Jobs Report and the Fed, Broadcom Slumps, Trump from Corporate Tax Rates to Elon Musk 9/6/24

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 Friday morning. Welcome to Squawk on the Street. I'm Carl Quintanilla with Jim Cramer at the post night of the New York Stock Exchange. David Faber has the morning off. Big day, August jobs comes in 142K, as slightly below estimates with some negative revisions. Unemployment pretty steady at four, two. Yields dropped to some fresh one year lows. A roadmap begins with jobs, slow down fears and the Fed. Job growth rebounding slightly last month, keeping interest rates likely on tap this month. Chips remain in focus, Broadcom under pressure as guidance somewhat disappoints. And then politics watch, Trump vowing a 15% corporate tax rate for some companies, while dozens of corporate leaders line up behind the vice president. Let's begin though with market reaction to this morning's jobs number, Jim. The take at least for now is, doesn't neatly answer the 2550 debate.

Jim Cramer (0:54)

Well, I think that no, it doesn't neatly do it. I mean, it certainly makes it a certainty that there's going to be one or the other. I would say that this morning at 330, the futures were down horrendously. Yeah, about one and a quarter percent on the NASDAQ. Now, we left here. It wasn't down that much. And we can talk about Broadcom later. But the idea seemed to be it was almost as if we might report a number where there would be no cut. And that was completely wrong. There seems to be a series of tremendously bad bets being made by people who can't sit on their hands. Look, this is the kind of revisions that say we got to do something. Powell might have 50 if he thinks. He's got either one. But boy, I'll tell you, if you care about interest rates like I do, you're going to have a good market. And we're not supposed to. It's September. And I understand this week is down more than 2%.

It may not be the solution instantly. And we do feel that the semis are overwhelmed by weakness in the economy. I hate that. That's a bad theory. We got to dispel that very warning.

Carl Quintanilla (1:55)

But the picture of employment right now doesn't make you think that the soft landing is teetering in any way.

Jim Cramer (2:01)

No, I do think that it's negative that you had a loss of 25,000 manufacturing jobs. I had Caterpillar on last night. They had nothing but good things to say. I do think that this is again part and parcel. You don't get a rate cut unless you start seeing these numbers. So we have to start, look, I'm not trying to enjoy negative numbers about people not getting jobs. We did get 14 cents per hour year over year increase. Somehow that's actually okay now. We actually want the people who have jobs to make a little more money.

Carl Quintanilla (2:31)

Well, I mean, year on year wage, three eight versus CPI two nine, that's a good tailwind for a consumer.

Jim Cramer (2:38)

It sure is. I mean, I think that there's been a lot of people talking about the choppy nature of the consumer. I say it's the choppy nature of their business because there's a lot of blaming on the consumer and the weakness in the economy from companies that really should recognize or are loathe to say, you know what, we're really getting beat up by Costco and Walmart, but we can cut our prices. They can't. The only output that I had Sprouts Mark is on the other day. And they are determined to get produce priced down. And they've done that. But you have to have something which makes the consumer feel a little bit better. But that kind of number that you just mentioned, that says, you know what? You can go to Sweet Green, which we saw this morning with a $15 bowl for dinner. I do think that the numbers are fine. We want the Fed to cut. You know, look, if it weren't for AI and the so-called bursting the bubble, thank you Michael Semblis for bursting the bubble earlier this week. Good point. JP Morgan strategist. I think we'd be fine. But I think there's this kind of idea that, wow, we really were caught flat-footed. AI turned out to be not any good. And what we should have been looking at is the price of toothpaste. I mean, no, we got to stop making a judgment. AI is fine. It's rocky, it's bumpy. Look, just go to eat Ben Rice's today. He's got a very good piece at Meliis where he just point blanks, talks about, look, it's not linear. There's going to be a lot of spending, it's not linear. I was on that hock tan call.