Hot Jobs Report Hits Stocks, Delta and Walgreens Surge, Constellation's $16.4B Power Play 1/10/25

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Jim Cramer (0:44)

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

Carl Quintanilla (0:52)

Good Friday morning. Welcome to Squawk on the Street. I'm Carl Quintanilla with Jim Cramer, David Faber at Post 9 of the New York Stock Exchange. Futures are under some pressure as bond yields spike on this December jobs print. Two hundred fifty six thousand, strongest in nearly a year. Some minimal revisions. Thirty year cracks five percent for the first time since twenty twenty three. A roadmap is going to begin with the jobs number, prompting some concerns the Fed might not cut rates later this month.

David Faber (1:16)

And on the earnings front this morning, shares of Delta and Walgreens are each getting a boost. Their respective results have exceeded analysts' expectations. We'll dive into both. And Constellation Energy has agreed to acquire Calpine. It's a 16.4 billion dollar deal, cash and stock. This, of course, is power demand given the growth of data centers and AI continues to rise. Don't miss Constellation CEO, John Dominguez. He'll join us in the next hour of Squawk on the Street.

Carl Quintanilla (1:46)

Let's get to this reaction on the jobs numbers. As we said, 256, looking for about 100,000, less than that. Unemployment falls a tick to 41, Jim. Wages may be the only dovish wrinkle in this.

Jim Cramer (1:57)

I'm so glad you mentioned that because, look, we can all be very negative, but the economy put a lot of people to work, paying them 10 cents more. I have trouble being really negative on that. 25 cents, maybe 30 cents. But when I see this number, what I say to myself is, okay, would you prefer earnings to be good? Because this isn't earnings to be good. Or would you prefer rate cuts? Anytime I can get earnings to be good, I vastly prefer that to rate cuts because rate cuts don't necessarily translate into EPS. We are, in the end, creatures of what makes stock move. I know that if you want to pay more for bonds, get an interest rate that's higher, that's supposed to be really bad for stocks. What's really bad for stocks is employment, is recession. These numbers are so far away from recession. The only thing I can conclude, David, is that the Fed got it wrong, but that doesn't mean necessarily that CEOs are going to get it wrong, that businesses are going to get it wrong. We do not have a number that's going to wipe out companies. We have a number that's going to keep this economy afloat, regardless of what the Fed does.

David Faber (3:01)

All right, but as for the markets, when you look at a 10-year that is approaching 4-8, what is that going to do?

Jim Cramer (3:08)

We have to readjust. This is a reset moment. The question is, do we have to get political? Do we have to say that, like John Gibson said to me, he's the CEO of Paychex, that none of this stuff ever factors in the small to medium-sized business, of which he said there was a huge flood of optimism after the election. Now, to say, well, what happened is people were waiting to see whether Vice President Harris was elected, and therefore they wouldn't expand versus President-elect Trump. They would expand.

Carl Quintanilla (3:38)

Or just wanted to make sure that there was a result.

Jim Cramer (3:41)

That they had a resolution to this. And once they had a resolution, they wanted to hire again. Now, this isn't me talking. This is the guy who's the largest payroll processor in the country of small to medium sized business. And he was talking about getting involved and being on the Fed and saying that the Fed really is out of touch. Well, I think that what we saw, and I don't want to, you know, I respect Jay Powell greatly, but maybe they didn't understand that once you got the election out of the way, there could be bullishness no matter what.