S&P Record High, Easing Inflation, Meme Stocks Cool Off 5/15/24

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 Wednesday morning. Welcome to Squawk on the Street. I'm Carl Quintanilla with Jim Cramer, David Faber, at Post 9 of the New York Stock Exchange.

All time highs once again in sight as we get our first deceleration of the year for CPI of three tenths, touch light on headline, some relief in services. The 10 year is down to 435

A roadmap begins with that macro picture, the consumer prices with the first slowdown of the year, retail sales flat. Jamie Dimon calls on the US to get its fiscal house in order.

David Faber (0:34)

Plus the intensifying AI race. Google is rolling out its most powerful AI assistant yet. OpenAI's co-founder and chief scientist is calling it QUIS and a bipartisan Senate group out with a new report on how best to regulate the technology.

And our Sarah Eisen is live from Jerusalem. She's speaking one-on-one with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.

Carl Quintanilla (0:58)

Let's get to the CPI print as we pointed out. Three-six core year-on-year, Jim. Take it back to 2021 More than half is gasoline and shelter.

Jim Cramer (1:07)

Yeah, and I think it's only gonna get better. Gasoline, obviously, oils come down. IEA with some reports saying it's gonna, it's not, it shouldn't even be at this level.

Food, we're starting to see some things in food that indicate that things are getting better. I mean, for instance, one of the things that they said that was bad was cereal. But as we know, David, remember I told you that Kellogg says that there's too much cereal? We're gonna see buy one, get one. So the things that people are being hurt by, except for shelter and of course insurance, are going down.

Did you see the refiners? There's the claps, they're collapsing.

David Faber (1:39)

Yeah, all right, copper keeps going up.

Jim Cramer (1:42)

Oh, what do you mean in reference to what? We don't use copper in our homes.

David Faber (1:47)

No, we use it, our data centers use it a lot. All right, back to the market.

Jim Cramer (1:51)

We don't live in data centers.

David Faber (1:52)

Yeah, we'll get to, we might one day. Market response appropriate, then?

Jim Cramer (1:59)

I thought the market response was spot on. I do believe that this was the brown shoot quarter I've been waiting for, down to brown shoot month. And I know that people are saying a September rate cut is on if you go to that Home Depot quarter, which was frankly sobering and somber.

I think you would say, wow, they better start cutting now. It's too expensive to build. It's too expensive to rehab. If you have to get financing, you're not going to do it. So it's a waiting game. Carl, the Home Depot people were, they were, I would say, morose.

They were morose. It was a moroseful call.

David Faber (2:39)

Saturday night, legubrious.

Jim Cramer (2:41)

Totally.

Carl Quintanilla (2:41)

Well, it does bring to mind the retail sales goose egg, Jim. Well, we had EECOM down one two, furniture down five tenths, to your point about Depot.

Jim Cramer (2:52)

I just think that some of these are, that's one of the reasons why Wayfair could still be bought, but we have an economy where it costs too much to hire a contractor to make things better, which that's the service part that they address, which therefore makes it so you don't buy more furniture. You don't really do anything. And that's what they're saying. People are sitting on their hands, and that is the world's worst for Home Depot.

Garden season will be okay, not enough to do the job. David, big ticket, just not selling, because people aren't doing anything, because if you have to finance, which is what you have to do with a big project, no one's willing to finance because of PAL and rates.

David Faber (3:30)

Yeah, and well, there are a number of industries and or at least companies that are reliant on a business pickup from people buying and selling homes and moving.

Jim Cramer (3:40)

Yes, it's 10% of the economy, but it punches above its weight.

David Faber (3:44)

We talked yesterday about our parent company in terms of broadband subs. I mean, that tends to grow.

SPEAKER_4 (3:49)

In 903, you worked that in?

David Faber (3:51)

All the cable companies, it tends to grow. There's a lot of things that change when somebody moves.

It's not just getting new furniture or refurbishing.

Jim Cramer (3:58)