Markets and the Israel-Iran Conflict, Netflix Slumps, New Woes for Tesla 4/19/24

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, Jim Cramer, a Post 9 of the New York Stock Exchange. Faber has the morning off. Futures do recover what was a nearly 2% drop as Iran so far not signaling retaliation for the Israeli strike last night. Oil is lower, yields lower across the curve as we wrap up the week with some blue chip earnings. Our roadmap begins with Israel carrying out this limited strike against Iran. We'll take you live to the Middle East for the latest on the ground. Netflix, the biggest pre-market laggard on the S&P, despite posting a beat on the top and the bottom line.

And Tesla's on pace for a sixth straight day of losses, now issuing some recalls for the Cybertruck over faulty accelerator pedals.

Let's begin, though, with Margaret Reaction to Israel's retaliatory strike on Iran, Jim. So far, not a lot of signals that this is going to cause a conflagration.

Jim Cramer (0:58)

No, I mean, I talked last night about what we need amid money of whoosh, a crescendo of selling, and at 10.15, we thought we had that last night. The fact that we now have decided that it wasn't important, or not important, but we decided that it is less relevant, so we've come back up, is again, something I don't want to say.

We have to have people decide that negatives are negatives, not that an avoidance of a negative is a positive. So I want to hear more from Richard Engel about Israel, but the fact is, is that we were down so much, and then we come in, and then we're up. Why are we up? Why are we up?

How about down a little? We don't get that. So it makes me suspicious of this up opening, again, because people, by the end of the day, will say, well, maybe Israel wasn't done. And I think it's unfortunate, it's very hard to game what's going there, but I will say that the exuberance that we feel every morning based on flimsy evidence has what's plightless.

Carl Quintanilla (2:06)

Well, the Bulls would hope for something that Blinken talked about this morning, and that is this journal piece that the White House is still actively working toward getting a deal with Israel, where they talk about some Palestinian statehood in return for diplomatic recognition from the Riyadh.

Jim Cramer (2:27)

Right, but look, I think that you have Netanyahu, who is more of a wild card than ever, and again, I don't want to do, I mean, I'm not a political expert, I follow this one pretty intensely, but I come back and I say, when it comes to stocks, you have proposals throughout this period, and Netanyahu has not gone with them. So, I mean, Netanyahu has been trying to prove his independence. I think he needs history. I think he's back in his days when he was in Philadelphia.

In 1973, he's got to go over those five days where Kissinger convinced Nixon to resupply.

And then he will understand where the hell we are. And I think it's very unfortunate that he doesn't seem to know history as well as I thought. Where Israel needed everything, Nixon was against it, Kissinger said, you have to do it, it's a democracy. And the United States saved Israel. And anyone who disagrees with that just doesn't understand the Golan Heights. So I'm not saying that he's a historical. I am saying that he seems to be ignorant of what happened in 1973 And it's going to cost Israel, historically.

Carl Quintanilla (3:34)

To you, is it mostly about energy? Because Goldman today, again, we see Brent in a range between $75 and $90.

Brainerd here saying we're going to make sure gas prices don't get out of control this summer.

Jim Cramer (3:48)

I love the idea that we can control it. But I do think that Goldman put out a good note for alumni, which is that markets may be worrying too much about overheating. And this is David Merkel. This is the first piece I've read, which just says, okay, enough with the hysteria about inflation. The fact is, there is what he calls catch-up inflation, which is about car insurance and owner's equivalent rent. I'm going to see a car dealer, Jim going to Carvana.

Now they're an intra-quarter. But you said yesterday something really good. You said CarMax is one that disappointed. Now they disappointed. Those prices are coming down. It is at this point because they're a bad operator. I've met with them. They're probably the best operator, and they're the only one that actually uses AI. So they actually had a sense of what could happen.