Say you've always wanted to take a spontaneous trip to the Caribbean. Here's the thing. If you get smart with your money, you can do things like that. With Empower, you can start making the most out of your money so you can get out and live a little. Isn't that why we work so hard? To have some fun with our money. Like treating yourself to something special or spontaneously doing something extra for a loved one. So use Empower and get good at money so you can be a little bad. Join their 19 million customers today at Empower.com.
Not an Empower client, paid or sponsored.
China will.
My mission is simple, to make you money. I'm here to level the playing field for all investors. There's always a bone working somewhere, and I promise to help you find it. Mad Money starts now.
Hey, I'm Kramer. Welcome to Mad Money. Welcome to Kramerica. Hello, good-night, friends. I'm just trying to save you a little money. My job is not just to entertain, but to educate, to teach you. So call me at 1-800-743-CNBC. Tweet me, it's Jim Kramer. You know why this market really is so crazy? It's because we can't keep up with the velocity of events. That's what's going on. We aren't able to process things as fast as President Trump throws them at us, which is how you can get an insane day like today where we opened up
And then everything rolled over. Dow finishing off 220 points, S&P tumbling 1.57%. NASDAQ nosediving 2.15%. It was a truly nauseating session, frankly, one that shows you that there's still way too much complacency, even after all the turmoil we've had. We just can't seem to get used to the new President Trump, the one who doesn't seem to care about the stock market at all.
Case in point, when China announced a 34% retaliatory tariff, President Trump almost immediately said, well, that's it. He's going to sock China with another 50% tariff. That brings the total tariff to 104%. Now, look.
That is gigantic. You might as well just ban imports from China entirely. Last night, the market went out better than some started thinking possible. And some investors, therefore, breathed a sigh of relief. Others, though, couldn't resist taking up the S&P 500 futures by a full percent after the market closed. Given that by 3 a.m. they were up almost 2 percent, I was like, oh, my God, I got to go back to sleep.
And then when the actual market opened, well, we saw 4% gains. And we said, oh, maybe we're okay. But I said to myself, why are we up?
Do we think the Chinese are going to blink? Say what you will about the People's Republic of China. They have got a lot more experience taking pain than we do. They are seasoned pain takers. And you know what's going to happen tomorrow? We're going to have a freezing of commerce between two great powers. Even as the White House continues to say that the country with the biggest surplus is the most vulnerable. I don't know about you, but as someone who follows stocks, I think we're both mighty vulnerable because of this trade shutdown.
Sure, we import a lot of junk from China. Yes, we buy a lot of stuff we don't actually need from them. A lot of it ends up in landfills, waste management. But they're a gigantic trading partner of ours. And however a bad actor China might be, the 50% tariff addition done out of sheer peak doesn't seem all that well thought out, maybe ill-advised.
No business can afford to eat 104 percent tariff, which means they have to pass it on to their customers, which is about to make many things a lot more expensive, which means that things freeze up. And then we figure out who pays what. The stock market's not ready for that stuff sitting on the dock, as we saw this afternoon. So what the heck was the market doing up 4 percent earlier today? One word. It was a motion.
We've had relentless declines for what feels like ages. We've had nine straight days where we opened lower. That's highly unusual. I think that because we finished yesterday well off the lows of the day, it was like someone said, hey, the coast is clear. But the coast is based on facts. And right now the facts, well, they're just not so hot. Just because we were able to recover from big down opening doesn't mean we should therefore rally the next day. That's just silliness. Of course, the rally didn't last. So what happens here?
Why did the market go down so badly after an up opening? All right, let's deal with something that you've learned after years and years of trading. Markets that open up big after days of declines almost never hold up. You don't get a rally unless it opens down and then goes up. See, there are too many people who bought stock yesterday morning when the market was down 4%. They were up so huge at the opening today, they just had to ring the register. It was just...
It was like a moth to the flame. Who wants to risk losing that game with the China tariffs on the horizon? You can't expect anybody who bought it that Monday low to hold on to stock, knowing that the Chinese are digging their heels for tomorrow. So what happens now? All right, we got a classic case of two trends clashing with each other. I'm going to go into the first one.
There's the short term. And I think the short term, frankly, looks awful unless someone blinks. And I don't know. Maybe you saw someone looks like they're going to blink. I didn't. Sure, there will be a lot of merchandise stuck in Chinese factories and ports. While that's certainly bad for them, it's not really good for us. Just because they lose doesn't mean we win. Plus, these tariffs are total anathema to one of the biggest companies in the world. And that company is Apple.
Now, not all of Apple's merchandise is made in China, but a lot of it is. And you're now looking at a 23 percent decline in four days from the stock of one of the greatest companies on Earth.
The president was well aware that this could be a problem for Apple, which had committed to more than $500 billion investment in the United States. I know some investors probably thought that that $500 billion might have somehow bought Apple some immunity. But the only immunity you get from this White House is if you pick up your manufacturing in another country and you plop it down in the United States. And you know what? That's actually an unrealistic goal. It can't be done.
I don't know how many times I can say that, but you can't build dozens of factories in the United States since Election Day and have them fully staffed pumping out iPhones. It doesn't work like that. Even in the best case scenario, it would take a long, long time. And this is not the best case scenario. Doesn't matter. The changes that incest state moving are happening anyway. Apple makes the best, most beloved product we have. Now its stock is being eviscerated because President Trump won and Vice President Harris lost. Was Apple's Tim Cook supposed to know that?
And why did Apple stock trade up to $190 today before finishing way down $172? That's almost an unfathomable range for this huge capitalization stock. But this kind of thing keeps happening because we can't process events correctly at this kind of speed. We're not used to it. President Trump's overriding events with new events and then stocks just aren't even ready for it. Do you know how many times I had to ask people, what is the new tariff rate? I mean, it was kind of like Weimar Germany. Well, how much is the market worth right now? Now, it's not just tech. If
If you take a look at the drug stocks today, I mean, that's a good example. They're a horror show. These aren't supposed to do anything. One of the best, AbbVie opened its hire, okay, after a slew of reports that came out from Goldman Sachs made you feel real good about the group. If you bought the stock when it was up, well, guess what? You got your head handed to you. AbbVie's a good company. It's not a wild trader. Not at all. But it was today for no reason. Trump turbocharges everything. Sure, he makes it exciting, but you see, it also happens to be about money, and that's a bummer.
Now, second, when the market came down this much, we typically reach a bottom not far from here. And that makes people feel emboldened, makes people feel better. That's been the case 85% of the time. Ooh, that's a statistic that gives us comfort. But you can't take it to the bank. Or to put it another way, the long term looks okay, but the short term, well, we don't know how to deal with it because it's just too swift. So what does a market end up doing after these experiences, these kinds of gyrations? You know what it does?
It makes a judgment about what's driving things down. You always say there's uncertainty. That's just nonsense. No, there are things that actually drive things down. The market doesn't just crave certainty. And I'll tell you what it is. It's becoming really obvious to people. The tariffs are driving things down. And the tariffs are being run out of the White House with no checks or balances whatsoever from Congress. It kind of feels unconstitutional, but it doesn't matter.
We got a whole new constitution, too, I guess. Things are just plain capricious, and we can't factor this level of arbitrary judgment into stock prices. Even if we know that a year from now we might be okay. Hey, great. Look, when you eviscerate the stock of one of the largest companies in the world and offer no path to the company whatsoever, yet the stock opens up big anyway, huh? That's a market that's just plain stupid, sadly.
That's this market. Bottom line, this market just keeps getting overridden by events, all driven by the White House. Investors won't feel confident again until the pace slows and there's more thought to the actions taken. Call today a vote of confidence in the morning and no confidence in the afternoon. But only one of them matters. The latter one. Hey, how about we start with Scott in Indiana? Scott. Hey, Jim. Scott, what's going on?
So long to our club member here, second time caller. I got a, I like this stock and I think it's a bargain, but I wanted to get your opinion for our pull the trigger and add more to my portfolio. Affirm, A-F-R-M.
Well, I think the world of a firm, but it's what I call an earning stock. In other words, it doesn't really do anything, a change direction until you have the earnings. Right now, the direction is down. When we see the company report on May 8th, I think that therefore we could change direction again, because I think that there is no doubt Matic Max Selections delivers good quarter after good quarter. But then in between, it trades down and you're dealing with that. I don't think it reverses until we get to to May to May 8th. Bill in Utah. Bill.
Hey, Kramer. Good to talk to you. Same, Bill. What's happening?
Well, you had a CEO on a couple times, and everything sounded good, and you recommended the stock. And I bought it, and it fell, and it fell, and it fell. And it's down about 56% off its high now. I can't find any negative news about it. And they are building a 200,000-square-foot manufacturing plant here in Salt Lake that's supposed to
Employ 500 people. Okay. The company is AV, AV. That's the symbol. All right. Well, it was up seven today. Look, I'll tell you the problem here, Bill. It's a stock. I know that sounds a little soporific, but stocks are going down, particularly high multiple stocks. There's no reason. Look, we could have Walid Nawabi on right now.
And he could tell us how things are going and things are going great. It just doesn't matter. People don't want to own the defense stocks right now. They feel that defense budget is going to be cut. I don't agree, but that's what's happening. Ernie in New York. Ernie. Hey, how you doing, Jim? Thank you for taking my call. Of course, Ernie. How can I help you?
Jim, I was wondering about Intel. I know the company's gone through some issues, and I heard that they're looking to do a manufacturing partnership with Taiwan Semiconductor, and how do you feel about that?
Okay, well, look, this is a situation where you've got a, you have Liputan, who's an unbelievable executive. When I ask whether they are ready to be, let's say, for a much better situation than they've been, what I get is, look, let's fix the balance sheet first. So I'm waiting for the balance sheet to be fixed. And once it is, then I think we're going to take a hard look at it. But not until it is fixed to my satisfaction. All right, listen.
We might have to just get used to this whipsaw action. By the way, I know whipsaw means going down. I'm not one of those guys that says volatility is okay, whipsaw is okay. It means it's going down. Investors aren't going to feel confident about the market until the pace of news just slows down and the tariffs are a thing of the past.
Heaven almighty. On May Money Tonight, I'm running through the tape to see which companies are bearing the brunt of President Trump's tariff policies. You won't want to miss my take on these names. Then, how are tariffs shaping the cruise industry? I'm taking a closer look at CEO of Viking Holdings. And later, I'm checking in with CrowdStrike to learn more about the state of cybersecurity in a volatile political environment where it can't be tariffed. So stay with Kramer.
Don't miss a second of Mad Money. Follow at Jim Kramer on X. Have a question? Tweet Kramer. Hashtag Mad Mentions. Send Jim an email to madmoneyatcnbc.com or give us a call at 1-800-743-CNBC. Miss something? Head to madmoney.cnbc.com.
Every day, thousands of Comcast engineers and technologists create connectivity solutions that change the way we work, live, and play. Like Kunle, a Comcast engineer who is focused on revolutionizing the in-home Wi-Fi experience today and for the next generation.
Kunle builds powerful Xfinity Wi-Fi devices that deliver a fast, reliable connection with capacity to connect hundreds of high-bandwidth devices at once and next-level latency for the applications of the future, like augmented and virtual reality and cloud gaming. Learn more at comcastcorporation.com slash Wi-Fi.
China will.
You just realized your business needed to hire someone yesterday. How can you find amazing candidates fast? Easy. Just use Indeed. When it comes to hiring, Indeed is all you need. Stop struggling to get your job posts seen on other job sites. Indeed's sponsored jobs help you stand out and hire fast. With sponsored jobs, your post jumps to the top of the page for your relevant candidates, so you can reach the people you want faster.
According to Indeed data, sponsored jobs posted directly on Indeed have 45% more applications than non-sponsored jobs. There's no need to wait any longer. Speed up your hiring right now with Indeed. And listeners of this show will get a $75 sponsored job credit to get your jobs more visibility at Indeed.com slash madmoney. Just go to Indeed.com slash madmoney right now and support our show by saying you heard about Indeed on this podcast.
Indeed.com slash madmoney. Terms and conditions apply. Hiring? Indeed is all you need. The market looked terrific when I went out to lunch today with a true visionary analyst, by the way. Oh, it's a great learning experience. Then I came back and all the gains that I saw were gone. So many wins had turned into losses. So much had melted down. I mean, holy cow.
An incredible reversal. It's a mere reminder of the fragility of this market. Some stocks were totally obliterated, and those are the ones I want to focus on. Let's start with Lululemon. It's one of the finest apparel companies on Earth. It's well-run, and if you listen to them, it's still in its infancy. But Lululemon guided down when it reported after an excellent quarter, and kaboom, it just got crushed. In a normal market, a company as good as Lululemon would be given some sort of grace period. Not this time. The stock fell 15%.
I thought then that the downside had now been baked in and Lulu's stock had been de-risked, but it just keeps falling. It's now down almost 100 points from 341 down to 247 and change. This is Lulu Lemon, for heaven's sake. This is a company run by Calvin McDonald, one of the best CEOs anywhere. Yet the stock's now down 35% for the year.
At first, I thought the vicious decline was a sign that Wall Street's worried about even wealthier consumers. But the real issue is that Lulu makes a lot of its clothes in Vietnam, and we're putting a 46% tariff on Vietnam effective tomorrow.
That's a huge increase, so big that it's practically the kiss of death. It's kind of like RH, the old Restoration Harbor, which has fallen from $4.57 to $1.49 in less than four months. This is Gary Freeman's company. He is total money. But if you buy it here, you're betting that the wealthy customers should be able to deal with the tariffs that would put on all their beautiful furnishings. Stuff's pretty expensive already, although I'd argue it's worth the price. However, RH also makes a ton of furniture in Vietnam, and it's hard to say it'll be worth the price once you throw in that 46% tariff.
Finally, there's Ralph Lauren. Exact same pattern. 289 goes down to 182. And in this case, the company reported a dramatic upside. Surprise! It was quarter to quarter, and CEO Patrice LeVay was hailed as the exec who really got it right.
Unfortunately, Ralph Lauren also makes a lot of clothes, and you guessed it, Vietnam. So the stock's been obliterated. Now, I know that our government decided to put this tariff on Vietnam because it inundates our country with product and buys very little from us. Well, as a poor country, I'm not sure what they'd even buy. So why did the White House hit Vietnam with a 46% tariff? Because the trade team believes that Vietnam's a transshipment country.
They think the Chinese use this as a backdoor to get around the tariffs. When these companies moved their manufacturing from China to Vietnam, they thought they were doing the right thing. When we heard about how steep these tariffs would be, I figured the conference report would carve out a lower tariff for American companies who made things in Vietnam and shipped them here because that's how you beat China. Didn't happen. So now they're all poll-waxed.
Until we sorted this situation out, the companies that rely on overseas manufacturing will likely keep seeing their stocks just get hammered. In the end, the Trump administration wants to punish our trading partners while forcing American companies to move their manufacturing back here. To me, these three companies are collateral damage. But to Trump, they're the enemy because they didn't move the textile factories back to the United States. They're moving to Vietnam. The bottom line, you can conclude that I shouldn't go to lunch.
Or maybe you should accept that things are going to be treacherous for companies that make things overseas, no matter what. It's just too difficult to own these stocks until the estimates are brought down to levels that can be beaten. And obviously, from today's action, we just aren't there yet. Brian in California. Brian.
Excellent, Brian. What's going on with you? Excellent. Thank you for all the good content and for having the back of investors like myself. Also, your staff is incredible.
Thank you. Thank you. I'll keep my question short and sweet for you, my friend. What are your thoughts about Broadcom? Broadcom announced a $10 billion buyback to be finished by year end by a CEO by the name of Hoctan, who is just one of the greatest CEOs of our era. And this stock was only up $1.89. What that says is this is a horrible stock market, not a horrible company or a horrible stock. The market itself is just horrible.
nauseous the story of earnings so far is that things are looking treacherous for any company that makes anything overseas for the foreseeable future they have money is back after the break coming up what will it take to see smooth sailing for the cruise industry kramer's catching up with the ceo of viking holdings and seeing how the tariff announcements are testing the waters next
The U.S. and China are competing for global leadership. The country who wins will define the world we live in. U.S. international assistance is vital to our national security. It helps prevent terrorism and avoid costly wars. It fights diseases and saves lives. It helps keep America as the number one economy in the world. U.S. international assistance protects our interests at home and abroad. If America doesn't lead, China will.
How will you shape the future of consumer products in retail with confidence? Behind every favorite product or seamless checkout, there's a series of strategic decisions to make.
EY brings real-time insights and deep sector expertise to create value in the moments that matter. Whether it's untangling global supply chains, managing cost pressures, or leveraging emerging tech, EY's full spectrum of services help CPG and retail companies deliver profitable growth. EY. Shape the future with confidence.
In this post-Liberation Day world, what are we supposed to do to make up the cruise lines? Ever since we got out of the pandemic, the travel bull market has stood strong. But now everyone's kind of worried about a tariff-induced slowdown. The cruise stocks have come down hard. By the way, wealthy...
users of everything, including retail. People worried about them for the first time. Now, I want you to think about Viking Holdings. It's the parent company of Viking Cruises, which is the leading river cruise company in the world, mostly focused on Europe and the Mediterranean. These guys offer a higher-end experience than their competitors, but that hasn't prevented the stock from falling 33% from its February highs.
So could this be the opportunity or do we need to wait for more clarity on how the industry holds up in a government mandated slowdown like we're having? Let's check in with Tor Hagen. He's the chairman and CEO of Viking Holdings. Mr. Hagen, welcome back to Mad Money.
Thank you for having me. Well, Tor, you did something, announced today something that I think is very exciting, which is the first hydrogen-powered cruise ship. I know that this was a dream, that I felt that even five years ago, it was just a pipe dream. You've got one, and it's coming out very soon. Do you think it'll make a difference? Because people want clean cruising. Well, I don't necessarily live on dreams. I think we are realistic and scientific in our approach to things.
I think in the world, there are more and more restrictions on where you can operate. And as you may know, I'm a Norwegian. And Viking is very strong in the Norwegian fjords and in Europe. And there are increasing regulations that we felt we had to deal with. And Norway said that by 2026, one had to be zero emission if you wanted to operate in the fjords.
And we said, we will prove that that's possible. So now we will have ships that are not fully hydrogen, but they're ships that end on 26 that will operate on hydrogen and be true zero. Well, you are a trailblazer. I'm glad you're doing that because a lot of people feel like it's too expensive. Obviously, you understand and you're a steward of the planet, but so is Norway. You've been the most forward country on Earth.
Sometimes I feel it may be a bit too forward, but that's a different story. Well, maybe so. Maybe so. But we are also economical people. And we went public last year. So I feel we have an obligation to create some wealth for our shareholders. So what we managed to do in connection with this is
While we're putting hydrogen fuel cells on the ships, we also managed to get 60 more beds on. And quite frankly, the increased revenue from those beds will help make the cost of hydrogen somewhat less. All right. Excellent. But I think it's just fantastic you're doing it. Now, we've become a very difficult market. You have what I would say is just excellent 2025 markets.
Excellent 2025 look, $744 per day compared to $681 last year. That's huge. And yet the market's not happy. They're saying, well, listen, we need to know how 2026 is. Is the market being too tough? Because why not just kind of bask for at least a month in how well you're doing for 2025? No, I think markets, we are ruled by markets, and I don't mind that. We had our last earning calls in March.
for last year and we'll have our next one in May. And I think at that time we feel we can say more about 2026. I mean 2025 for us is pretty much done. We were 88% booked already in February. Of course, we cannot avoid that the last week's events have had some
left some jitters with various people, even the well-off people who travel with us. But I think it's too early to tell. I don't think we are directly impacted by tariffs. Of course, our customers are a little bit poorer. I'm a bit poorer, too, on paper. So they're poorer.
But, you know, things come and things go. And I'm not too worried about that. We are very strong. Well, I did want to ask you, I mean, what does the correlation say between the stock market and bookings? Because there is this it's really been a very precipitous decline. And I'm thinking that maybe there are people who are canceling things because the stock market has become, let's call it unfathomable for the moment. Yeah, absolutely.
Well, I must admit, I can't fathom it, but that's a different story. I think from talking from past history, we have not seen that bad stock markets lead to or such events lead to cancellations. We have seen that it can lead to decrease in bookings.
But here we're in a very, very different position from any other cruise lines because we have a very strong marketing position. So we can we have a direct marketing machine. So when times get tough, we can sit down and say, let's market more.
And that's what we're doing at this time. I have felt that you have this market to yourself. But I had Jason Liberty on for Royal Caribbean recently, and he was telling me that they're going to move into river cruises. Not yet. Not yet. But are you ready for competition?
One should always be ready for it. I have a feeling that we're inspired by our IPO last year, which showed what kind of results we have. But it's not so easy to make money on small ships. But I welcome a competition from strong people like them.
And at least we have a 25 year old head start, a 25 year head start. So we have something to go on. Well, do you think that people understand the value of no children, no casinos, no nickel and diming? Because I think there is a perception that the larger cruise lines, the ocean liners, they like all those things, maybe even a little bit of the nickel and diming.
Yeah, well, since recent events, I've added one thing to the list of things we are not doing. We are about the destinations and we're not fake. So we have no fake artificial islands where we can take our guests. So we really go to the real places. Well, I would say that you're also coming in against them. It's not like you're not going into the ocean business. You've got some pretty big ambitions for the ocean.
Well, currently we have 11 ocean ships operating and we have an order book of another 11 ocean ships.
And we have been very fortunate. We are rated number one in this mid-size category for oceans, number one in rivers, and one for expeditions. So we are quite proud of what we have accomplished. And I think part of that is the things you mentioned, the things we don't do. But also we are, I dare say, we are the thinking persons.
cruise, if I can use that word, which we try to avoid. We have a thinking people and we take them to places. We are only a small amount in Caribbean, 6% or thereabouts.
We take them to places in Europe where they always wanted to be. And and that's that's our forte. Well, you've got a great I don't know. I'm not calling it a niche because it's much bigger than a niche. And I think that we're in a difficult time because I think people want to sell the stocks more than they want to listen to someone like you tell them how how well your company is doing. But I want to know. I'm sorry.
Stocks, stock prices, stock share prices come and share prices go. My family and I, we have a big share in Viking. And I declared at the IPO, we don't have any intention of selling one share. So I don't feel any poorer after the decline. I don't feel any richer after upturn either. But we have a great company and I think we care about
taking care of our customers. We want to obsess about them. And in bad times, we want to treat them at least as well as we do in good times. Well, I like that. And it's a good way to leave things. And it's indeed been a been a whirlwind time. And I'm glad that you're not selling. People are always worried now that the owners are doing the selling, but you're not doing that. That is, hey, that is
Tor Hagen, he's the chairman and CEO of Viking Holdings, long a favorite of ours. You know we like all the cruise ships, though. Mad Money's back after the break. Coming up, as markets remain volatile and geopolitical tensions rise, is now the time to invest in cybersecurity? Kramer's sitting down and getting the latest with the CEO of CrowdStrike. Next.
When the market rebounded like crazy earlier today, boy, was that wrong. It was tech that led the way, especially the cybersecurity place. And this is a group that's totally gone out of style, the Wall Street fashion show over the past couple of months. But in this new world where we're terrified of a tariff-induced recession, I think cybersecurity represents relative safety. There's nothing discretionary about the kind of software that protects you from the bad.
things that we are seeing right now and that's one reason why we've stuck with crowd story for the travel trust and we keep buying it on the way down because we think it represents great value the top dog in the industry roughly 29 from uh from its all-time high set in mid-february let's take a closer look with george kurt she's the founder and ceo of crowd story to find out what's going on mr kurtz welcome back to mad money great to be here jim i said george i was thinking this weekend how can i play
nationalism? What's a stock that really is because nationalism is on the rise? And I really, CrowdStrike gets a play on nationalism. Well, when we think about the geopolitical world that we live in today, the attacks are only going up. And I think that's one of the areas, again, where CrowdStrike can shine. In an environment where attacks are going up, there's a need for consolidation. There's a need for cost savings.
And there's always a need for security. And the beauty about our business is we don't have any hardware. We're not subject to the tariffs. And I think it's a great area for investors. And cybersecurity, not just us, represents a great sector.
Well, let's talk about the sector first before we drill down about things like consolidation. You used a phrase that, again, you're a bit of a phrase master. I know you care passionately about write about your script, but you're talking about the democratization of destruction. Yeah. Yeah. What does that mean?
When we think about AI, this is specific to AI, and we think about our adversaries, you know, we've got our pyramid of nation-state adversaries at the top, e-crime in the middle, and hacktivism at the bottom. And really what we're saying is, based upon the use of AI, you're now democratizing these nation-state actors and their techniques, which are
incredible techniques they've developed, but now you're bringing it down to the masses. So not only are you multiplying the number of adversaries that are out there, but you're also empowering them. They may not have all the smarts to do what they need to, but they can learn from others and make it really easy to just copy what others do and very easily create these attacks. I know you've got tremendous retention, but have you ever seen some of the other companies guys go to the dark side? Has anyone left a good cybersecurity company and then ended up doing the wrong thing?
I haven't seen that, but there's lots of folks that are out there. I think at the end of the day for us is making sure that we've got the best people, which you know I'm a big people person, and we're leveraging our technology and our people, which is a differentiation for us to help keep the customer safe. Okay, now since I've seen you, we saw a gigantic acquisition recently.
It's a $32 billion acquisition. Wizz is a startup. And the first thing is I thought of you, I said, I don't know, maybe your company's worth a lot more than I thought it was. What does consolidation mean? How do you, I know you can't just say, oh, this times that. But, I mean, your company's a lot cheaper than that.
than that. Yeah. So let's take a look at this. I think this really validates the security market, number one. This was the largest acquisition of a venture-backed company. The last one before that was WhatsApp. So it's in cybersecurity and I think validates why it's so important. Number two is we're one of the largest buy-
cloud security providers out there, right? So to your point, if you just look at our 600 million plus ARR of cloud revenue and you apply a different multiple to it like this, you can come up to the conclusion that perhaps we're undervalued. Well, that was my first reaction. And I also know that there was a time when I tried to look at Microsoft's cybersecurity business, what that's worth,
And then I was trying to figure out what it was worth versus you guys, but I don't think versus is right anymore. You guys seem to get along okay.
You know, we're always trying to work with others that are out there. And obviously, part of the ecosystem, I think we've come up with a much better relationship with Microsoft. And again, we're both protecting the same customer. And we've got to work together. And work together with Rubrik. I mean, you're an equal opportunity person. Rubrik does kind of the back end once someone's been hit. I know a lot of the people who've been hit, they tell me they call you. Yes. Even though it's not your job. Yeah.
They call you because they trust you. And it's a great thing that you do that. You don't charge these people. Well, when they call me, I don't charge them, obviously. But we do have an incident response business, and we do get called from some of the largest companies to help them in a time of need. And in general, what happens is that we convert them to a customer. That's the beauty of the business model. Now, when you were on last, we were talking about
the kind of packages you offer called customer care packages. And someone stopped me and said, Jim, that's a bad thing. That's them giving away things. I said, actually, I think it's the opposite. I think if you think about the second half, the second half has to accelerate because of the customer care packages. I read this right and the other person read it wrong, didn't they?
That's right, Jim. What we were able to do is we were able to work with our customers and we gave them customer commitment packages, right? And that was really focused on leveraging our technology. Most of it was in the form of product to be able to work with them in a time of need. So from our perspective, basically what it has the ability to do is to seed our technology. And we know based upon all the stats, we've got a 95% conversion rate once they have a module.
They're going to renew that piece of it that we basically gave them for the first half of the year. So that's why when we look at the back half of the year, we're confident in the reacceleration of net new ARR.
I don't like to be as wrong as this critic was portraying, but I think that people don't understand exactly what you had to accomplish and how you kind of, with your apology tour and seeing everybody, you ended up with more business than you would have had otherwise, which is rather remarkable. And a credit to the Harvard Business School study that's no doubt being done right now about you. And if there isn't, I know I would like to do it for you. Now, the current government, I know it's difficult because you do a lot of government work, but...
We see a lot of change. We see Doge come in, Doge leave. We see the comments from Doge that the software is not necessarily up to date. I presume the cybersecurity is not up to date. Can you come in and clean up some of this mess? Well, I think when you look at how CrowdStrike can actually help the current administration of government today, I think for the first time in my career,
the government is now acting more like a business where they're focused on the number of people they have. They're focused on the cost. They're focused on the consolidation. They want better outcomes for less money, and they want to do it with less people. Sounds a lot like a lot of the enterprise that we work with, right? So I actually think it sets up a great opportunity for CrowdStrike where we can come in with our platform play, Falcon. We can look at the disparate number of products they have. We can consolidate down,
in our area to fewer products, fewer vendors, and give them better outcome and save them money at the same time. Now, is this something that I know that Elon Musk kind of went in like a whirlwind? And I mean, is there a new DNA? Because you know that the experience has been let's just
not to update this kind of stuff for years, right? Aren't there systems in here for five, ten years? There are many antiquated systems that are still in the government. And this, I think, gives an opportunity to companies like Krausreich and others to be able to take more modern technologies like Falcon into the government, which we have. Obviously, we've worked with the federal government for years. But now we have a greater opportunity, I believe, to work with them to modernize their security infrastructure.
Well, I think you're in one of the few spaces that I see in tech where I'm not worried, in part because of the tariff, but also because of the democratization of the structure. I'm going to use it now. Okay, that's George Kirsch, founder and CEO of CrowdStrike. You heard what he said about Wiz. That was a huge deal. And I thought, I said to myself, CrowdStrike's worth $400. We went and bought some immediately for my travel trust. Ben Moniz, back in for breakfast.
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. And then the lightning round is over. Are you ready, Ski Daddy? Time for the lightning round. Let's start with Wilhelm in Iowa. Wilhelm. Excellent. What's happening?
I have a small position in J.D. Hunt Transport. Okay, don't want to be bigger than a small position. It is a transport, it is a trucking company, and we could be going into a recession, and it's not a good group going into a recession. Let's go to Marty in Arkansas, please. Marty.
Hey, Booyah Kramer, Marty from Russellville. All right, man. What's happening? I have a brokerage account. I have one for my young daughter, Emma, and we are looking at her first food purchase, and it is $1.67 billion in sales last year, 6.36%. Last quarter increase, analyst buy-ready 60%.
Everybody loves donuts. What about D-N-U-T Krispy Kreme? Look, it's a nice spec for a kid. Maybe it can make a comeback. But right now, this thing is just getting hit and hit and hit because it is not a cheap stock. It's actually expensive, even though it is a $4 stock. Let's go to Denise in New Hampshire. Denise. Jim, thank you for taking my call. Oh, you're quite welcome.
And hello from Snowy, New Hampshire today. And here's a big booyah for you. I'm a first-time caller. Excellent. You're welcome. I'm a first-time caller and a long-time listener. My question for you is about the stock organon. Organon? You know, we've got to do a takeout on this thing because there's just something very wrong here.
It should not be at this price with this dividend. And I'm looking at Ben Stoto as my research director. And we know that there's something wrong with this thing. And I can't just give you an off the cuff answer. I got to find out why this thing acts so badly. Let's go to Ovi in Illinois. Ovi. Hi, Jim. How are you? I am good. What's up? What's up with you?
Yes. I'm calling about ServiceNow. I bought this stock when it was $1,000 a share right after their earnings. And their earnings were fine, but for some reason it kept dropping. So
Well, people are worried about federal exposure. And look, I don't know whether it's right to worry about it or not. I'm just passing on what people are worried about it. And the stock is a very expensive stock in a market that is no longer happy with expensive stocks. And that, ladies and gentlemen, the conclusion of the lightning round. The lightning round is sponsored by Charles Schwab.
Coming up, is now the time to buy the dip in Rubrik? Kramer's one-on-one with the data security player's CEO. Seeing if it's time to invest during the recent volatility. Next. Next.
When the averages come down hard, like we know they have in the last few weeks, eventually that can create buying opportunities in some of the market's hottest stocks. Assuming you can figure out which ones are worth owning. Now consider the case of Rubrik, because a data security company came public roughly a year ago. I've been following this one. This is a great company. High growth enterprise software company, not yet profitable.
So it's exactly the kind of stock that gets thrown out when investors get nervous. But last month, Woodbrook reported a better than expected quarter with excellent guidance, which was enough to send the stock up 28% in a single session. I saw it as a wow. Sadly, Liberation Day came around. Some like this stock gave up some of the gains and so others do.
Now, though, I think you're getting that stellar quarter for free. So let's dig deeper with Bipol Sinha. He's the co-founder, chairman and CEO of Rubrik, one of the most exciting companies that have come public in the last couple of years. Mr. Senator, welcome to Mad Money. Thank you.
Thank you, Jim. Longtime fan of the show. Oh, thank you. Thank you very much. Well, I'm very excited about your company because I see so many companies that are trying to prevent cybersecurity. Many good ones. George Kirsch does a great job. But once it happens, when I talk, people have been hit. What they say is, well, you know, I don't know. You have to scramble. You don't know what to do. Well, no, maybe they should just be calling Rubrik.
Absolutely. Absolutely. Because look, you can prevent 99.9% of the attack, but you can't prevent the unpreventable. You have to ensure that you are resilient and ready to recover because banks can't wait for cyber recovery to happen before they can dole out money or the hospitals have to admit patients. Well, I know that a lot of people figure that, well, the people who are trying to prevent are the right guys to go to after the hack. But
They're not even presenting themselves as doing that, right? That's not one of their core competencies. We partner with the prevention companies and ensure that we bring the cyber recovery so that the businesses can go quickly up and running because every board and every CEO is asking the question, can you bounce back after a cyber attack? And we don't
want businesses to be down for days and weeks. And we saw that. We saw that with casino companies, with consumer packaged food companies. One of the absolute smartest companies I deal with when it comes to technology is Home Depot. And you have that marquee account. How did you snare that one?
Home Depot was an early customer for Rubrik because they saw that cyber resilience would be the pillar of their cyber disaster recovery strategy. And that's when we signed them up. They are a great customer. We are protecting all of their data center as well as remote locations. But what is critical is that irrespective of the market conditions,
because cyber criminals are not taking a break for tariff or disruption, and it's an active adversary. Now, you also are one of the great companies, great ownership companies. You have Sephora. They could have anyone because they are part of a...
a very large operation. They chose you. Now, what would be the case of what they would be most fearing? I mean, because this is not Allstate, which you also have. This is not Adobe. But I just am interested in it because this is a very smart company. So they've been thinking ahead, and that's why they hired you. Absolutely, because everyone is thinking about how do I get a portfolio
a purpose-built platform for cyber recovery. Because for retail organization, the retail company is down, is they are losing money every second they are down. And it's critical for them to be up and running all the time. Now, you also have a substantial...
cyber resilience business, when you go through the website, there's very long videos, but they explain these things. But cyber resilience is something that kind of sits in between a lot of the companies we talk with. I mean, prevention and we've got obviously Palo Alto's G-scale or CrowdStrike. But when it comes to resilience, you're in there right alongside them.
Absolutely, because our whole idea is that if you have to assume that attacks will happen to you, how do you assess risk? So that is the whole data security risk. And then we bring cyber recovery all together in a single platform for complete cyber resilience, because at the end of the day, if you don't understand the data risk that you have, you cannot recover quickly.
And you have been known for generative AI. And what you're doing there, our viewers are transfixed by generative AI. So why don't you explain what you've got going? The rubric sits at the intersection of data and security. And as you know, generative AI requires responsible, secure data to be delivered to the applications. And we have the next generation data lake
pre-built with data security governance. And we are helping businesses deliver the data to the right LLM apps to deliver responsible and secure AI. Okay, now I want to distinguish, you've got terrific growth, but it's really the free cash flow growth that is doing very well that I can see. Is it right giving your net revenue retention, which is excellent, giving your growth retention, which is amazing, and I love the ARR that you have, that we can expect some profitability? I don't know, I've
I don't want you to do anything that would crimp your growth, but it's reasonable to think in the near future we can get some profitability. Look, Jim, I'm a capitalist, and I have a venture capital background. I love cash flow, and I love profitability. And we delivered positive cash flow for the whole year ahead of their schedule. It was fantastic. And we are squarely focused on building a high-growth portfolio.
profitable business. But we have been in the market long enough. This is a very large market. Oh, it's huge. And a very large opportunity. And we want to ensure that we take advantage of this market opportunity while building a profitable growth. As someone who has dealt with a lot of companies that have had hits, almost everybody has nobody to go to. But now we know otherwise. That's Pitbull Sinha. He's the co-founder, chairman, CEO of Rubrik. I like to say there's always a bull market somewhere. And I promise you I'll find it just for you right here on Mad Money. I'm Jim Cramer. See you tomorrow.
All opinions expressed by Jim Cramer on this podcast are solely Cramer's opinions and do not reflect the opinions of CNBC, NBCUniversal, or their parent company or affiliates, and may have been previously disseminated by Cramer on television, radio, internet, or another medium.
You should not treat any opinion expressed by Jim Cramer as a specific inducement to make a particular investment or follow a particular strategy, but only as an expression of his opinion. Cramer's opinions are based upon information he considers reliable, but neither CNBC nor its affiliates and or subsidiaries warrant its completeness or accuracy, and it should not be relied upon as such. To view the full Mad Money Disclaimer, please visit cnbc.com forward slash madmoneydisclaimer.
The U.S. and China are competing for global leadership. The country who wins will define the world we live in. U.S. international assistance is vital to our national security. It helps prevent terrorism and avoid costly wars. It fights diseases and saves lives. It helps keep America as the number one economy in the world.
U.S. international assistance protects our interests at home and abroad. If America doesn't lead, China will.