Stocks discussed on the in-depth session of Jim Cramer’s Mad Money TV Program, Wednesday, May 16.
Can just two stocks ignite a rally? They can. Case in point – Macy’s (NYSE:M) and Micron Technology (NASDAQ:MU) on Wednesday. The market had been engulfed with macro news and tensions of rising oil prices, rising interest rates, US-China relations, North Korea. “In this situation, we can actually care about individual companies and what they have to tell us, provided that these companies are important enough to their sectors that they can give us tremendous pin action,” said Cramer.
Micron Technology was considered to be a commodity company in an industry with high competition. Micron was upgraded by RBC with an $80 price target. This led to pin action in the semiconductor group that led other semis to rally. “The semiconductors are a powerful leadership group, and today they took their rightful place at the front, all because of these Micron recommendations,” said Cramer.
The retail group was led by Macy’s, which reported better than expected earnings and lifted profit guidance. Just six days before the earnings, Morgan Stanley had downgraded the stock. CEO Jeff Gennette is leading an incredible turnaround. “Gennette did so much good here, like creating a team of merchants and technology experts that have melded brands with e-commerce and private label to produce some incredible results,” added Cramer. This led to pin action in other retail stocks.
The important thing to note is that both these stocks were under pressure as the street had given up on them and they ended up surprising the market.
CEO interview – PayPal (NASDAQ:PYPL)
PayPal will hold its investor day next week. Cramer interviewed CFO John Rainey to find out what lies ahead.
Rainey said at the next investor meeting they will be talking about their separation from eBay (NASDAQ:EBAY) and their capital allocation plans. Splitting with eBay was always on the cards and they represent 13% of PayPal’s business and will be an integral part of the platform.
PayPal’s strong cash flows allow them to acquire for growth and return capital to shareholders. Commenting on future growth, Rainey said that there are 2B people around the world without a bank account and 70% of them have mobiles. They would like to have accounts, loans and mortgages and this is a tremendous opportunity for PayPal.
PayPal was also one of the first companies to let merchants accept cryptocurrencies. “Because of the volatility of the cryptocurrencies, the merchants were seeing swings in crypto that threatened the viability of their businesses. If you’re a merchant and you have, let’s say, a 10% margin on a product that you sell and you accept bitcoin, for example, and the very next day it moves 15%, you’re now underwater on that transaction. So what happens, or what was happening, is they were immediately moving that to a more stable currency,” added Rainey.
Defense stocks
If someone liked defense stocks like Lockheed Martin (LMT), Northrop Grumman (NYSE:NOC) and Raytheon (NYSE:RTN) before the earnings, they should like them even more now. All these stocks reported good earnings but have lost momentum.
Lockheed Martin posted good earnings and guidance but fell after cash flow comments on the conference call. Northrop Grumman too reported good earnings and guidance but did not rise as much as expected. Lastly, Raytheon reported a modest earnings beat.
Cramer said defense stocks are being traded on daily headlines and hence peace talks with North Korea led to a selloff in defense stocks. Defense stocks should instead trade on military spending and with rising tensions in the Middle East, the governments across the globe are buying defense equipment. The weakness in these stocks is a buying opportunity.
CEO interview – Tableau (NYSE:DATA)
The stock of Tableau went up on Q1 revenue beat and analysts upgraded the stock. Cramer interviewed Adam Selipsky to hear what lies ahead for the company. Tableau is up 34% in 2018.
Selipsky said that users spend 80% of the time preparing the data and 20% analyzing it. Their new platform Tableau Prep flips the equation and uses smart algorithms to perform tasks like combining columns automatically so data can be prepared easily for analysis.
The company has partnered with Charles Schwab and about 50% of the company employees are using Tableau on a daily basis not just for financial planning, but other back office functions too. They also offer cloud services like deployment options, including on-premise and fully managed solutions to help companies transition to the cloud.
Viewer calls taken by Cramer
Boston Scientific (NYSE:BSX): It’s a great company and Cramer is sticking by it despite the 60 Minutes report.
Lennar (NYSE:LEN): It is a terrific company and it is down due to rising interest rates. Cramer thinks it doesn’t deserve to go down.
Discovery Financial Services (NYSE:DFS): It’s cheap versus bigger banks. It’s a buy.
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