Chips Extend Rally, Micron CEO "First on CNBC," Five More Years for Dimon?  1/16/26

SPEAKER_1 (0:00)

Comcast Business helps retailers become seamlessly restocking, frictionless paying, favorite shopping destinations. It's how nationwide restaurants become touch screen ordering, quick serving eateries, and how hospitals become the patient scanning, data managing, healthcare facilities that we all depend on. With leading networking and connectivity, advanced cybersecurity and expert partnership, Comcast Business is powering the engine of modern business, powering possibilities, restrictions apply.

SPEAKER_2 (0:28)

This episode is brought to you by Schwab Market Update, an original podcast from Charles Schwab. Join host Keith Lansford for this information packed daily market preview delivered in 10 minutes or less, including projected stock updates, monetary policy decisions, and key results and statistics that may impact your trading. Download the latest episode and subscribe at schwab.com/marketupdatepodcast or find Schwab Market Update wherever you get your podcasts.

Jim Cramer (0:57)

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.

David Faber (1:05)

Good Friday morning. Welcome to Squawk on the Street. I'm David Faber with Jim Cramer. We are live from Post 9 at the New York Stock Exchange. Carl has the morning off. Happy Friday, everybody. Let's take a look at futures of course as we get started with the final trading session of the week. As you can see, set up for, I guess I'll call that a slightly higher open. You ready? You good? You all right?

Jim Cramer (1:26)

No, I'm like not ready. I've been like up since 3 o'clock. What are you like talking to me?

David Faber (1:29)

All right, I'm sorry. I got to talk to you. It's the show. All right. Let's start with our roadmap though this morning because he doesn't seem to want to talk. It begins with the state of stocks as the Dow and the S&P get closer to new milestones. Plus JPMorgan CEO Jamie Dimon says, all right, you know, he wants to stay in the job at least five more years. We'll talk about that. They say he was joking. And the US and Taiwan reaching a trade agreement that will allow for the building of chips and chip fabs here on American soil. The deal has a total value over obviously a lot of time of $250 billion. Speaking of chip manufacturing, Micron CEO, he's going to join us in a first on CNBC. Talk about that company's plans for upstate New York, where it is building some big fabs as well. Let's start with the markets. Chip sector on track to extend its rally. The S&P 500 continues that march toward the 7,000 mark. What are your thoughts on this fine morning, very cold morning here in New York?

Jim Cramer (2:28)

Once again, what's happened is, and we'll talk to Sanjay Mehrotra, people misjudged, they misjudged the amount of business. But I think it's important to talk about, I will ask Sanjay. Last year at this time, Micron had a bad miss. They projected wrong, they projected too much, they didn't have, they had a lot of inventory. Obviously, since then, amazing things have happened. But this shortage is the making of the market. Sanjay, I was very bullish a year ago. I came out on this show and said some things about high bandwidth memory that were aggressive. And Sanjay called me and told me that I was too bullish.

And I look back, he was too bearish. But he had the shortfall, because he had too much inventory. I want people to understand why this happened, okay? This is not a shortfall that was manufactured in order to be able to raise prices. It wasn't manufactured at all. There was no way you could see this. And I think that's why...

David Faber (3:34)

It was just, what, a result of the enormous demand coming from everything we talk about?

Jim Cramer (3:37)

Look, here I'm looking at, this is from 2024 We expect industry DRAM bit demand growth to be in the high teens. No, no, it's in the 20s. I mean, he said the bit supply growing roughly in line with bit demand, that was wrong. NAND bit demand growth in calendar 2024-2025, now low, doubled it, is completely wrong. Right. And I'm not saying that means that Sanjay was not good, he was the best. He was the best and he got it wrong. I think that's the point.

David Faber (4:11)

All right. Well, we're going to have a chance to talk to him. But what's the larger point you're making here?

Jim Cramer (4:15)

That we have an insane demand, whether it be power and we're going to get to PJM, which is the utility index, the utility groups under fire, or whether it be DRAM. We just don't have enough and people have to understand that this shortage is impacting everything, making it so that everything is more expensive, and the powers, the PJMs make it so everything is more expensive. This has caught everyone by unaware, including the principal company that we all needed to deal with Taiwan Semi. All I'm saying, David, is that this is one where people couldn't have foreseen it. Sanjay had the best vision of everyone and he couldn't foresee it. That's how.