In this piece, we will look at the stocks Jim Cramer discussed. 

In a recent appearance on CNBC’s Squawk on the Street, Jim Cramer discussed inflation and layoffs in the context of AI. Cramer believes that since we’re learning to create more jobs, there appears to be turmoil in the labor market:

“You know I was just thinking about, Conagra’s reported today, tariffs added pretty big chunk to their inflation number and the inflation number for food. Uh, we’ve had like, you know 20 years worth of inflation in the last five years. And it just reminds me that everyone is hurting from so many different things that it doesn’t surprise me that people are circumspect about hiring. I think that they are layoffs. I was listening to a terrific podcast, Brad Gerstner with Jensen Huang, you know that initially you have people who are being laid off before you figure out how to create more jobs. So we’re really at the crux of AI, we’re at the thought that maybe there’s turmoil.”

Cramer also briefly commented on the data center buildout and its relation to the economy:

“Do you know David that when I look at what’s up versus what’s down, it’s really the data center buildout is what’s keeping this economy from going negative.”

Our Methodology

To make our list of the stocks that Jim Cramer talked about, we listed down the stocks he mentioned during CNBC’s Squawk on the Street aired on October 1st.

For these stocks, we also mentioned the number of hedge fund investors. Why are we interested in the stocks that hedge funds pile into? The reason is simple: our research has shown that we can outperform the market by imitating the top stock picks of the best hedge funds. Our quarterly newsletter’s strategy selects 14 small-cap and large-cap stocks every quarter and has returned 373.4% since May 2014, beating its benchmark by 218 percentage points (see more details here).

12. Palantir Technologies Inc. (NASDAQ:PLTR)

Number of Hedge Fund Holders In Q2 2025: 78

Cramer discussed Palantir Technologies Inc. (NASDAQ:PLTR) in the context of reports discussing that the Trump administration might furlough 550,000 federal employees in case of a budgetary impasse.

“Yeah I think that this is the one number that could surprise. Everyone is pretty complacent about it, and some people are 700,000, some people are 900,000, what if it’s over a million? A million people furloughed? . . .I was wondering, I saw Palantir down today,  Palantir I said 50 goes to a 100, 100 goes to 150, 150 goes to 200. But, this is a company that does a lot of business. So does ServiceNow. Now I don’t think these companies are long term affected. But maybe the people they are trying to appeal to, maybe they’re furloughed. Now one thing I know when you mentioned this, these companies are very smart. And they will tell me not worry. I think the perception is that you should worry. I’m sure Palantir’s going to get its business.”

11. ServiceNow, Inc. (NYSE:NOW)

Number of Hedge Fund Holders In Q2 2025: 106

ServiceNow, Inc. (NYSE:NOW) is a software-as-a-service (SaaS) company that enables workflow management automation. Cramer has previously discussed the firm in the context of helping the US government manage its data releases. This time, he commented on ServiceNow, Inc. (NYSE:NOW) amidst reports of the Trump administration furloughing more than half a million people:

“Yeah I think that this is the one number that could surprise. Everyone is pretty complacent about it, and some people are 700,000, some people are 900,000, what if it’s over a million? A million people furloughed? . . .I was wondering, I saw Palantir down today,  Palantir I said 50 goes to a 100, 100 goes to 150, 150 goes to 200. But, this is a company that does a lot of business. So does ServiceNow. Now I don’t think these companies are long term affected. But maybe the people they are trying to appeal to, maybe they’re furloughed. Now one thing I know when you mentioned this, these companies are very smart. And they will tell me not worry. I think the perception is that you should worry. . .I know Bill McDermott is doing amazing business. And by the way it’s really the only SaaS company that I think is triumphing over AI. But David the fact is is that if you’re trying to sell to the government those are the people may not be around?”

10. Paychex, Inc. (NASDAQ:PAYX)

Number of Hedge Fund Holders In Q2 2025: 50

Paychex, Inc. (NASDAQ:PAYX) factored into the conversation as Cramer discussed the US economy. As we noted in the introduction, the CNBC TV host wondered if US economic performance would be worse if data center spending were removed from the equation. Paychex, Inc. (NASDAQ:PAYX)’s shares are down by 8.4% over the past month. Craer discussed the stock and the firm’s opinion regarding small and medium businesses in America:

“And against that, I’ve got John Gibson from Paychex last night. . .he’s just saying listen, small and medium-sized businesses are still doing incredibly well. And then you look at the chart of the stock and people are deciding that Paychex is, is doing poorly itself because of small and medium-sized.”

In his appearance on Mad Money on September 30th, Cramer discussed an important aspect of Paychex, Inc. (NASDAQ:PAYX)’s performance:

“There is a payroll processor issue. The company actually makes more money when rates are high, but after employers prefund their payrolls, Paychex collects interest on that money for every minute before it’s deposited in your bank account… That used to be a big issue, but the company’s gotten well beyond that. There’s a lot of other levers that it pulls.”