Consumer Concerns, Musk: “Hold Onto Your Stock”, Honing in on Housing 3/21/25

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Jim Cramer (0:44)

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.

Sara Eisen (0:52)

Good Friday morning. Welcome to Squawk on the Street. I'm Sara Eisen at Post 9 of the New York Stock Exchange. Jim Cramer is live from Las Vegas again this hour. Carl and David have the morning off. Taking a look at futures as the gang just showed you, we are at lows of the session pre-market. Dow is set to open lower by more than 300 points. Nasdaq down 218 So tech again at the center of the storm. The SMP futures down 52 points. It looked like we were gonna get a gain for the week for the SMP, breaking four weeks of losing. But we're only up 4 10s heading into today, so that could be in jeopardy. Our roadmap begins with the consumer slowdown watch. FedEx cutting guidance and Nike forecasting another sales decline. Shares of both sharply lower ahead of the open. Plus with Tesla shares now more than 50% off recent highs, CEO Elon Musk delivering a late night message to employees, quote, hang on to your stock. And travel chaos, more than 1300 flights canceled as a power outage shutters London's Heathrow Airport. We'll get to all of that. Let's get to FedEx and Nike though. Top of mind, those stocks under pressure following their latest earnings results. Both warning of a weaker economy and consumer. Here's FedEx CEO, Raj Subramanian on the call last night.

Raj Subramanian (2:03)

As you look to the fourth quarter, in light of the uncertain demand environment and higher than previously expected inflationary pressures on our cost base, we are lowering our FY25 adjusted EPS outlook to $18.60.

Sara Eisen (2:24)

Jim, I know you like this one. This had to be disappointing. Third consecutive guidance cut.

Jim Cramer (2:30)

Yeah, look, I would waffle between disappointing and how exciting it is to be able to cut the expenses the way they're doing. The leverage here would be humongous, Sara, if they would be able to get a couple of good quarters. But look, I understand. I mean, our viewers at home right now are looking and just saying, okay, what the hell happened? Why is it once again even worse? You could argue the two stocks you have on the screen, both Nike and FedEx, were very disappointing. I would come back and say, are you kidding? Is this really shocking? Yes, Sara, you know the Nike had a, it was tough to listen to because of the inventories. Raj Subramanian, little bit tough to listen to because you are guiding down. But end of the world, I don't know, the end of the world thesis is playing out much more aggressively than the actual situation with the economy, I think.

Sara Eisen (3:15)

Although it was interesting that Raj mentioned higher inflationary pressures and an uncertain demand environment, which is, it sort of points at the ugly combo that investors are worried about right now, stagflation, which was just mentioned in the Austin Goulsby interview. And I wonder how serious of a concern that is for you.

Jim Cramer (3:34)

Well, look, when you go over how many times you mentioned inflation, when you go over how many times you mentioned economic weakness, you could easily craft a story which just says, this is the worst possible economy. I come back and say, look, we've created a level of negativity in this country that is extraordinary. I don't think anyone's really hiding that. Yesterday, Ted Decker from Home Depot, Home Depot, people could say has a lot of tariff problems. Home Depot, people could say a lot of higher interest problems. But he's just not saying that at all. And I think he's accentuating the positive.

I thought that, Raj, if you go over the call, the call was damn positive, okay? And I spoke with Raj at length yesterday, and we both were remarking about how much money they made despite the revenues. That's the way you think of this. I mean, people are saying it's a risky stock. It was risky 100 points ago. Was Home Depot risky at 350? It was risky at 425 Somebody has to start thinking about, you know what? These stocks have come down in advance about our negativity and what we talk about. And yes, there could be another 10% decline. But can you just stay opposite this forever? Because 15% of the economy is going to have a higher tariff. I can play the game and you can play the game. We can sit here and talk about how Nike missed the quarter, missed the quarter badly. Or we can say, do I want to pay 65 for a core franchise that is in half because we had a seriously bad CEO and now we have a good CEO and he will be able to triumph. I'll play the negative game if people want, but it won't make you money. Not from here.