Fed Decision Day, Wholesale Inflation Shrinks, AI Chips: AMD Battles $1T Nvidia 6/14/23

SPEAKER_1 (0:00)

What's on the horizon for financial markets?

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Jim Cramer (0:30)

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.

Carl Quintanilla (0:38)

Good Wednesday morning. Welcome to Squawk on the Street. I'm Carl Quintanilla with Jim Cramer, David Faber at Post Night of the New York Stock Exchange. It is Fed Day, decision at two o'clock Eastern. And for the moment, futures mixed as the Dow notches six consecutive gains, longest streak since January. Producer prices come in cool, up one one year on year. That's the lowest since 2020 A road map begins with stocks, the S&P eyeing its highest open in about 14 months. Investors banking on a Fed rate hiking pause later today.

David Faber (1:05)

Plus AMD sets its sights on Nvidia in the battle for AI dominance. But is the company's new chip too late to the game?

That got it grown from Jim. And a warning from UnitedHealth. It is weighing on all the many of the stocks in the overall health insurance sector ahead of the open. The company's saying it expects a spike in medical costs in the second quarter.

Carl Quintanilla (1:28)

Let's begin though with the producer prices and the Fed policy makers due to announce their decision as we said, two o'clock Eastern today, followed by the chair's news conference, Jim, a lot of discussion on just how bad fed days have been for stocks, especially well this year, but really under Powell overall.

Jim Cramer (1:44)

Yeah, and what happens is you've got a two part, just a one, two punch, yet the statement comes out and then immediately the futures go down and then they try to recover. And then the press conference comes down. Now, David, I don't know, I was the editor of the high school's Springfield Chronicle.

David Faber (2:00)

Nice.

Jim Cramer (2:01)

And a lot of high school representatives now are at this point. He's taking questions from people who are like, Columbia journalism school people, but that's when the market really starts going down because they ask him the same questions, which are mostly about when do you stop being your wife?

And heaven forbid, heaven forbid they do enough homework to realize that maybe the economy's cooling. All this is gotcha.

David Faber (2:21)

You're not a fan of the press conference.

Jim Cramer (2:23)

Well, no, I mean, like, you'll be like, excuse me, the Grateful Dead, I mean, were you like, what were you doing there? What was that about?

David Faber (2:29)

Maybe you can answer that one, I mean.

Jim Cramer (2:31)

Well, no, I mean, they just-

David Faber (2:32)

It's pretty easy.

Carl Quintanilla (2:32)

I'm sure he's got a page and notes on that.

Jim Cramer (2:34)

Their questions are otherworldly, but then causes the market to go down because the future traders really think they know a great deal. Remember the one day, like, the future traders got it completely wrong because they had the wrong guy in the room and stuff?

David Faber (2:47)

Well, also, I can remember when they heard one thing at, well, they explained the statement and then at the, and then at the actual press conference. Are you aware the market's things changed dramatically?

Jim Cramer (2:57)

The market was, yeah.

Carl Quintanilla (2:58)

His data was late.

Jim Cramer (2:59)

Yeah, so whatever, I just urge people to recognize that the conference is a second rate affair and that what really matters is that the economy and that the economy is cooling and the Fed is winning and you can play hop, skip, jump. I don't care what you do, okay? I really don't. You play jacks for all I care.

David?

David Faber (3:16)

Oh, you want me to react to that? Did you play jacks when you were young?

Jim Cramer (3:21)

No, I went to Cava.

Carl Quintanilla (3:22)

Ah. Certainly what's cooling is producer prices.

As we said, down three tenths, we're looking for down one tenth. That's 11 straight months of annual declines. The high water mark, as Santelli reminded us, was almost 12, now it's one. By the way, and real average hourly earnings, now positive.

Jim Cramer (3:42)

I know. I mean, what's funny is that people talk about the new bull market beginning. Well, it began in October and it started out with just a few large cap stocks. It's now broadened. Yesterday, we had stocks going up, the likes of which I thought were dead. I mean, David, the banks, although Schwab put out some numbers today, they're a little confusing, but the banks were up, regional banks.