Cramer's Morning Take: Costco 5/9/24

Jim Cramer (0:01)

Jim Cramer here to share with you a sample of my take on the market from today's CNBC Investing Club morning meeting.

I sometimes search for metaphors because they make things clear, Jeff. There was a great movie called Butch Cassie and Sundance Kid, where they were always asking each other, who are those guys? We have a rally where we almost have to ask, who are those guys who are rallying? Because it's very quiet going up, but it's happening.

Jeff Marks (0:28)

Yeah, I mean, you pointed out yesterday, utilities have been doing well, some staple stocks have been acting a little bit better, especially versus discretionary energy has been strong. Today, you're seeing some tech weakness, some semiconductor stocks acting a little soft. Maybe part of that's due to arm guidance. We can talk about arm in a moment, but there's also this notion, this earning season, and we've pointed this out, where companies, we've seen some pretty good quarters, but if there's one slight bit, the slightest thing wrong about the guidance, they are just getting pummeled. Now, maybe not everyone is gonna be right, that type of reaction, but it is something you can't ignore.

Jim Cramer (1:05)

No, and what you have to do is very interesting. You could say the first quarter, people got down tougher, but think about you're the CFO of Procter & Gamble. Do you think there's really anything different between the second quarter and the first quarter? So people gravitate to companies that don't have any sort of cliff or don't have a slowdown. I interviewed Brian Chesky this morning. Now, Brian is concerned maybe there is a bit of a travel slowdown. Well, you're not going to have a bit of a tide or crest slowdown. And that's why Procter could go up all the time.

JP Morgan, Morgan Stanley, you're not going to have expensive stocks go down, as long as there's some buoyancy and they do well in a longer, and do well in a rate cut situation.

Jeff Marks (1:46)

Morgan Stanley, 97, I saw that's a new 52-week high. Well, that's wonderful. Yeah.

At the same time you have Costco, they were out with their monthly sales for April last night. Core comparable sales up 5.5% company-wide. Misses street estimates of 6.2%, but I would say it's still really strong. Timing of Easter, negatively impacted total sales and comes by a little bit more than half a percent. You're seeing the stock up in reaction. It's climbed all the way back from where it was before. This was right before the quarter. It fell off. The quarter was good. It was actually just more of an expectation thing, given the stock's strong move here today.

Jim Cramer (2:21)

We got to hire for longer chatter again about the membership increase. We're also going to have a technician say, if it can't take out that high, it's going to go back down.

I say, take a look at where Costco was at 717 People were bailing furiously. But Costco is one of those companies that is consistent and doing well and is offering a bargain because their prices indeed are lower than everybody else's because they tell the suppliers, if you want to be in our stores, cut your price.

Jeff Marks (2:48)

Yeah, and it's for everything, right? You also had non-food sales. It was around mid-single digit, a little bit of a slow down from low double digit in March, but it was the sixth straight quarter of growth and considering what we've seen from some other consumer retail companies, what we've heard, that can be a good sign that they're taking share from everyone else. Yes, they are. And it's because of price.

Jim Cramer (3:10)

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SPEAKER_3 (3:28)

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