus be?

Well, according to management, it's responsible for the strong margins in North America and the return to growth in Europe. Looking ahead, PVH wants to cut costs when they can. They then use the savings to invest in growth initiatives. I'm feeling a lot more confident on this front than I was last week, although, of course, I'm worried about the tariffs and how they play out for these guys. PVH still has plenty of problems. The evaporation of the Consumer Conference in the United States, the tariff situation potentially making it much more expensive to source their product. None of this good.

Separately, China continues to be a problem. PVH said that, quote, starting in February, we began to face incrementally tougher headwinds in China, including a post-New Year's holiday slowdown that led to a step down in revenue, end quote. Adding that, quote, the trend has since stabilized at these new levels. That's not very encouraging, I think.

I'm wondering if the step down in February represented a newfound hostility toward American brands after President Trump took over, or if it's just run of the mill weakness in the Chinese economy. Either way, it's something to keep an eye on.

At the end of the day, PVH still isn't doing great. No one's saying that. But the company's doing well enough that it could outperform in the lowball expectations, given how much the stock had come down over the previous 12 months. During this period of muted demand, the company's focusing on self-improvement, finding savings where it can, and deploying those savings to new initiatives to help boost growth.

They could do a lot worse. Now, I think that you're really sticking your neck out if you buy the stock here, as management made it pretty explicit that business will only truly start to get better in the second half of the year. Their commentary about a slow February, particularly in China, was a little scary. If you want to wait to see another quarter or two before you pull the trigger, that's fine. The stock can run for an extended period of time when it's in favor. You don't necessarily need to nail the bottom of PVH. But here's the bottom line. One.

When I see a company like this, PVH, issuing a strong four-year forecast and then see this $4 billion company with a monster $500 million buyback all to be spent this year, I feel that's an immense sign of confidence from management with a trampoline underneath. Just as expectations can get too high, they can also get too low. And when they get too low, it doesn't take much to get a stock roaring again. If PVH can simply deliver another...

couple quarters of results with non-tarble guidance, maybe he could find his way back to the 120s where it was for so long. Mad money's back everywhere. Coming up, sensing some volatility in these wild market swings, Kramer is going off the charts and taking a deep dive into the VIX and what it may be signaling for your money. Next.

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As we frantically try to adjust to these Liberation Day tariff announcements, we need to talk about the setup coming into it. Because, well, the setup was weird. See, going into today's big news, the market was pricing Trump's latest round of tariffs like a binary event. We were trading like the tariffs would either be no big deal or...

or the end of the world, but nothing in between. With the announcement of these reciprocal tariffs, I hope we'd be in the clear, but the tariff rates are so high that we're getting crushed in after-hours trading, although it's just the beginning of the process. That's why tonight we're going off the charts with the help of Mark Sebastian. He's a brilliant technician. He's the founder of optionpit.com and a resident volatility expert. In order to get a better read on the situation, he likes to keep an eye on the VIX. That's the CBOE Volatility Index, which is also known as the fear gauge, because it tells you when investors are terrified, when they're feeling confident, and when they're downright complacent.

Right now, there's an immense amount of fear out there, hence the action in the lead up to the announcement. What was so unusual about the run up to Liberation Day? OK, let me walk you through this. We all know the VIX, but remember that the VIX is simply a reflection of option prices, specifically options bought in the S&P 500. So to find out exactly what's going on, Sebastian says we have to dig directly into the S&P. With options expirations coming every single day now, we can actually look at specific days to figure out what kind of movement is being priced into the market.

Take a look at this chart showing the date of the options expiration and the cost of options for that particular day. Basically, this table shows you the implied volatility of these options, which is what the VIX actually measures. It's the market's best guess for how much the S&P 500 might swing on that day. When you look at the chart, when you look at this thing, Sebastian points out that options are expiring on Thursday and Friday. That's the post-liberation options.

They are pretty expensive. Thursday has options priced at 36.78%. OK, remember all the way back here. While Friday has them priced at 33.82%.

But look at the implied volatility of these options for next Friday. It's all the way down to 20.79. That's a 13-point drop over the course of a single week. That's incredible. What does that tell Sebastian? It tells him that Wall Street's pricing in a ton of volatility in the S&P 500 over the next couple of days. That looks right, right? But then people are going to be betting this will all be over by Monday.

In other words, options traders were betting this would be an insanely wild week, a smart bet, and then they think we'll probably be in the clear after the weekend. Now, given what we heard tonight, today, I don't know, it could be right.

Now, there's another way to approach this, though. I want you to take a look at a chart of the VIX nine day minus the regular old VIX day. Oh, wow, this stuff is hard. The VIX nine day is just like the ordinary volatility index, except the nine day calculates option prices nine days out, while the ordinary volatility index calculates option prices 30 days out.

They're both measuring the implied volatility of options in the S&P 500, just using a different timescale. This chart here shows you the difference between the VIX 9-day and the regular volatility index. Lately, the 9-day has been trading above the regular volatility index. In fact, it's now substantially above the normal VIX.

Sebastian notes that it doesn't happen very often. Well, it is a different kind of time, isn't it? Because a longer time frame usually translates into higher implied volatility. The normal VIX reflects the action options that are 30 days out. So there are just many more opportunities for things to go crazy over the course of 30 days versus over the course of nine days, right? So when the VIX nine days trading above normal VIX, that means something in those nine days might be causing extreme stress.

When you've got a huge catalyst like these tariff announcements, a catalyst that seems like it could go either way, well, you get this kind of stress action where the VIX nine days way higher than the ordinary volatility is. This is a measure of true stress here.

Typically, when that happens, Sebastian says it doesn't last very long, though. But this time, the VIX nine day has been climbing over the normal VIX since March 21st. As for the regular volatility index, it's basically been ignoring the action of the S&P 500. Typically, when the S&P 500 rebounds, the VIX is supposed to go down. And when the S&P sells off, the VIX is supposed to go up.

But when you look at this pair of charts, the S&P 500 on top, the volatility index on the bottom, that's not quite what we're seeing, is it? Sebastian points out that the S&P has now rallied for three days in a row, okay, right? Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday. Yet the VIX, which you'd expect to go lower in response, simply hasn't given an inch. According to Sebastian, when the market rallies but the VIX stays elevated—

Uh-oh, Wall Street's feeling nervous. Investors don't trust the rally. Basically, people were guarding and withholding judgment until they saw today's tariff announcements. For what it looks like tonight, they were right.

So what kind of move was the option market betting on? And Sebastian sees that the S&P 500 options have been trading like the index would move 91 points between today's close and tomorrow's close. 1.6% move seems in the cards, doesn't it? What about Friday? If you believe the implied volatility reflected in these option prices, the S&P could make a 120-point move on Friday. That's an insane 2.1% swing in either direction. But after Friday, the option prices calmed down, indicating a sedate set of

I mean, it looks like we could be down more than 3% in the next couple of days. Put it all together, Sebastian's expecting a lot of turbulence on Thursday and Friday. But once we get through these days, he thinks we'll probably be in the clear next week. Bottom line, the charts interpreted by Mark Sebastian suggest that the next couple of days could be pretty wild. Once we get to next week, we'll have baked in everything we learned from the president today. At that point, hopefully, Wall Street will do what I've been predicting and just kind of move on. But we've got to accept the fact that there will be a house of pain before that happens.

Let's take questions. Let's go to Jeff in Michigan. Jeff. Hey, Jimmy. Big booyah to you. Booyah back. I wanted to know what your opinion is on Ali's bargain outlet stock, buy, sell, or hold. Oh, you want to buy Ali's. That is a closeout operation. I'm a member of Ali's army. I know the stock is up. It should be up. It's right near its high. It belongs near its high. It's a winner in this environment, especially if it's tonight. Greg in New York. Greg.

Hi, Jim. Thank you very much for taking my call. Thank you for calling. Jim, I have a question. Is it a good time right now to start possession in Eli Lilly?

I think that Eli Lilly is probably one of the least tariffed, least dangerous stocks. It does have a high dollar amount, 818. But I remember what Ken Langone told us. He's the greatest investor that I've ever dealt with. He says, own Eli Lilly, go into a trillion dollars, and it's at $775 billion. I am with Ken Langone. Finn in Maryland. Finn. Hey, Jim. How are you doing? I'm having a good day. How about you, Finn?

Good. Quick shout out to my business teacher, Mr. Marks. Of course, Mr. Marks. Love you. I have a question for Southwest Airlines. It's been going up and down a lot, and I'm confused because they got rid of free choice seating, and now they're charging for baggage. So what's your thought? I know when you go there, people are like miffed, but I'll tell you, I don't like the airlines. Once again, they turn out to be just as I thought.

They had a big cyclical move, and now they're done. It's time to sell Southwest Air. The charts are interpreted by Mark Zabist. It's just a lot of turbulence on Thursday and Friday. I think that could be happening, right? Once we get through those days, though, he thinks we'll be in the clear. Much more manning ahead, including my off-the-tape exclusive with supply chain player Flexport. Then what does CoreWeave's IPO reveal to us about the state of this turbulent market? Do not miss my take. And, of course, all your calls. Rapid fire. Tonight's edition. Lighting around. Stay with Crank.

Tonight at the White House, President Trump announced the long-awaited details of the new administration's tariff agenda, with a series of what I regard as harsh but somewhat reciprocal tariffs designed to punish our trading partners for taking advantage of us, as well as a baseline 10% tariff on all imported goods. Now that we know more plans...

We can make a plan. And to do that, we need to understand what's really happening here, which brings me to the best arbiter I know, which is Flexport. Privately held company helps coordinate logistics, global logistics for customers. The factories to customers door. These guys become an essential partner for businesses, global supply chains. They help to handle the covid shortages. And now they're going to help us understand what the heck is going on. So let's check in with Ryan Peterson.

He's the founder and CEO of Flexport. You've got to figure this out. Ryan, I'm so glad you're here because I've got to tell you, I myself, I've tried to study this over and over again. I'm confused. What is reciprocal? Does that mean anything? Or is this just case by case, some that are the bomb and some that are better? Tell us what's happening.

Well, yeah, Jim, it's great to be back on the show. It is a messy situation and really kind of hot off the presses. So we're all still waiting for some of these things to be published in an executive order and then ultimately in the Code of Federal Regulations before we have

real certainty. And by the way, I think this is probably the way to think about this is the start of the process, not the end. Very clear going to be some negotiation that goes on between the United States and these other countries. But now what is very obvious is that the United States means business and that they are these are deadly serious negotiations.

The rates are really high. So what is reciprocal? I don't know. It feels a little bit like community adjusted tariff rates or something. Do they sit there and think, OK, well, listen, right now, Taiwan has got this big a surplus and we're going to we're going to make it so that surplus is flat. I mean, is that their goal?

So a lot of it is about trade balances, trade imbalances. And, you know, it's not just the tariffs that these countries charge to U.S. goods, but also other things in industrial policies, alleged currency manipulation, subsidies, cheap finance. So there's all like environmental policy, suppressing labor. I mean, they have a long list of allegations there.

And then they think the government thinks, the US administration thinks the best way to respond is with high tariffs. And you see it really, really high. I mean, the ones that jumped out today, over 40% in places like Vietnam and Cambodia that folks thought were safe havens

as they moved manufacturing out of China, those were big beneficiaries. And now you're finding out, oh, pretty ugly. But China got hit with more duties today, 34%. That's cumulative. That's on top of 20%, which was on top of 25%, which was on top of what they already were paying. And then remember, they haven't published the rule yet, but Trump announced 25% duty from any country that's buying oil from Venezuela. So,

So when you add all that up, China's over 100 percent. Well, if that's the case, we have to accept we have to presume that China is going to come after the companies that that are successful exporters to them. Right. There are American companies.

I mean, that's one way to respond. It would be to retaliate with more duties on U.S. goods. I don't know the way that I've read the book, The Art of the Deal. And I think you might be better off kind of trying to get them to mellow down, bring something to the table, offer some something. So we'll see. Did Mexico and Canada surprise you in that they kind of got off easier than I thought?

Yeah, well, they still have this 25 percent duty looming on Canada and Mexico, so they didn't add anything there. Actually, one thing that really jumped out here was that the duty rates imposed on Asian countries were much higher. Latin America basically escaped here with just the baseline 10 percent duty. So there's probably something to read between the tea leaves there of seeing that as the United States is kind of backyard and maybe a regional partner that they're trying to encourage here.

companies to put manufacturing in Latin America if you can't do it here in the United States. Well, how about Taiwan, where Taiwan Semi has done its best, probably the most commitment of any country, any company on Earth to build things here. There was an exception for semis. What will that mean? Yeah, so they did exclude semiconductors. They excluded copper, pharmaceutical, lumber,

So, yeah, I mean, it means that the administration is also pretty serious about trying to win the AI race and realizes that putting high duties on chips from Taiwan would be bad for that. So Taiwan got hit with pretty high duties here. I think it was 32 percent or 34. I'm trying to remember. But in the 30s.

but it excludes semiconductors, which is probably, you know, definitely their most important export. I mean, look, I don't even want to take you away from your clients. I know you'll be up all night, but what is your advice generally from a client, let's say, who's bringing stuff in from Asia versus bringing in Europe versus Japan versus Korea? Just give us the lay of the land a little for what you'd say customers.

I do think, you know, I talked to a senior member of the administration last week and they told me that, hey, we should see this as the start of the process and not the end, that this is very much making the world know they mean business, but that they would expect, I think the administration expects that people are going to come to the table and make some deals, that countries are going to come. You saw Vietnam announced they would eliminate tariffs on U.S. goods. So did Israel. I would expect more of those types of things to happen in the weeks to come and that

we may ratchet this back down from where we are. So it's been difficult to plan. You need some certainty. And right now, there's very, yeah, this is a process where it's a big step towards certainty, but we still don't really know what the world's going to look like. So I'm advising people to wait a couple of months before you make long-term supply chain decisions can last for years. Okay, let's say you're Walmart. You got 400 trucks going from Mexico to the U.S. Who do you write the check to?

Yeah, I mean, you know, this happened to my friend who was importing $100,000 worth of stuffed animals last month and the duties got hit while the container was in the middle of the water, got hit with a $20,000 bill that he wasn't expecting. So, yeah, it can be ugly. I mean, Walmart probably can afford their way out of this. But, you know, your small business like my friend is like, it's ugly. Right. Isn't it a little mercurial? I know companies, RH was reported tonight. They were

frantically trying to do the right thing by shifting from China to Vietnam to make furniture. I thought that that was the game plan. Is there any rhyme or reason to Vietnam getting hit so high?

I mean, Vietnam was not like a historical American ally. If we recall, you know, they've been allied with Russia for like 50 years and their communist country, too. So I don't know. I'm not sure why people thought Vietnam would be this ultimate safe haven. It is a low cost labor place. How about Japan? They've been our friend in Korea. I think the president thinks that they got away with a lot, didn't he?

You know, and I think a lot of these countries have real industrial policies that benefit their local countries. And, you know, one thing we know, they really supported subsidized exports and gave all kinds of beneficial credit terms and other things. So it's not just about the duty rates. The administration has been very clear about that, that the duties is the best way to kind of

fight back, let's call it, but not necessarily in response to their duties. There's all sorts of other policies. And yeah, both Japan and Korea have been very good at that. You know, Japan famously in the 90s was like stealing our jobs in manufacturing. So yeah, it's you know, the president's been talking about this for decades, well before he was in politics.

And he turned out to be true to his word, right? I mean, because like if you're Japan, I mean, you can't just call Boeing and say, listen, I want a thousand planes and then go to the president and say, listen, I just tried to make it better. Right. That doesn't work.

Yeah, I mean, it's pretty ugly. You're out there, you're trying to set up your supply chain and just don't know what to do. And the reality is, the administration's answer to that is very clear. Oh, just make it in America, then you pay no duty. The president said that today. The problem is the U.S. dollar is just so strong that even with duties, the goods are still cheaper from other countries. And even with these crazy duties, we'll have to run some math and see. But, you know, I was talking to one of our customers yesterday who imports garlic.

And I'm like, wait, you importing garlic from China? Like California is supposed to be the place that makes all the garlic. But even with higher duties and we'll see, I haven't run the math on this new duty added to it. But even with the higher duty rates, because of California's labor costs and environmental rules and everything else,

Still cheaper to buy garlic from other countries. Incredible. Look, Ryan, you're going to come back. You're going to help us. You've got a I would say a clear head on this stuff and know that there are paths and not to think that everything that happened tonight is etched in stone. There's going to be deals cut. Some places going to do better. Some places just going to stay bad. Right.

That's right. And the answer is, you know, it's probably affecting you and your competitors equally right now. And so it's who's the best at responding to this appropriately and making good decisions, figuring out how do you want to set things up. But

Sometimes the best way to do things right is to do nothing and wait and see. And I feel like this might be one of those moments of like, let's see how the dust settles over the next couple of weeks and months. And I don't think this is the end game at all. I like your course of action, Ryan Peterson, founder and CEO of Flexport. As always, a clear head on things. Thank you, Ryan. Good to see you. Booyah. Everybody's back in for the break. Coming up, Kramer takes your calls. And the sky's the limit. It's a fast-fire lightning round. Next.

It is time. It's time for the lightning round. We're going to have a wrap. We're going to have a wrap. We're going to have a wrap. We're going to have a wrap. We're going to have a wrap. We're going to have a wrap. We're going to have a wrap. We're going to have a wrap. We're going to have a wrap. We're going to have a wrap. We're going to have a wrap. We're going to have a wrap. We're going to have a wrap. We're going to have a wrap. We're going to have a wrap. We're going to have a wrap. We're going to have a wrap. We're going to have a wrap. We're going to have a wrap. We're going to have a wrap. We're going to have a wrap. We're going to have a wrap. We're going to have a wrap. We're going to have a wrap. We're going to have a wrap. We're going to have a wrap. We're going to have a wrap. We're going to have a wrap. We're going to have a wrap. We're going to have a wrap. We're going to have a wrap. We're going to have a wrap. We're going to have a wrap. We're going to have a wrap. We're going to have a wrap. We're going to have a wrap. We're going to have a wrap. We're going to have a wrap. We're going to have a wrap. We're going to have a wrap. We're going to have a wrap. We're going to have a wrap. We're going to have a wrap. We're going to have a wrap. We're going to have a wrap. We're going to have a wrap. We're going to have a wrap. We're going to have a wrap. We're going to have a wrap. We're going to have a wrap. We're going to have a wrap. We're going to have a wrap. We're going to have a wrap. We're going to have a wrap. We're going to

It's got to be delivered with clean energy, abundant energy and cheap energy. And I am a great believer in Oklo. What is your opinion? I'm a great believer in nuclear power, but that does not make me want to own any of the stocks that are involved in it right now, given the fact that it's going to be so many years before we actually build it. So I'm going to have to say sell, sell, sell Oklo. Let's go to Scott in Ohio. Scott. Booyah, Mr. Kramer. Booyah, Scott.

Hey, I've been watching you for 20 years. Thanks for everything you've done for me. Thank you. I have a position in the stock that is out of favor right now, and I'd really like to add to it. So should I buy or register them out? I am long on it on VRT.

Okay, Virta's probably going to go down about between 10% and 15% off this news that we got tonight. And then you might want to take a look at it. But a lot of people feel it's a broken stock. It does make the innards of a data center. It is doing incredibly well. But that doesn't seem to matter at this moment because the market's highly emotional. Let's go to Melissa in Massachusetts. Melissa. Hi, Jim. Thank you for having me back on your show. I'm great that you're on. I'm glad you're on.

As a student at Westfield State University, I was wondering if it's worth investing in a couple of shares of On Holding. I like On very much. I think it is worth it. I think Nike's falling on hard times and On has picked up the slack. They are doing incredibly well. They got a new single CEO and I really like them. Don't buy it all at once because this market is horrible. OK, let's go to Jake in New York. Jake.

Booyah, Jimmy Choo! Whoa, man, what's happening to you? Well, you are right now. I want to say shout-out to you, shout-out to the crew, shout-out my favorite twins, Harry and Noah. You and the crew have been electric, okay? Good job on that Carson Carl interview. Loved it. Thank you. Yeah, I liked him, too. He was a very smart guy. I liked that a lot. Picks and shovels for gambling. I thought it was a good idea.

Of course, of course. So with this one, I think we're well off the peak. We might be at the base. I feel like we're done French frying down. Okay, we're ready to take the express chairlift on MTN, Vail Resorts.

Hey, you know what? I actually agree with you. This stock has come down so hard, I'm getting real interested in MTN. And that, ladies and gentlemen, is the conclusion of the Lightning Round! The Lightning Round is sponsored by Charles Schwab. Coming up, is too much negativity bringing the markets down? Kramer is digging into why core weave may actually be a metaphor for this moment. Next...

Today, I just said it. I was getting a cup of coffee at the Bull Market Cafe downstairs. I just said I wish we were 1,000 points lower already on the S&P 500. You know why? Because waiting for stocks to come down like this is torture. Every evening, I leave here with a sense, maybe we're going to be okay late afternoon rally. Always help make me feel optimistic.

Then I get up at 3.30 a.m., I check the futures. It's hideous, just like it will be tonight now that we've seen how high the tariffs are. Then I put on Frank Holland at 5, and the show starts with dispirity redding, drinking all over the place. I mean, it's just like, and I got to tell you, tonight will be a repeat of the process, and everything is colored negatively because of those ugly futures, which are a shroud on the entire edifice that you see here.

Periodically, I'll say enough. It's too overdone. And you should just go buy some stock. I really like because it's gotten so ridiculous. You know, I did that the other day with the new issue. It's called CoreWeave, the data center builder operator. But for the most part, the data is set by the knucklehead futures traders who never stop trying to get a jump on the presumed negativity and try to knock down the market. And they can do it. I can't wait to see how low they're going to take the market tomorrow. It will be hideous. Let's go back to CoreWeave.

Because I think this is the perfect microcosm of this market. Let's rewind the tape to the CoreWeave IPO. Everyone loved this thing going to GTC. That's a big AI fest run by Jensen Wang, head of NVIDIA, which occurred a few days before the IPO. Then people turned on NVIDIA and the data center. Boom, right after the conference, tech started selling off. We started to get negative press about CoreWeave's debt.

Well, it needed to issue that debt in order to meet the demand for the clusters of high end chips it had to buy from NVIDIA because it was making so much money. But nobody cared. Then the Financial Times dug up a bunch of ugly stories that made these guys look unreliable and slapdash. Even though everyone I met in Silicon Valley said they were the most reliable and best runner, else NVIDIA wouldn't use them to test their new products before they go out.

The biggest negative? Rumors that Microsoft, a huge customer, was backing away from further AI infrastructure build-out. That rumor was false. In reality, OpenAI, Microsoft's partner, was taking all the NVIDIA chips that it could get and all the CoreWeave capacity it could possibly get. And much of the Microsoft AI infrastructure build-out is on behalf of OpenAI, which now has its own multi-billion dollar contract with CoreWeave directly. This idea that Microsoft was turning on data center, it was just a total canard.

No matter, the Corbyn deal gets downsized, the price is in the hole, and almost from the get-go, the stock dips from before rallying back to 40, where the deal is priced. Keep in mind, people were originally expecting this thing to debut in the mid to high 50s. Then on Monday, the stock just gets completely hammered again. Got it at 37. But you know what? Yesterday, I said I'd had enough.

I was furious. I decided to go on TV and say that this core weave, it's a coiled spring. It's heavily shorted. So I said, if you get any good news at all, or just a Congress of Buyers,

CoreWeave is going to explode. I hit it twice because I knew the truth. Companies need CoreWeave to develop the inference portion of the AI revolution. And inference is what matters because these companies can make money only through inference, not through training. This is the part of it that makes it worthwhile. This is the technology they use to recommend things to you. So CoreWeave is vital because its clients need to make money. And to do so, they need CoreWeave.

It's not a free business, people. If you knew the industry, you'd know this. The press, the bears, they just didn't get it. Next thing you know, the stock shoots up to the low 60s, closing at 61 and change tonight. However, there were far fewer shares issued than we could have gotten if Corweave had come public at a better time, which makes it much easier for the single rocket hire.

Now, people aren't realizing that CoreWeave's the glue that holds the data center together. It's the preferred vendor. That's what makes CoreWeave the perfect metaphor for this moment. When you let the futures make you as negative as you can, as they will tomorrow, then it doesn't take much to get this market to roar. Keep in mind, as you get sick of the tariffs and tired of all the stagflation talk, or the people who constantly come on air and wonder if the sky is falling, it sure felt like the end of the world for CoreWeave at $37. But it turns out,

The end of the world, you can get some great buying opportunities because the people who bought Corvive at 37 have now made a killing practically overnight. Now, this is a mean, nasty market. That stock probably can't stay up here. But a 37 to $64 run in two days, I'll take it. Like I said, it's always bull market summer. I promise I'll find just for you right here on MadMoney. I'm Jim Cramer. See you tomorrow.

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