Mad Money w/ Jim Cramer 9/1/26

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**Jim Cramer** (1:01)
My mission is simple, to make you money.
I'm here to level the playing field for all investors. There's always a bull market somewhere, and I promise to help you find it.

**Jim Cramer** (1:19)
Welcome to Mad Money. Welcome to Cray America. My friends, I'm just trying to save a little bit of money here. My job is not just to entertain on days like today, but also teach you. So call me at 1-800-743-CNBC to meet Jim Cramer. Maybe we didn't deserve to rally from the lows in late July. Now, that's how I'm really beginning to feel about negative days. Like this one, Dow lost 419 points, S&P dropped 0.1 percent, then NASDAQ fell 1.03 percent. Sour, nasty. I say that reluctantly because on any given day, there are plenty of things to like. Some individual stock stories that are driven. Novartis, new drug for MS Sempra bounces back from negative news from the California legislature. Halmet rallies after he realized Elon Musk can't hurt the base aircraft business. The health insurers are robust. The dollar store stayed strong. New Apple CEO John Turner's got a terrific welcome with the stock running up 2.6 percent.
But there is a simple fact about what happened today. We had that kind of episode that we're really getting used to these last six months. Tensions with Iran heat up overnight. The president lets loose missiles and tough postings to retaliate. The price of oil then rallies more than 5 percent, causing interest rates to shoot up, this time to levels we haven't seen in ages.
Sell, sell, sell!
And the stock market retreats, regardless of how the vast majority of companies are doing. And they are doing very well. Oh, sure, there can be exceptions. Tonight, Dell reported a quarter that's so strong, it shouldn't change people's minds at least about Dell. Maybe about Tech, one of the best quarters I've ever seen. But it can't ignite the entire market, and it might not even ignite the AI trade, because of the litany of woe that I just mentioned. Is the litany correct? Okay, there's a very compelling question, because you have to ask yourself, can this happen over and over again? Can the president keep firing missiles towards Iran to try to stop the Iranians from mining or bombing the Strait of Ramos, which will always raise the price of woe, which then always raises the price of money, also known as interest rates, and then causes a sell-off in the stock market? Short answer is yes. Might be able to happen for days, I don't know, weeks, months. It's a nasty chain. When the Treasury Secretary hoped to stem by buying back long-term bonds, the bond market doesn't take that seriously though, in part because higher oil prices are incredibly inflationary, but also because this new Fed chief, Kevin Warsh, he seems eager to stamp out inflation, even if that means raising short-term rates. Yeah, funny thing, when he spoke on Friday, this Fed chief sounded a little bit more like the much revered Paul Volcker, the Fed chief who took rates up to 20% in the early 80s. Volcker was willing to cause a ruinous recession as long as he could get inflation under control.
That man meant business. He was a rigorous practitioner of the game. I sense that Warsh wouldn't hesitate to do the same thing if necessary. Remember, at the time, Volcker was the most hated man in America, but by the time he passed away, he was considered a hero.
What matters, though, as long as we got this on again, off again, more of the ran, it can derail a rally at any moment.
Now, I could argue that we deserve exactly what we got today. The world's going almost all the way back to where it was at the beginning of the war. That makes sense, as the world's strategic petroleum reserves are now all running low after months of conflict. Refiners have been running full out for months, way past when they're supposed to be closed for downtime. Much of what we buy at stores is trucked in with very expensive diesel, diesel, gasoline, wow. Truckers, they have pass-throughs. Supermarket then passes the cost to you. Grocery stores have gotten real expensive, hence why the dollar stores are thriving. Higher oil is like a tax on the entire system. It increases the price of your commute. It impacts vacations. It jacks up ticket prices. It infiltrates construction costs. It's insidious and omnipresent, and it's getting worse.