Nasdaq's Record Run, Fed's Waller on Rates, Dimon on Succession 05/21/24

Carl Quintanilla (0:00)

Market insight and analysis. You're listening to the opening bell of CNBC's Squawk on the Street.

Good Tuesday morning, welcome to Squawk on the Street. I'm Carl Quintanilla with Jim Cramer at post night of the New York Stock Exchange. David Faber's on assignment. Pre-market's mixed as the market awaits Nvidia tomorrow night and weighs Macy's, Lowe's, Palo Alto. In the meantime, oil's down a buck and Brent back to a two month low. A roadmap begins with waiting for Nvidia. Chip Stoxx helping to fuel the record highs for tech, and options do point to a big swing for Nvidia when it reports tomorrow. Diamond succession plan, the JPMorgan Chase CEO signals his retirement will come probably within five years. And a consumer check, Lowe's and Macy's delivering some quarterly beats.

Let's begin though with the markets, Jim. And I guess, I don't know, a bit of the setup here, tech all time high on the SMP.

Jim Cramer (0:53)

You know, I got to tell you, there are semiconductors yesterday that aren't even doing well, or at least that have just hinted that things are turning. Texas Instruments gave you a little sense of things. The stock was just on fire. Micron on that basically capitulation call, look, I've missed it, I'm going positive on it. It worked. Qualcomm on the idea that some people are looking for their chips, even though they should be in abundance.

Yesterday was a day where Broadcom began to knock on the door. We're talking about a top 10 company in America.

And if they would only split the stock. Do you know, I asked Jensen whether he would split the stock. Of course, Jensen being the CEO of Nvidia, the one man name, he's like, sure now.

And he said, well, consider it. Do you know what that would happen? Do you know what would happen if they split that stock? If you had a 10% move, it would be insane. It would be based on nothing.

Carl Quintanilla (1:44)

Well, we're gonna get a 10 for one LRCX along with a big buy back today.

Jim Cramer (1:48)

You know, it's funny. Lamb has always been much more pro shareholder than the others.

And that's hard because Applied Materials is very pro shareholder, it's a good group. But I have to tell you, I think that lamb is the intellectual property of so many. You know, when you say like you want to build a FAB, like Secretary Raimondo said, I want to build a FAB, this is what is it. This is what's in it. This is what America really makes.

KLA, lamb, this is what we really do. You know, people, you know, even in Taiwan Semi, you go in there and you think, well, it must be all Taiwanese. It's American.

Carl Quintanilla (2:22)

And then there's this fascinating story on the tape today about ASML and Taiwan Semi, being able to, what, turn off the chip machines if China invades Taiwan?

Jim Cramer (2:32)

In the event of nuclear war, we're fine. I mean, that was a strange story. It's like, you know, hey, you know, when we go to war, well, I didn't know we were about to go to war, but if we do go to war, thank heavens, ASM's big systems will still work. I mean, we can pull the plug on them. No, no, guys, let's not issue things like that.

Now, Lammer Search is up a cool, it's up 60 points on the split. Now, warning to other people in Semiconductorville, if you do a split, that's a better way to get your stock up than beat.

Maybe I gotta talk to Kesha, I'm sorry, Nikesh. Maybe I gotta talk to Nikesh about splitting his stock.

Carl Quintanilla (3:09)

We're gonna get to Palo Alto in a minute. We do have some breaking news on the Fed this morning, and for that, we're gonna turn to Steve Leesman. Morning, Steve.

Steve Leisman (3:15)

Good morning, Carl. Fed Governor Chris Waller, in a speech in Washington, offering some guardedly dovish remarks, saying further increases in the policy rate are probably unnecessary. The Fed does need, he says, or at least he says he needs, several more months of good inflation data before being comfortable to cut rates. But the important part here is, he talks about the recent data, says progress on inflation seems to be resuming, and that's bouncing off the April inflation data and other economic data that's been out. Restricted monetary policy, he believes, right now, is helping to cool demand. The data suggests inflation is not accelerating progress, he says, is, quote, back on track. The April CPI was a relief, though he does acknowledge progress was modest. He expects moderation in economic activity, notes that the ISMs were below 50, goes on to say the consumers appear to be tempering their purchases, noting flat retail sales in April, along with delinquencies being on the rise for credit cards and credit, other credit for consumers. He notes the easing of labor demand seems to have resumed.