Cramer's Morning Take: Foot Locker 8/23/23

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Jim Cramer (0:28)

Hey, it's Cramer, and this is my morning take on the market from today's CNBC Investing Club Morning Meeting.

It has been a confusing time, and I say that because I like to right up front own things.

Very small position, Foot Locker, which he did urge you not to buy, but we did own some, is a disaster. That conference call is going on right now. But against that, we have a lot of good stocks, including the Magnificent 7, and I do other than Tesla. Look, I want to always be up front with you. I bought that, that was mine. Mary Dillon came on, bought a lot of stock, came on, told us this could be the next Ulta. There had been no reason for me to doubt her. I made a mistake. It's always on me, not that person, but I have to say that it was a very difficult quarter, and a lot of it was because the demographic has changed, the economy has changed, but also if you look, Nike is now down 10 straight days. There's a move away from footwear on semi, oh, on, not on semi, did not have a good quarter either.

Jeff Marks (1:32)

Yeah, it's tough because she's trying to reposition the company, get out of, become more off mall, get out of champs, closing a lot of the stores, but champs was horrible, so repositioning the company right now in a moment of weakness, especially on the consumer side.

Jim Cramer (1:48)

Well, this is as bad as July.

They are trying to reposition basically on the fly, which is always very hard. They do have 600 million in credit. They will have to tap that credit line. They have way too much inventory. It's a textbook case of a turnaround that isn't happening.

Jeff Marks (2:06)

Yeah, well, look, we've been saying not to buy. We haven't added to our position since the last quarter. Just a harsh reminder why it's important. Excuse me, it's important not to put good money after bad.

Jim Cramer (2:17)

After bad, Balsh Health is a reminder of that, but there'll be, I'm doing a book and there'll be a chapter on mistakes. And Balsh was a belief in Joe Papa and Foot Locker was a belief in Mary Dillon. I'm obviously trying to get away from the idea that you can bank on certain people, even though that had been something I had done in my career and it typically had worked. So that's a learning lesson to hear is don't necessarily be with someone who was bankable in a very difficult situation.

Jeff Marks (2:46)

And I think more broadly on retail, we're seeing a weakness across many names. You mentioned a few, Nike, Dick's Sporting Goods. Yesterday is another one that comes to mind.

Macy's.

Jim Cramer (2:59)

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