Powell Heads to the Hill, FedEx Falls on Guidance, Cramer's Ride at Ford 6/21/23

SPEAKER_1 (0:00)

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David Faber (0:31)

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

Carl Quintanilla (0:37)

Good Wednesday morning. Welcome to Squawk on the Street. I'm Carl Quintanilla with Jim Cramer, David Faber, all back at post nine of the New York Stock Exchange. Stock's trading a little heavy ahead of Powell, day one on the Hill, although his prepared remarks are out. Meanwhile, UK inflation runs hot. Core CPI at a three-decade high. Our roadmap begins with a macro picture. Powell is set to testify, and FedEx sales fall short, but says EECOM is on the upswing.

David Faber (1:00)

Plus, of course, we're watching that EV race. We're gonna hear what Ford CEO Jim Farley told Jim, that is our Jim, about why he didn't hesitate to team up with Tesla for that charging partnership.

And keep an eye on housing, mortgage rates. They're flat, but those home builder stocks, well, they are shilled on a tear.

Carl Quintanilla (1:21)

Let's begin with Powell headed to the Hill this morning. The Fed share kicking off two days of testimony on the economy. Today it's House Financial Services, tomorrow Senate Banking. In his remarks, he does say nearly all FOMC participants believe it is appropriate to raise rates, quote, somewhat further, adding there's still a long way to go to get inflation down to the Fed's 2% target. They says, Jim, the banking system is resilient and that this pause is expected to be temporary.

Jim Cramer (1:47)

Well, I think that he was trying to make no news. We knew that Austin Gulesby was softer, that Bullard wants to be more data dependent and everybody else is just saying, bring on the hikes. So I think what he's trying to do, and David, you know when you make the testimony, you're trying to be pretty neutral. It's in the questions where he's called in to say, are you trying to throw us a recession?

There's also like talk about always like the plutocrats. The plutocrats do well under your regime, so.

David Faber (2:19)

Yeah, and the questioning does go off into areas that are not of great interest, perhaps to some of our viewers or at least when it comes to the market impact of his comments, not that it's not interesting to hear him opine on whatever it might be, housing or affordable housing or who knows where they will go with the questions, but we'll see.

Jim Cramer (2:39)

Yeah, I mean, I think that, you know, Carl, when I think about what the problem is, of course, we don't have enough homes, so it's good to see 1.6 on the starts. But if he starts talking about, look, we're worried about student loans, okay?

I think that someone could say they shouldn't charge them interest or they should be suspended. So then you get in this kind of moment where he's caught in some sort of crossfire and then he says something wrong and the market goes down.

Carl Quintanilla (3:04)

Right, you mentioned student loans. By the way, it is official. Department of Education says those will restart in October.

Jim Cramer (3:11)

14 billion.

Carl Quintanilla (3:12)

Interesting, Jim. I guess the question will be about Fed politics, as we discussed yesterday, whether or not there was some kind of horse trading with the Hawks to get a pause, but reassurances the dots would go higher and whether that's a good look or not.

Jim Cramer (3:27)

Yeah, look, I think there's another way to look at that meeting, which is there couldn't be a consensus to let's not do it either. I really feel this. I mean, I didn't feel this way when it happened, but I just look at the disparity of where people are.

And I think that it's probably worth saying, you know what, we gotta sort this out. Let's take some time to sort it out, as opposed to, hey, look out, we're gonna have a recession.

Carl Quintanilla (3:49)

We mentioned the UK. And by the way, I mean, it's possible that they bring this up, that the United States is basically alone in getting their policy rate above core CPI.

UK core seven one, they're nowhere near it. And I mean, you got stagflation fears rising up again, in at least the UK.