More Bank Earnings, Apple Under Pressure, $35B M&A Deal, Cramer's "Wild" NFL Weekend. 01/16/24

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Carl Quintanilla (0:29)

Market Moving Insight and Analysis join Jim Cramer, David Faber and me, Carl Quintanilla on the opening bell hour of CNBC Squawk on the Street.

Good Tuesday morning. Welcome to Squawk on the Street. I'm Carl Quintanilla with Jim Cramer, David Faber, and post nine of the New York Stock Exchange. Got some caution to kick off this holiday shortened week. Stocks are lower in Europe and Asia as well.

On some China weakness, risk in the Red Sea. Yields do fall on a very weak Empire Survey. Roadmap this morning begins with the rest of the big banks. Goldman Sachs, Morgan Stanley, with results, we're gonna dig through those numbers.

David Faber (0:59)

Plus we're keeping an eye on shares of Apple. They seem to be under pressure again. The company is offering what are somewhat rare iPhone discounts in China. There is of course demand perhaps is waning a bit.

And Elon Musk, well, he wants more control over Tesla, at least if you follow his tweets. He wants perhaps 25% voting control. This is the company's AI initiatives.

We'll talk that through.

Carl Quintanilla (1:22)

Let's begin with the bank earnings from Goldman and Morgan Stanley. Jim, the equities at Goldman getting some attention this morning.

Jim Cramer (1:28)

Yeah, look, I gotta tell you, I thought Goldman is really much further along with the transition, be going back to the way it used to be.

I was worried about the Apple card. They've got that kind of cordoned off. It's gonna be fine.

I think that investment banking is gonna be very good. A merger is gonna be great. They were very low key about it.

Morgan Stanley, a lot of what was wrong last time got better wealth management, but I wanna make a larger point. The banks are rolling over no matter what. I mean, Goldman was terrific. It opened up a couple percent in early morning trading. Doesn't matter. When JP. Morgan finished down on Friday, he just said, I don't wanna touch this group because JP. Morgan's quarter was maybe one of the best I've ever seen in history, and the stock reversed from being up six to being down a dollar. Doesn't matter what you say. People want this group out.

Carl Quintanilla (2:11)

Because?

Jim Cramer (2:12)

Because I think the group moved a lot, and because I also think that somehow there's a belief that it can't get better than this. I disagree with that entirely. I think investment banking is gonna be really good. I think it would defer to David. But I think you could have a huge year of M&A. But people just said this group came in too hot. Morgan Stanley was at 70 It went all the way up to 92 It's just sell, sell, sell.

Wells, they thought it had a good quarter. Doesn't matter, David. This group was set to sell, and they're selling it.

David Faber (2:42)

I feel like it seems so rare that the group actually really does perform well after earnings. I know we say that.

Jim Cramer (2:47)

I couldn't find a time.

I couldn't find a time. It's a very good call.

David Faber (2:51)

Like a great consistency to basically not expect, certainly don't own these going into earnings.

Jim Cramer (2:56)

If they ran, you're so right. There is, I mean, that's your feel, but empirically it's absolutely true. It's a really bad group to own.

David Faber (3:02)

I wonder why, because they don't seem to underperform. Again, to your point, Goldman had numbers that were well above most of what many of the analysts have been expecting. There are these FDIC charges that some have been including in their estimates, so that's making things a little difficult for some of the banks. But overall, we can tell you, Goldman better than expected.

Jim Cramer (3:21)

Oh, I mean, I was going over with Goldman with some Goldman people I know, and I just said, wow, great quarter. Sorry about what's gonna happen.

I said, well, what's gonna happen? I said, well, your stock goes down. That's what banks do when they go up into the quarter. So David's right, these guys are not semiconductor companies, they're banks.

Carl Quintanilla (3:39)

Record AUM, though, over 2.8 trillion, up 10%. That's fantastic. Big piece in the journal on how the post-consumer era is in swing at Goldman and doubling down on wealthy clients.