Dow All-Time Highs, Bank Earnings Day 3, Retail Surprise, Musk Millions For Trump? 7/16/24

Carl Quintanilla (0:00)

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

Good Tuesday morning. Welcome to Squawk on the Street. I'm Carl Quintanilla with Jim Cramer at Post 9 of the New York Stock Exchange. David Faber has the morning. Off stocks do look to continue their climb, with the Russell aiming for five straight 1 percent gains. Retail sales better than expected, yields bounce a bit at the short end after the 10-year briefly hit a four-month low. A roadmap begins with quarterly beats for both Morgan Stanley and Bank of America. Brian Moynihan is going to join us in the next hour. Also ahead, Amazon Prime Day is underway, and Elon Musk reportedly committing $45 million a month to a new pro-Trump super pack.

Let's begin though to mark a reaction to those quarterly results from B of A and Morgan Stanley. Not all of these names are working pre-marketing.

Jim Cramer (0:52)

No, I think it's very interesting. Bank of America are really clean, and I like it. Net interest, income, twelfing. That seems to be the number, of course, everyone's looking at, and how much you're making off your deposits, which they're making a lot of deposits.

They did it without having a lot of investment banking. They had good numbers.

Morgan Stanley, the French out to us owns, his stock had run very big into the quarter, second best performer after Goldman so far after last earnings season. But what bothered me here, a la Schwab, is they're just not getting the accounts that I thought, they're just not making enough money. But I will say this, the one thing you have to recognize is that Wells Fargo really got hit on Friday, and then it's been up since. As people realize, wait a second, if the Fed's going to cut rates, here we have the beneficiaries. It's Morgan Stanley and it's Wells Fargo. So before you just dump them, recognize that these stocks overnight have become plays on what Powell does, and you want to be levered to what Powell does.

And they're plays on regulation, and you want to be levered if you think that Trump wins. Holy cow. I mean, regulation.

Carl Quintanilla (2:01)

Those are the two big narrative engines that work right now, right? The prospect of better, easier regulation and lower rates.

Jim Cramer (2:08)

Well, it'd be interesting to see that one of the things that happened with Bank of America, people were worried post-First Republic and Silicon Valley Bank that their bond portfolio was an issue at Bank of America. That was a total canard. It just wasn't. I think it was spread by short sellers. I know that that's a tough thing to say, but I mean, honestly, it just meant nothing, and things are rolling off, and it's very good for them.

Bank of America is just very good. I'm glad we have Brian. It's just a really good quarter.

Carl Quintanilla (2:35)

Net charge-offs, flat quarter on quarter.

Jim's point about hold to maturity, rolling off about $10 billion a month. We're going to talk to Brian Moynihan next hour.

Jim Cramer (2:43)

He's the man, because he does tell you, loan growth has come down. We do need a rate cut.

Carl Quintanilla (2:49)

Yes. Meantime, net charge-offs, I think I just saw on the tape, probably lower in the second half than in the first half.

Jim Cramer (2:58)

It's incredible that, plus the retail sales, tells you that the American consumer is good. Now, the small to medium-sized business is okay. There's plenty of ammo for rate cut, but there's no ammo for a July rate cut, which some people...

Carl Quintanilla (3:11)

Despite what Goldman said yesterday, solid rationale for July.

Jim Cramer (3:15)

I thought that Goldman was a little off the reservation on that.

It's a fun thing to talk about, but not beyond that. It's like talking about Amazon Prime. I have been sighted to Amazon Prime, but it's a little bit anecdotal. It took me forever to... I waited...

Hey, how else do you make money in this country? I waited till this morning early on, and I had to keep pressing that button to get out of the checkout cart, because there were so many other people checking, pressing the button. What's stock?

Carl Quintanilla (3:40)

Someone pointed out the race among all kinds of corporates to get in front of the news feed, to attach yourself to anything related to Prime Day.

Jim Cramer (3:50)

Amazon's on fire, and I think that... Boy, the price during its mobile is low.

It is a great company. I know that I talked about the NFL. Maybe Amazon gets involved in that, maybe they reopen the deal. I'm not sure the NFL's too crazy about that idea, but Amazon can do it at once.