Hotter inflation, GDP Surprise, Exclusive With Blue Owl's Head of Credit 2/20/26

SPEAKER_1 (0:00)

Thy ticket, Lady Jennifer of Coolidge.

Jim Cramer (0:03)

Well, many thanks, good sir.

SPEAKER_1 (0:05)

Heareth my Discover card.

SPEAKER_3 (0:08)

They accept Discover at Renaissance Fairs?

SPEAKER_4 (0:10)

Yeah, they do here. Discover is accepted at the places I love to shop. Getteth with the times.

David Faber (0:17)

With the times?

SPEAKER_3 (0:18)

You're playing the lute.

SPEAKER_4 (0:21)

Yeah, and it sounds pretty good, right?

SPEAKER_6 (0:23)

Discover is accepted at 99% of places that take credit cards nationwide. Based on the February 2025 Nielsen Report.

SPEAKER_7 (0:30)

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Jim Cramer (0:59)

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 (1:06)

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. Stocks look to add to Thursday's losses as we head into a storm of eco data today. Q4 GDP is a miss at 1.4, but maybe more troubling is Core PCE rising to 3 year on year. That's the hottest since mid-24. Our roadmap begins with positioning in this market on the back of higher inflation and weaker growth and a possible SCOTUS decision today on tariffs.

David Faber (1:35)

Plus oil has hit a six month high this after President Trump said he will decide in less than two weeks whether the US will attack Iran. Also fears continue about the private credit market. Of course we watch shares of many companies that are active in private credit, including Blue Owl, declined yesterday. This morning Blue Owl's head of credit will join us exclusively and we will talk a lot, of course, about the headlines involving the company and what the future looks like for the industry.

Carl Quintanilla (2:06)

A lot to begin with the markets this morning to digest including PCE and the surprise GDP number, Jim. We were looking for somewhere in the neighborhood of 25 We get one for consumption. 24 is also about the lowest in the year.

Jim Cramer (2:19)

This stuff is such a mystery. In the same way that you would have thought with the reshoring that we would have created more jobs, you would have thought that the trade deficit would have gone down. None of the numbers, what they seem... Let's see, David, let's not be political. Let's have no politics for a second. If you just looked at these numbers, you would say, who in the Fed is saying we should tighten? Are they that much worried about that little bit PCE? I'm looking at an economy that definitely needs help.

David Faber (2:48)

Right.

Craig Packer (2:49)

Needs help.

David Faber (2:51)

You could forgive people for being a bit confused, given all the different metrics we get, some of which indicated our economy is running fairly hot in some way. How much does this go against that narrative and or what do you think?

Jim Cramer (3:06)

Yeah. Look, I was doing some work on rents. Rents is a good example. Rents are going down. They're in the CPI. But there's a bunch of cities, you know, 18 out of 25 rents are going down, seven are going up. And you look at the numbers and say, well, geez, I don't know, rents are coming down like we thought. But it is. We see these areas of the country, Carl, that are so red hot. They're just fantastic. And then there's these other areas of the country. You know, we talk about this K economy. I'm a summer to that because Walmart was willing to do it. I'm willing to do it in their Comscore. But the real issue here is the two economies, the part of the country that is just ready to roll and is rolling, the part of the country just can't get moving. And I think that when we saw yesterday that Japan was willing to put a huge gas turbine in Ohio. Well, that's great. You'll get them in 2033

So, there's a lot of illusory commitment to capital. And then there's capital that's committed in Florida, in Louisiana and mostly in Texas. The big capital commitments are in Texas. Yeah.

Carl Quintanilla (4:10)

I mean, the Japan, that's 7% of that promised 550 out of Japan. And some argue they're trying to slow roll us on some of that stuff. Now, the president did try to get in front of this print and say it was somewhat due to the shutdown. And government did take about 9 tenths of a point, Jim, out of the number.