We recently published a list of Jim Cramer Recently Discussed These 13 Stocks Interest Rates And Recession. In this article, we are going to take a look at where Constellation Brands, Inc. (NYSE:STZ) stands against other stocks that Jim Cramer recently discussed.
In his appearance on CNBC’s Squawk on the Street earlier this month, Jim Cramer commented on the Labor Department’s December employment report. The report saw the US economy add 256,000 new jobs which was significantly higher than the 155,000 jobs that economists were expecting. It was the last jobs print of the Biden administration, and the data also showed unemployment dropping to 4.1%.
Cramer’s remarks for the jobs report focused on its impact on the stock market as stocks fell. Stocks had dropped because investors believed that the fresh data would disincentivize the Federal Reserve from reducing interest rates. However, Cramer had “trouble being really negative on that. 25 cents maybe, 30 cents. But when I see this number what I say to myself is, okay, would you prefer earnings to be good? Cause this isn’t earnings to be good. Or would you prefer rate cuts?” The CNBC host prefers positive earnings over potential rate cuts. He shared, “Anytime I can get earnings to be good, I vastly prefer that to rate cuts because rate cuts don’t necessarily translate into EPS. We are in the end, preachers of what makes stocks move. I know that if you want to pay more for bonds, we get an interest rate that’s higher, that’s supposed to be really bad for stocks.”
According to Cramer, “What’s really bad for stocks is employment. Is recession.” Consequently, his optimism stemmed from the fact that “These numbers are so far away from [a] recession that the only thing I conclude, David, is this that the Fed got it wrong. But that doesn’t mean necessarily, that, CEOs are gonna get it wrong. That businesses are going to get it wrong. We do not have a number that’s going to wipe out companies. We have a number that’s going to keep this economy afloat regardless of what the Fed does.”
As investors re-calibrated their expectations to higher for longer once again, bond yields rose since bonds with current rates were sold. Cramer commented on the yields rising and stated, “We’ll get to readjust. This is a reset moment. The question is . . do we have to say, like John Gibson [CEO of a payroll processor] said to me. . . that none of this stuff ever factors in the small to medium-sized business. Of which he said there was a huge flood of optimism, after the election. Now, to say well what happened is people were waiting to see whether Vice President Harris was elected and therefore they wouldn’t expand versus President-elect Trump would expand.”
The positivity in the market after the elections was because investors “had a resolution to” the perceived differences between former Vice President Kamala Harris and President Donald Trump’s policies. Cramer added that “once they had a resolution, they wanted to hire again. Now this isn’t me talking. This is the guy whose, whose the largest payroll processor in the country of small to medium-sized businesses, and he was talking about getting involved, and being on the Fed and saying that the Fed really is out of touch. Well, I think that what we saw, I don’t wanna, you know I respect Jay Powell greatly, but maybe they didn’t understand that once you got the election out of the way there could be bullishness no matter what.”
Even as investors briefly fled from the market following the jobs report, Cramer didn’t mind that the data had massively overshot economist expectations. He outlined, “I vastly prefer that we have more people being hired. Forty-six thousand healthcare. Forty-five, forty-three thousand in retail. Are these things, that really are inflationary, when we have mining, quarrying, oil and gas, construction, manufacturing, wholesale trade, transportation, warehouse, information, financial activities, professional and business, no change.”
As a result, Cramer pinpointed, “We can decide that bonds should control the whole dialogue. Or we can look at” data from airlines and retailers and discount it. Delta. “And what are we supposed to say, you know what, I don’t count those earnings because of the ten year? No of course not,” he asserted.
Commenting further on the rate cuts, he shared:
“Look, the rate cut was ill-advised. In retrospect. The last one was. I did fifty, and then twenty five, then twenty five. Though twenty five was not data dependent. They’re supposed to be data dependent. That was not data dependent. They made a mistake. Really.”
Subsequently, Cramer concluded, “I’m not going to hold what I feel about the S&P, hostage, for this increase in yields.”
Our Methodology
To make our list of the stocks that Jim Cramer talked about, we listed down all the stocks he mentioned during CNBC’s Squawk on the Street aired recently.
For these stocks, we also mentioned the number of hedge fund investors. Why are we interested in the stocks that hedge funds invest in? 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 275% since May 2014, beating its benchmark by 150 percentage points. (see more details here).
A winemaker examining a glass of red wine from a barrel in a cellar.
Constellation Brands, Inc. (NYSE:STZ)
Number of Hedge Fund Holders In Q3 2024: 36
Constellation Brands, Inc. (NYSE:STZ) is one of the biggest alcoholic beverage companies in the world. The firm is known for popular beverage brands such as Corona beer. However, its shares closed 2024 7.9% lower due to high inflation eroding the demand for spirits. Constellation Brands, Inc. (NYSE:STZ)’s shares haven’t done well in 2025 either and are down by 18% year-to-date. The drop came after the company cut its beer sales growth forecast for the year to 4% to 7% from an earlier 6% to 8%. Cramer believes Constellation Brands, Inc. (NYSE:STZ) is part of a broader shift in consumer trends:
“It’s a disaster. I did [have hopes for STZ] because they’re the only one that had growth, and it really dashed the hope. Very disappointing. They seem to, I do have Bill Newlands on tonight, and I have a position for my trust [inaudible] been very wrong. And the reason it’s wrong is because I thought that beer would hold up and the other spirits have been down. And I was bullish because Mr. Newlands was bullish.
“The beer sales are no longer strong. Well, some of it is because. . . .GLP-1 but nobody will admit that.
“[On expecting beer to grow by 4% and 7%] Well they’re wrong. They don’t know their own business. They don’t know their own business. I live that business. Let me tell you, they don’t know it. I’m surprised because they are in it too. But I get like daily numbers from this industry. . . see that’s what happens. It’s no longer wine and spirits. They should have sold that [the wine and spirits business] a long time ago and they weren’t able to do it. I think Mr. Newlands is terrific, I think that it’s number one in a declining group and . . Bud hasn’t done well, Brown-Forman’s a disaster. I had felt that this was the one shared take growth that you could have and they missed the quarter. Now they are also optimistic. I’m, my wife is in this business pretty thick, we had some good numbers, and I look at the numbers and I know what the real numbers are for alcohol. You don’t want to be in that business.
“In the case of Constellation, Hispanic growth not as great as it was because of the closing of the border under . . . Biden. But also, cannabis, and younger people not wanting to do to their bodies what they used to. Now against that are executives that tell me I’m completely full of it, and I don’t know what I’m talking about. Well I’ve gotta tell you something, if I don’t know what I’m talking about then we better start cutting back my wife’s business. That one growth industry in the whole . . world, and that is mescal. But you know these guys don’t want to hear that, they’re, it’s a terrible thing to hear your business is bad. You want to hear your business is good.
“Yeah, look and I think Mr. Newlands [inaudible] good job. The issue is, you gotta forecast right. And I think that what you have to recognize is that, and everyone’s been so unwilling to recognize, there’s a structural change going on. Everyone keeps thinking it’s cyclical. I’m beginning to believe it’s secular.”
Overall, STZ ranks 10th on our list of stocks that Jim Cramer recently discussed. While we acknowledge the potential of STZ as an investment, our conviction lies in the belief that some AI stocks hold greater promise for delivering higher returns and doing so within a shorter time frame. If you are looking for an AI stock that is more promising than STZ but that trades at less than 5 times its earnings, check out our report about the cheapest AI stock.
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Disclosure: None. This article is originally published at Insider Monkey.