Bulls Rule in Q1, Home Depot's Largest Deal, SBF Sentencing Day 3/28/24

Jim Cramer (0:00)

It's Jim Cramer here. You're listening to the opening bell of CNBC's Squawk on the Street. Don't miss a minute of the action.

Carl Quintanilla (0:07)

Good Thursday morning. Welcome to Squawk on the Street. I'm Carl Quintanilla with Jim Cramer at post night of the New York Stock Exchange. David Faber has the morning off. Farewell Q1. It was good to know you. Very good. In fact, all time closing highs. Best Q1 for the S&P since 2019, the 14th best going all the way back to the 1920s. Busy day today with FedSpeak, EcoData and some M&A. Our roadmap begins with stocks on track for a fifth straight monthly gain as we wrap up March in Q1.

Home Depot announcing the biggest acquisition ever for them, buying building products distributor SRS, more than $18 billion including debt.

And the sentencing hearing for FTX founder, Sam Bankman-Fried due to get underway in New York City later on this hour.

Let's begin with the markets though as we close out Q1, Jim.

You've been talking about broadening, but yesterday was what an example of it.

Jim Cramer (0:55)

Well, I mean, but I would say the banks are great, the industrials are great. There's some health care like Merck that's phenomenal. An entertainment company like Disney, of course we got a proxy fight there. American Express was amazing this quarter. So if you think about it, and Caterpillar, American Express, Caterpillar, Disney, these are remarkable companies to be winning right here at a time when, JP Morgan, at a time when the Fed's tightening or not loosening and Waller says, look, we gotta take our time. So I think the Fed really misled you. There were two markets. There was the Fed which took you off the track. And then there were the earnings. That's why I mentioned Peter Lynch last night, great investor at the Jell-O-Fund. The earnings saved you. So if you watch the earnings, you did great. If you watch the Fed, you should just go do another job, which is fine.

There's nothing wrong with that.

There are people who follow the Fed. They do it as a hobby and it's great.

Some get paid, but it hurts you. And I just don't, I want people at home to understand that in the end, if you follow the companies, you made a lot of money. And if you follow the Fed, you stayed out of the market. And I think that's really important.

Carl Quintanilla (2:09)

It is interesting this morning to see the futures at least sort of look past Waller last night. As he said, no rush to cut.

Some of the price trends disappointing. Wants to see at least a couple of months of better data. Here's what Waller said.

Christopher Waller (2:24)

In the absence of an unexpected and material deterioration in the real economy, I'm going to need to see at least a couple of months of better inflation data before I have enough confidence that beginning to cut rates will keep the economy on a path to 2% inflation.

Carl Quintanilla (2:43)

And of course, we just got revisions to Q4 consumption at least up three-tenths.

Jim Cramer (2:47)

Yeah, and tomorrow there'd be a Good Friday, we've got great reporting here, and it's going to be, those numbers will be hot, PCA. And all you need to do is just listen to Steve Squary at American Express or listen to Gary Friedman at RH. Gary was so ecstatic, I sent him an email, I said, geez, Gary, I guess, you know, happy days are here again.

Because the cadence of homes, which are by the way, the 30th, you know, it's been, he said, it's been 30 years since homes have been this bad. The cadence of his business went up dramatically, which is really good news.

Carl Quintanilla (3:19)

RH is going to open up 10%, B of A today reiterates a buy, says they think demand could outpace revenue this year by four to eight percent points.

Jim Cramer (3:28)

Gary brought back 30% of his company, basically just said, you know what, Wall Street, to hell with you. I'm buying back stock. He's opening stores everywhere. They're not stores, I'm sorry, they're basically museums to furniture. I think he's an amazing merchant.

And he's reinvented himself. He talks a lot about Picasso. You have to destroy yourself to reinvent. By the way, if you want to treat, just read his letters.

And then if you really want to treat, look what he says to the analysts who don't really get it.

Carl Quintanilla (3:54)

One of the best examples of earnings color that we get every quarter. Here's a quick listen to Friedman last night.