Higher Inflation, Spot Bitcoin ETFs Begin Trading, Hertz CEO on EV Cuts 01/11/24

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Jim Cramer (0:28)

It's Jim Cramer here. You're listening to the opening bell of CBC's Squawk on the Street. Don't miss a minute of the action.

Carl Quintanilla (0:35)

Good Thursday 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. Futures are lower as investors take stock at December's CPI. A bit hot on headline.

Although the first three-handle on annual core in almost three years, 10-year does touch 405 Our roadmap begins with inflation picking up in December. What that means for the Fed and rate policy ahead. Bitcoin rallying almost 8% this week. Best week since early December as those ETFs begin trading today.

And Hertz trimming its EV fleet, citing some weak demand, high damage costs. Stephen Scherr is gonna join us exclusively in just a few minutes.

Let's begin with market reaction to CPI, Jim. As we said, a little hot at three-tenths. Half, more than half is shelter.

Jim Cramer (1:21)

Right, and I'm not sure. Remember, shelters ran, it's not really clear to me since we know a huge number of rentals are coming on the market because you couldn't build during COVID. The ones that you started during COVID are historically right about now. So that may be the peak, and that's very, very positive. I know that we can all focus on used cars not being as lower. But we've got Steve Scherr from Hertz. Who knows about the price of used cars better than the CEO of Hertz?

Carl Quintanilla (1:49)

Airfare up one month on month. That was a bit of a surprise, although down nine year on year.

Jim Cramer (1:55)

Look, I think that travel is still allowing airlines to charge more. I also think that one of the reasons why the Justice Department tries to block these murders is because I'm not saying there's collusion, but there's a lot of companies that seem to have the same prices on routes.

Carl Quintanilla (2:10)

So going into this print then, a lot of the dust commentary this morning was Mag 7s back at all time highs, where stones throw from indices hitting all time highs. That it would take a lot for this to really derail the Fed pivot thread, although does it affect March odds?

Jim Cramer (2:29)

I think that March is still a push. I know people want very much to game this. I think what they should be gaming is the fact that every firm has come out, whether it be because of the JP Morgan Health Care Conference or CES, with something positive to say about Nvidia today, about Microsoft. By the way, Netflix we have something positive about.

It's very difficult to derail the positive analyst comments, which are uniformly saying that the numbers can be better than expected.

Carl Quintanilla (2:55)

I think it was B of A, no, today said the stuff that's, the stuff that quote everyone owns is what's moving.

Jim Cramer (3:02)

Well, what's kind of amazing, and I'm glad you mentioned that, is because typically when everyone owns something, there could be a ka-ching, ka-ching, it hasn't happened. And by the way, I know we're gonna get to Bitcoin, but if you remember gold before they had the Gold ETF, it ran up in anticipation, and then that was the peak.

This is a run up in anticipation, and maybe the people who bought Bitcoin are actually gonna make money?

Carl Quintanilla (3:25)

Yeah, we're gonna get to Bitcoin in a second. I did notice last night, you said maybe this isn't a sell on the news.

Jim Cramer (3:30)

Bitcoin is a strange animal. I remember trying to buy Bitcoin when I had from my JP Morgan account, and I got to speak to the highest people, and they said, you know, why don't you just take your money and put it in Fidelity? It's very rare that you ever hear a bank saying, you know, please take your money out of here.

I wanna know how the big guns are gonna deal with this.

Carl Quintanilla (3:47)

Yeah, we're gonna get to that in one second. Just to wrap up, though, the probably the most important print of the week, of course, and that is CPI.