Stocks Extend Record Rally, Powell’s Future, Verizon Leads the Dow 7/21/25

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

Carl Quintanilla (0:53)

Good Monday morning. Welcome to Squawk on the Street. I'm Carl Quintanilla with Jim Cramer at Post 9 of the New York Stock Exchange. Faber's back tomorrow. Got some more all time highs on deck for the S&P as we brace for earnings to kick in to a higher gear. Half the Mag 7 this week alone. Yield backdrop fairly benign. Ten years back to about a one week low. A roadmap begins with markets trying to build on these record highs. It's a big week for the tech trade. We'll get Alphabet, Tesla and others. Six months into the president's second term, we'll get a look at the winners and losers in that period. And then shares of Verizon are rallying, beating expectations, raising their outlook for the full year. Let's get right to the markets though. Stocks are looking to extend their record rally. Jim, this would be, I think, would be 10 for the S&P, 12 for the NAS.

Jim Cramer (1:35)

You come in and interest rates are lower and the backdrop is one of calm in Washington. We expect that Europe was going to be tough with tariffs. There's nothing new there. Instead what we're seeing is the leverage of earnings. It's really good. Wages haven't been up that much. Maybe it's postulated by Mike Wilson. Mike's had a good piece today.

It could be all helped by AI. I do look at the stocks that are trading up in the morning. Half of them are S&P and half of them are totally speculative. I think it's two markets. If you blend those two together, it's a mistake. They're just two markets and one of them is GameStop, but better companies and the rest of it is the S&P. Right.

Carl Quintanilla (2:16)

Wilson has a good note here. He's, as you say, 7200 by the middle of the next year. Operating leverage returning due in part to lower wage costs and it may be further enhanced by AI adoption, not really hearing significant level of tariff concerns from corporates.

Jim Cramer (2:30)

I thought that was just an excellent piece. At times, I disagree with Mike. Mike is incredibly thoughtful and I look at what he's saying and I say, it's kind of an unassailable theme. Now, you could have estimates go up enough that you end up with the American Express or Netflix and those three. Where you just say, you know what, they moved up, moved up, moved up. But we have a lot of catch up upgrades today, catch up price target bumps. But nothing I think that resembles what we had. So I look at it as being a benign environment that is not responsive to tariffs. I'm not necessarily saying that it's what we get from Congress Secretary Lutnick, which is, hey, you know, it's fine. I do think that there'll be a series of articles about how now they're going to be after Korea, they'll be after Japan. They have to be after everybody. That's just part of the program.

Carl Quintanilla (3:21)

After meaning pursuing a deal?

Jim Cramer (3:23)

We have to just say, look, you know, we, the Kia, we have to tax it, even though they make a lot of them here. We have to, because the guts of a Kia is made elsewhere. I don't, I know Lorenzo Goncalves tonight, Cleveland Cliffs, I've got him for me, I have money, and he bought Stelco. Stelco doesn't look good, that bad. No, he's mostly American. But it is absolutely true that the president doesn't want any steel made elsewhere. And that is just another driving force. And you know what? The bill, I mean, I went over the bill for club members. Oh my God, it's really unbelievable for middle class. And people don't want to talk about it, but it's just money in your pocket. I am just flabbergasted. How big, how great this bill is for the middle class.