Amazon CEO's Message, Exclusives With Exxon Mobil and Toll Brothers CEOs 12/7/23

SPEAKER_1 (0:00)

What do you see on the horizon? Uncertainty or opportunity? Whatever you see, at PGM, we can help you rise to the challenges of today, when active investing and disciplined risk management are needed most, drawing on deep expertise across the world's public and private markets in pursuit of long-term returns.

Our investments shape tomorrow, today. Pursue your tomorrow with PGM, a leading global asset manager.

David Faber (0:31)

Market insight and analysis. You're listening to the opening bell of CNBC's Squawk on the Street.

Good Thursday morning. Welcome to Squawk on the Street. I'm David Faber. At Post 9 of the New York Stock Exchange, Jim Cramer. There he is on the other half of your screen there. Hopefully, he can hear me. He's in Seattle, fresh from his exclusive interview with Amazon CEO Andy Jassy. Of course, that aired on Mad Money last night. Carl has the morning off after last night's CNBC premiere of Cities of Success, Nashville. There's a look at futures. We do seem to be set up for what may be a higher open about a half hour from now. Let's get to our roadmap this morning.

And we're going to start with Amazon. You're going to want to hear what Andy Jassy had to say to Jim about the consumer, AWS and a lot more.

Speaking of CEOs, that man right there is Exxon Mobil CEO Darren Woods, and he's going to join us exclusively. We're going to be talking about yesterday's big news where they outlined, of course, Exxon's plan for growth and spending and buybacks. That was all yesterday. And then we've also got another big guest. Towards the end of the show, Home Builder stocks hitting new highs. Well, Toll Brothers CEO Doug Yearley is going to join us.

And again, as I said, later in the hour. All right, let's start off with Amazon. Jim, of course, sat down with CEO Andy Jassy last night. They talked everything from AWS to AI, the consumer, the holiday season up ahead. Take a listen.

Andy Jassy (1:55)

Consumers are still spending.

They're being careful about what they spend on and they're looking for bargains and deals wherever they can and wherever they can trade down on price. They're trying to do so. And it's really why if you looked at what we did in our holiday season, it's always important to save customers money, particularly during the holidays and especially in this type of economy. And so we, in our Prime Big Deals Day, which was our exclusive event for Prime members to kick off the holidays, we had tens of millions of deals and it was by far the best kickoff event that we ever did.

David Faber (2:28)

Jim, you know, that's interesting and especially coming on the back of hearing from Doug McMillan yesterday as well, the other major retailer in our country, in terms of the consumer, what else stood out to you?

Jim Cramer (2:41)

Well, look, I think that the consumer, I was surprised when the consumer starts buying, I thought they would, for the holiday season, pay up a little more. But you know, Andy Jassy's talking about some of these Chinese sites, the Shian, that that's doing incredibly well. The people are looking for bargains, but at the lower end, I'm wondering if the lower end isn't struggling. You put that together with what McDonald said yesterday, lower end having trouble. There is just this cohort, David, that has been left behind. And it's important that we remember that this is the group that's been left behind by inflation.

So I know a lot of people feel, certainly in the bonfist, that inflation is under control. That is not what I felt from Andy Jassy.

David Faber (3:18)

Yeah, I feel like we have been hearing, certainly anecdotally, that there has been weakness, particularly at the lower end, so to speak, of income, Jim. You know, I wonder though, does that really translate into a significant diminution in overall demand?

Jim Cramer (3:36)

No, I don't think so. I just think that if you're in the high end and you're trying to sell something online for the holidays, I think you're gonna struggle. It's not where the money is.

And by the way, these Chinese sites, they're partners with Andy Jassy, but if you go to them, you'll see that the average price for what people are buying is 12 bucks.

It's very hard to make money on a 12-buck item if you're Amazon, because it costs $6 per package to sell. But to bring it to you, but David, I think Amazon's doing fabulously, because they can pivot. They don't have inventory, but if I were a brick and mortar store and I listened to that, no confidence. I have no confidence I'd be able to sell my high-end stuff.