Markets After a Volatile Week, Inflation and Retail Earnings Watch, Starbucks and Activism 8/12/24

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.

David Faber (0:07)

Good Monday morning. Welcome to Squawk on the Street. I'm David Faber. That is Jim Cramer. We are at Post 9 at the New York Stock Exchange. Carl's traveling back from Paris. He's gonna be back tomorrow, all three of us, barring unforeseen circumstances, of course.

Jim Cramer (0:21)

Fantastic.

David Faber (0:22)

Injury, you never know.

Jim Cramer (0:23)

Stop it.

David Faber (0:23)

I'm kidding. Like, you know, like, in a game, you know? Yeah, you hurt your knee.

Jim Cramer (0:29)

You can come out of the tunnel and you, like, immediately, like, go to the sideline.

David Faber (0:32)

I know. I know. That's what I'm saying. Anyway, we're all back tomorrow, but you got the two of us today. And you've got what looks like at least to be a bit of a higher open in the market. Let's get to our roadmap as well this morning. Shall we do that, Mr. Cramer? All right. It starts with the S&P and the Nasdaq. Coming off what was the fourth straight week of losses. Investors are bracing for retail earnings. We're getting, of course, Home Depot on Tuesday, Walmart on Thursday, and we get some inflation data as well. Bank of America's Brian Moynihan had a strong message for the Fed urging the Central Bank to cut sooner rather than later, that is, cut interest rates. And we're going to keep an eye on Starbucks. Settlement with elliott, perhaps getting closer. Other potential activists may be in the frame.

Jim Cramer (1:14)

Kind of a Salesforce field, doesn't it?

David Faber (1:15)

A little bit, but we'll talk about it. I want to show what I've got here, what you're thinking as well. But let's start off, as you might expect, of course, with these markets this morning, after a volatile week for stocks last week. We all know this time last week, we were looking sharply down on those futures. We were all becoming more familiar with the Yen Cari trade and what the impact of that was. We started to hear a lot of discussion of recession. And here we are a week later, after what was a volatile week, though certainly ended on better terms, so to speak, for the bulls than it did as the week began.

SPEAKER_3 (1:50)

Well, I think you really just caught it.

Jim Cramer (1:54)

We didn't know the Yen Cari trade. And so when the market went down, we first initially thought, well, maybe it's rates, then we thought maybe it's earnings. And then we realized it's an unwind. And once it became an unwind, I think people decided to use it, for the most part, as an opportunity. Except for the companies, of course, that did not report good earnings.

David Faber (2:15)

And any different in terms of sort of how you see things playing out? obviously.

Jim Cramer (2:20)

No, I do think it's different.

David Faber (2:20)

These are long weeks, so to speak, in August. The liquidity is not what it typically is, or at least it can be. So we do see, sometimes through the years, more volatility in this month.

Jim Cramer (2:29)

Well, I think that people are looking at what went down that shouldn't have.

Still, apropos of the key bank acquisition, the banks themselves really did not fare well after Japan. Even though they had good quarters, it's almost like we forgot how good the quarters were. So that's, to me, where the opportunities are. But David, look, I think that there's this, it's just endless AI revulsion that has become so packed that if anyone actually said, you know what, I see something good, it might actually trigger something. Because right now, all we know is that AI was much hyped and maybe it's gonna come later, and the Blackwell's late, and that we have no idea how they're doing in Nvidia because they're quiet, and the Dell might be bloated, thank you Ben, righteous from Melius, and as far as we're concerned, anything connected to the data center is a sell. And that was the overwhelming theme even after the yen carry trade smoked clear.

David Faber (3:27)

Right, and by the way, that was the theme going in to the yen carry trade.

Jim Cramer (3:33)

So it accentuated what was happening, except for the banks, which were doing very well until this.

David Faber (3:39)

And the banks was what, credit quality? I mean, I find that a little hard to imagine.

Jim Cramer (3:44)

We had to come up with the reason, no, because it wasn't credit quality. It's actually quite good. And by the way, David, one of the themes that no one seems to want to talk about, no one wants to stick their neck out.