New 52-Week Lows for Tesla, Cramer's Market Slump Message, Countdown to Netflix Earnings. 4/18/24

Carl Quintanilla (0:00)

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 Thursday morning, welcome to Squawk on the Street. I'm Carl Quintanilla with David Faber at Post 9 of the New York Stock Exchange. Cramer's in Philadelphia today. We'll get to Jim in just a second. Future's pretty steady as we get a fresh batch of corporate earnings this morning. Taiwan Semi, Blackstone, CSX. Philly Fed was a surprise of 15.5, best in two years, and prices paid highest since December. Our roadmap begins with Tesla's troubles though. Shares awfully close to a 52 week low this morning as Deutsche cuts Tesla on Tesla's quote, thesis changing shift from a lower cost EV to robo.

David Faber (0:40)

Plus stocks overall are looking for some traction. This after the S&P notched its fourth straight down day, the Nasdaq remains on pace for its longest weekly losing streak since December of 2022

And Las Vegas Sands is amongst the biggest laggards that's ahead of the open. That's despite an earnings beat. Blackstone, as Carl just said, Alaska Air, DR Horton. We've got a host of companies that are reporting earnings and we'll get to all of them.

Carl Quintanilla (1:06)

Let's kick things off with Tesla today. On track to open awfully close to a fresh 52 week low. Deutsche cuts to hold today from by, cuts its target to 123 They were at 189 Jim, they were at 250 in February as there's a whole revisiting on what exactly the future model of Tesla is gonna be.

Jim Cramer (1:25)

Yeah, look, if you're gonna roll the dice and decide that what really matters is self-drive, something that has not worked for anyone to tell the truth, then what you really do, you box yourself in the corner. What people really wanted was a cheaper car to compete against the Chinese. We thought that he was a better manufacturer. We thought that there was no doubt about it that a cheaper car would be additive to earnings and then we would prove that the great American company is better than the rest of the world. David, what we got was a gamble. You know what, can he win that gamble?

Because so far, when you have full self-driving, it's not been something that works.

David Faber (2:03)

It hasn't yet come to fruition. That is a fair point, Jim. Despite what have of course been promises year after year that they were going to be there. And of course the idea is just to remind people that once you do get to that, you can charge a significant fee to drivers and essentially have their cars working for them when they aren't in them.

The idea of creating a taxi fleet essentially of robo Teslas, which would clearly be incredibly additive to margins overall. But they aren't there at this point.

And I think that through the years, it's been more difficult to really believe exactly when that day will come. And clearly in this case, the Deutsche Bank analyst no longer is interested in sort of waiting. They're talking about 2027 for the Model 2, that is that lower priced automobile, that EV that is no longer a part of the near term consideration, Jim. And I did note, so they go to $2.40 in their estimates for 27 from what had been 425 Overall cut numbers across the board. Hence, even with current multiples, you can't get a price target that's anywhere near where they are right now.

Jim Cramer (3:20)

No, I think we're going to have a loss this quarter. I think this hail musk play was played out already by Steve Schurter Hertz. It failed.

I expect to see something that is monumental. Instead, I see something that is incremental.

And that, Carl, is not going to stop this decline because if, look, if it were our earnings, all right, if our earnings is stocks 23, 25, I don't believe that. You're looking at a man right now who better have something. But the issue is, Carl, before I say you got to sell Tesla, as maybe he does, he's not playing his hand. But right now we've got, look, we've got some top leaders who are cashing out.

We don't know what they have in terms of something that is more profitable than an ice, so to speak, a combustion or hybrids, which is what Ford has. Now, Ford's stock hasn't done exactly well. It's down double digits in the last few weeks. But, Carl, what I see here is a stock that is for sale across the board without an answer. And the answer has to be not a cyber truck, not a robo taxi, but a better darn car.