Bearish Sentiment, Trade War/Tariffs Effect, Earnings Beats for BofA and Citi 4/15/25

SPEAKER_1 (0:00)

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Carl Quintanilla (0:58)

Market moving insight and analysis. Join Jim Cramer, David Faber and me, Carl Quintanilla on the opening bell hour of CNBC Squawk on the Street. Good Tuesday morning. Welcome to Squawk on the Street. I'm Carl Quintanilla with Jim Cramer, David Faber at Post 9 of the New York Stock Exchange. Some relative calm returning to the pre-market at least, after those comments from the president and the treasury secretary on Monday. Bank earnings remain solid, VIX below 32, dollar index green for the first time in six days. A roadmap begins with this market volatility. A new street poll shows investors haven't been this bearish about growth in about 30 years.

David Faber (1:31)

Also had tariffs, of course, in the US-China trade war. Beijing reportedly ordering Chinese airlines not to accept further deliveries of Boeing jets. That company shares are under pressure. And we've gotten earnings from Citi and Bank of America this morning, of course. They also top analysts estimates along with what we've seen from many of their competitors over the last couple of trading days. BofA CEO Brian Moynihan will join us. That's in the next hour of Squawk on the Street.

Carl Quintanilla (1:58)

Let's begin with the markets this morning, Jim. Besant yesterday did say he thought maybe the VIX had peaked. Does today sort of rhyme with that?

Jim Cramer (2:06)

Look, I think once you start seeing the earnings, you saw a bunch of them. They didn't cancel guidance. They gave guidance. I feel like some of the banks were actually pretty good. Bank of America business is usual. One of the things that Brian Whittington will be able to talk about is consumer spending is up nicely. I mean, for all the things you hear about, the pessimistic surveys, year over year is good. And David, I think that we forget, as long as unemployment stays as low as it is, we're going to surprise people in terms of the economy, despite the fact that there's a lot of stern and drang when it comes to the White House.

David Faber (2:46)

Do we really think the consumer will remain strong?

Jim Cramer (2:48)

I think that the aggregate consumer, long as they have jobs, yes. I don't think they sit there and say, you know what, there's coming tariff, I'm going to just disappear. Now you can say these numbers are pull through. I don't buy that.

David Faber (3:02)

Well, right, there is that. And it's a big question. We know a lot of companies are over ordering, so to speak, lining up things prior to the tariffs, or we're doing so, whatever that might be. But I don't know if people are doing that as well. I mean, I know plenty of people who went and bought iPhones in the belief that, well, you want to beat it if the price goes up. Obviously, they don't need to any longer, given the, at least the bans of, you know, that's been held in the bans for some period of time.

Jim Cramer (3:28)

But why did we overlook that incredible Walmart meeting? I read every page of that Walmart meeting. There was, it was, I'm not saying it was boom. I'm saying it was garden-variety good from Walmart. A lot of people felt that Walmart was going to miss. If anything, what they showed you was, business is pretty good. We can't overlook that, we can't.

Carl Quintanilla (3:50)

Well, I mean, city provisions were higher than expected and they did, they gave the reason why and that's the concerns that you just talked about.

Jim Cramer (3:57)

Right, Bank of America was fine. I do think that when you look at the combination of just endless numbers of estimate, of price target cuts. I mean, Goldman, there's like eight price target cuts and Goldman had a good quarter. Just happened to be from the 500 level instead of the 600 level. The reset that happened of stocks getting clubbed, we're just now starting to deal with how awful it was. The market just had, that sell-off was so quick and so vicious, that companies that are reporting good numbers, the analysts are saying, listen, really good numbers. I'm cutting my price target. I'm not used to that. I'm used to really good numbers and price target bump. The only company that is getting price target bumps today is Umana. Well, analysts are UNH. UNH doesn't even report it yet. But J&J is a good example of what's happening. J&J's stock was up a dollar. It was up a half. I listened to Joe Wolk. He was, as usual, phenomenal on air. I know that there were some issues about tariffs.