DC’s Debt Drama, Ford’s EV Push, Chip Challenges 5/22/23

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Carl Quintanilla (0:31)

Market Moving Insight and Analysis join Jim Cramer, David Faber and me, Carl Quintanilla, on the opening bell hour of CNBC's Squawk on the Street.

David Faber (0:39)

Good Monday morning, and welcome to Squawk on the Street. I'm David Faber, I'm live from the New York Stock Exchange. Jim Cramer, it's a little bit earlier for him because he's in Los Angeles.

Thankfully, the man never sleeps. Carl's on assignment. Let's give you a quick look at futures before we get started here. Of course, you can see, let's call it, I don't know. I'll leave it to Jim to figure out what that tells us, if anything. Let's get to our roadmap this morning, though, as well. It starts with DC's debt drama. The potential market, of course, affects investors awaiting tea leaves from today's meeting between Biden and McCarthy.

Plus, we're keeping a close eye on mega cap tech stocks. They're trading at multi-year highs. Apple shares, though, are down a bit. This after a downgrade from loop capital.

And Ford's EV push, boosting its lithium supply and ramping production to meet its 2 million vehicle target. That's by 2026

All right, on this Monday morning, before we get started with trading, 29 minutes from now, let's start with the markets. The S&P and the Nasdaq are coming off. What was the best weeks? Either of them has had since late March. And Jim, I will come to you to sort of ask, what do you expect as this week unfolds, particularly of course, in light of these ongoing discussions around the debt ceiling?

Jim Cramer (1:57)

I think that's really gonna be it, David. We're gonna go up and down, depending upon what Speaker McCarthy says. I don't think the president should be as vocal as Speaker McCarthy under more pressure to be able to not make a deal.

Otherwise, I mean, it's light week for earnings. We're still trying to digest the fact that we've seen the consumer prep slip. We're speaking a lot, I'm speaking to a lot of people who just say the consumer kind of went on strike during the month of April and the strike's continuing in May.

And a lot of that's to do with the fact that people are kind of nervous, cautious about indeed the debt ceiling. So look, not a great time, David. I'm surprised that the market went up last week, but it was led by those mega caps that you talked about. And they seem to be somewhat immune. They don't need debt. They're just strong.

David Faber (2:38)

Yeah, they are. And I want to come back to that, but let's talk a little more about the consumer. We spent a good amount of time on it last week, Jim, because we did get various earnings from some of the big retailers. They were not great. Now, I know you had a more positive than not reaction, perhaps given the market's reaction to the likes of Home Depot or even Target.

But the consumer, I want to drill down a bit more on what you're hearing there, what your expectations are. Do you really think people are holding off on things, on purchases, perhaps because they're worried about the debt ceiling? My guess is most Americans have no idea about it.

Jim Cramer (3:13)

Well, I think that the banks do, and I think the banks are worried. I don't think they're advancing as much credit as they would have even four weeks ago. And even four weeks ago, of course, we were in the turmoil. But I'm relying on something that Mary Dillon told Sarah, and this is on Footlocker, which was that the lower middle to middle was starting to get hurt. That's why they weren't spending on, say, Nikes.

Deer talked about lawnmowers, the actual plain deer lawnmowers that are sold at Home Depot as really not doing well. If you go to Home Depot, they talk to the do-it-yourself person doing a little bit better, but not good enough.

And then finally, I think Target had good things to say about the quarter pass, but the quarter that we're in now, they are concerned, even as they kept their estimates the same for the year.