Inflation Situation, Harris-Trump Debate, Toll Brothers CEO on Housing and Rates 9/11/24

Jim Cramer (0:00)

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 (0:07)

Good Wednesday morning, welcome to Squawk on the Street. I'm Carl Quintanilla with Jim Cramer, David Faber at Post 9 and the New York Stock Exchange. Today does mark 23 years since the September 11th attacks, and memorials are being held around the country today. You are looking at a live shot from the 9-11 Memorial in Lower Manhattan, as well as a ceremony at the Pentagon, and we will have a moment of silence here at the NYSC this hour. Meantime pre-market is red. August CPI comes in as expected, although CORE runs a tenth hot, our last big print before next week's Fed meeting. Our roadmap begins with inflation watch. Markets digesting CPI with the decision on rates just a week away.

David Faber (0:43)

Also ahead, we'll have a look back at last night's Harris-Trump presidential debate. Both candidates did square off occasionally on issues that included the economy. Plus mortgage rates falling for a sixth consecutive week. Toll Brothers CEO Doug Yearley is gonna join us right here at Post 9 We're gonna talk about the state of the housing market.

Carl Quintanilla (1:01)

Let's begin with some reaction to CPI. We mentioned a core running three-tenths, Jim. Is there some disappointment that you might not get 50 as a result?

Jim Cramer (1:10)

I gotta tell you, we play this game all the time. And it's a little, I think, debilitating because there'll be people who come out and say, oh, not 50 Well, let's sell. And then other people say, oh, if we got in 50, it would have meant that there's something wrong, particularly with what we had yesterday in the banks. I mean, David, when you see something like JP Morgan going down really big and then you see the whole banking group go down, you start thinking, okay, what is out there? Every time we have that, and then when you see this close to the Fed meeting, you start saying, what do they know? And I think that that's another bad game. The idea that if they did 50, they know something. I think we should just take it as it comes.

David Faber (1:49)

Yeah. I mean, we're going to get 25, right?

Jim Cramer (1:52)

Right. But then this morning, there was a lot of commentary about 50 or 25 By the way, I thought that that was...

David Faber (1:57)

Well, we got to talk about something. I mean, by the way, on the banks, which we can talk about and we'll get to, Chris, that was an interesting day yesterday.

Jim Cramer (2:08)

Well, that's what I thought was...

David Faber (2:09)

But not necessarily related to things like this, but much more about investment banking revenues, trading revenues, just not coming quite in where at least the analysts who followed JP Morgan, for example, had expected based on what we heard yesterday from Doug Pinto at the Barclays Conference.

Jim Cramer (2:22)

Can I just talk for a second about Doug Pinto?

David Faber (2:23)

Sure.

Jim Cramer (2:24)

Okay, I don't know the man.

David Faber (2:27)

No, nor do I.

Jim Cramer (2:28)

But he sowed a lot of worry and concern that may not be accurate versus the bank itself. Because when I listened to him, I came away and said, cut numbers, JP Morgan. JP Morgan is doing incredibly well. I do not know whether Doug Pinto wanted to play a little bit like Jamie Dimon who always has something that says, listen, be careful. But every time anyone said anything, that he was asked questions, he came up with a negative answer and he's either a negative person or he's far more concerned than I thought. I came away thinking, don't touch that son, don't touch that.

Carl Quintanilla (3:07)

Isn't the bigger story Ally, worst day since 2020?

Jim Cramer (3:12)

They've got the suboptimal borrower. The one thing that Pinto did say was, look, we don't have any of those, but they do have a very well, much better clientele. But I was shocked that this man could be as negative, David, as he was given the fact that they have a fortress balance sheet, they're doing quite well. I came away saying, okay, what do I not know about JP Boyle?

David Faber (3:35)

It's interesting. Well, the stock did get hit. Of course, there was a lot of things buffeting the banking sector. Carl mentioned Ally in terms of consumer credit and worries there. And then you also had the rollback of certain capital thresholds for Basel, but not perhaps as much as had been hoped for. And so you generally had a sell-off in all the banks. Wells Fargo was the best performer of a bad bunch.