Stocks Surge on Inflation Data, Big Banks’ Earnings Beats, Quantum "Leap" Returns 1/15/25

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Jim Cramer (1:02)

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. Good Wednesday morning.

Carl Quintanilla (1:11)

Welcome to Squawk on the Street. I'm Carl Quintanilla with David Faber here at Post 9 of the New York Stock Exchange. Jim Cramer is in San Francisco. A wave of relief washing over the market as December Core CPI runs a 10th cool. Yields are lower across the curve. The banks with some pretty clean beats across the board. Small caps look to bounce nearly 3% this morning. Roadmap begins with the economic implications from that cooler than expected core print. What it will mean for the Fed's rate cut path.

David Faber (1:37)

Plus, we have gotten strong results from Wall Street's biggest banks, and that is helping to fuel a rally ahead of the open. Goldman City, Wells Fargo, JPMorgan all across the tape. JPM reporting record profit for the quarter. And that countdown for TikTok potentially being shut down. At least the US operations on Sunday, yep, we're in the middle of it, waiting a Supreme Court decision as well. Could get that as soon as this morning.

Carl Quintanilla (2:03)

Let's begin with this market reaction to CPI. Bit of a coiled spring in effect here, Jim.

Jim Cramer (2:09)

Yeah, look, what can I say? People told me that again and again, if it just came in in line, that would be bad. That turned out to be a grave misjudgment. An inline number in an atmosphere where we felt that things are going to, that everything is going to go explode to the top, and we're going to be seeing 5% in the 10-year and the 6% in the 30-year, all these crazy things, all off the table, at least for today. David, what I think, what works for me today when I look at this market is, there was a tremendous amount of negativity about interest rates, but positivity about earnings. If you take the negativity about interest rates off and you look at the earnings that we saw this morning, people are going to be pretty optimistic, and it might be sustainable throughout, I don't know, a little while. These are great numbers we saw this morning.

David Faber (2:51)

Yeah, these are very strong numbers, and we're starting to get the conference calls. I think JPMorgan's conference call began. I know Leslie will wrap it all up for us at some point soon as well. Goldman's coming, we've got Citi, Wells. So we'll get more details, Jim, and we always do await the calls because they are important as well in terms of giving us some sense of the current environment and what expectations are, and can speak to that move in rates, for example. But the numbers themselves, I mean, JPMorgan's return on equity 17 percent, return on tangible common equity 21 percent. Goldman came in at, where was it, 12.7 percent ROE for all of 2024, 14.6 percent return on equity for Goldman for the fourth quarter. And their fourth quarter numbers versus a year ago, far stronger. I mean, we are seeing reactions in all the stocks. Although I would note, Jim, and you know this well, very often we see these things sell off, even when they have decent earnings on these kinds of, on these typical earnings days that we've seen, where they're fairly strong in terms of the numbers.

Jim Cramer (3:57)

I think that's true. I think the difference might be that the tone of the comments, at least from what I've talked to the, from the CEOs, on the calls to be a little more positive for something that we, I think we all struggle to try to get a handle on, which is this notion of animal spirits, notion of optimism. You know, Carl, when you see CEOs and you, you try to figure out what's happened in the country since the election, you hear people say, well, listen, it's a peaceful transition. You hear people say it's a much better environment for deals. But I come back and just say, what's really going on is a belief that, when it comes to the banks, that there was some sort of tyrannical regime. And I've heard Elizabeth Warren's name mentioned so many times this morning, as if she were the bank regulator, that if they're gone, then maybe there is a runway for more than just one quarter's growth. So Carl, I don't know. You don't want to be too optimistic ever, because the bank stocks have let us down by say 10, 30, 11 in the morning. But so far, it's a different attitude, is what I'm speaking to.