On Tuesday’s episode of Mad Money, Jim Cramer discussed how stock ownership is viewed in the United States.
“Alright, look, lately, we can’t go a day without hearing some widespread misperceptions about stock ownership. I gotta tell you, I think it’s infuriating. Here we are celebrating the 20th anniversary of Mad Money, dedicated to the proposition that you can potentially make lots of money by picking individual stocks, yet I keep hearing that most Americans don’t care about the stock market, and this direction means nothing.”
READ ALSO: Jim Cramer Listed 20 Best Performing Stocks of the Last 20 Years and Jim Cramer Recently Discussed These 9 Stocks.
Cramer pushed back against the notion that only the wealthy care about or benefit from the stock market. He argued that the perception is not only wrong but dismissive of the millions of everyday people with financial stakes in the market. Moving on to stock ownership, he mentioned that, “It’s the whole reason anyone watches the darn show, and it generally matters, not just to the rich, but to tens of millions of regular people, home gamers, and never let any politician tell you otherwise.” He added:
“More than 60% of Americans have some exposure to the market, either directly or indirectly. 70 million people have active 401Ks. Millions more have retired with them. 60 million people have IRAs. Only 156 million people voted in November. I mean, we’re talking half the electorate here.”
Cramer insisted that shareholders form a significant constituency in this country and deserve to be recognized as such. He mentioned that “It’s not just arrogant, rich people who own stocks.” He also criticized wealthy individuals who publicly warn others about the risks of stock investing while still taking advantage of its tax benefits themselves. He added:
“Now look, stocks are ridiculously tax advantaged, more than just rich people want that. In a world where probably no more than 10% of this country can retire on their paycheck savings, stocks represent a different kind of social security, a one-sided pack where people try to save and the government dismisses them.”
Our Methodology
For this article, we compiled a list of 8 stocks that were discussed by Jim Cramer during the episode of Mad Money aired on April 29. We listed the stocks in ascending order of their hedge fund sentiment as of the fourth quarter of 2024, which was taken from Insider Monkey’s database of over 1,000 hedge funds.
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).
8 Stocks on Jim Cramer’s Radar Recently
8. Dillard’s, Inc. (NYSE:DDS)
Number of Hedge Fund Holders: 23
A caller asked Cramer’s thoughts on Dillard’s, Inc. (NYSE:DDS), and he remarked:
“Now, I mean, and we’re in a world now where you really are going to make money in Amazon, in TJX, okay, you’ll make money in Walmart, and you’re going to be struggling to make money in any other retailer other than Costco. I don’t think Dillard’s is a place to be.”
Dillard’s (NYSE:DDS) runs department stores and an online platform that sells clothing, cosmetics, home items, and other consumer goods. The company also handles construction projects related to building and renovating its own stores.
It is worth noting that Cramer was similarly bearish on Dillard’s (NYSE:DDS) back in 2008 when he commented:
“No, no, no, no. That one is way too speculative. They have let their stores go and I don’t want to touch it.”
7. Nextracker Inc. (NASDAQ:NXT)
Number of Hedge Fund Holders: 41
A caller asked Cramer about Nextracker Inc. (NASDAQ:NXT), and in response, he said:
“Okay, I do believe, look, it had a good quarter. I did think that the president did not really care for wind, but this kind, he doesn’t mind this. This is technology all made in America, so I think you’re okay. Not great, not bad.”
Nextracker (NASDAQ:NXT) provides energy solutions focused on solar tracking and software systems. The company’s technology is built for large-scale and distributed solar projects in the U.S. and other countries. In January, appearing on Squawk on the Street, Cramer said:
“Charitable trust owns a company called Nextracker. We’ve actually done some selling, the stock is up huge. They make software that make it so that we get, you get more Sun. Uh you can shift the panels, which means, you know for instance, Germany, they only have 27% days that are sunny. But you can augment your solar with this software.”