How Did Jim Cramer’s 12 Bold Predictions Play Out?

8. American Express Company (NYSE:AXP)

Number of Hedge Fund Holders: 71

American Express Company (NYSE:AXP), the global payments and credit card giant, was the focus of a segment based on its investor day and a subsequent interview with Stephen Squeri, the company’s CEO. Cramer praised the company’s exceptional performance at the time, saying:

“A week and a half ago American Express reported a breathtakingly great quarter and since then, the stock’s rallied about 8%. Credit quality is strong, people are spending big, especially on travel, and the company keeps hitting its ambitious long-term growth targets. Very impressive. […]

[Talking directly to the company’s CEO] Sometimes I think, geez, either the consumer is so hot that the Fed should worry about it or it’s just you’ve got whatever dollar amount that people spend is yours! […]

A lot of people feel well, wait a second, it’s 10% growth, how will it continue? I look at what you could do in international growth, which people don’t realize you still don’t have the penetration you could get. […]

Well I tell everything is working. I mean, this is full speed ahead. That last quarter was great; actually, ever since you took over it’s just a new company and congratulations to you and to the people who work for you.”

The company’s shares have done well since, climbing by 11.76% over the past year.

The host of Mad Money gave his thoughts on the stock again on the 17^th of April and had this to say:

“[On AXP’s positive tone about the consumer] Better than that. Uh, I am talking about numbers which by the way include, and we’ve got first twelve days of this month. Steve Squeri going over things, you’re talking about, restaurant spending up 8%, lodging up 6%, goods up 7%, card membership, obviously more and more tremendous numbers have increased. 3.4 million. David, this is as good a quarter if you had to say anything, you would say that the consumer is on fire actually. Really spending a lot. Now I think to keep with leitmotif of novels, uh, Fitzgerald did say in the short story The Rich Boy, the rich are different from you and me. Of course, Hemingway then came back and said yeah they have more money. But this is a Gen X, Gen Z, Millennial explosion. People love the card. I am, I got, the only thing that was not so good was the airlines, it’s not that they matter. Because I gotta tell you, people are feeling good according to this. I mean President Trump could say you know what hey I told you, look how good everybody’s feeling. So I mean stock was up six at one point. . .but I will just say that Steve Squeri is one hell of an executive, and these are really great numbers. And a lot of this is just tremendous execution on the part of this company.”

“Well I mean we do have a, year-over-year we do have a leap day. But I think what’s most important is that people thought that things were going to be flat. Or maybe that people would be discouraged. But the revenues were up really, up nice, up nine. Look I look at this thing and I just say, sure, it’s possible to have done better. Remember, getting a leap year. But this is really a darn good number. And look this is one of the things viewed structurally a big change. You know the younger people just love this. They want it so bad, they want the gold card, they want the platinum card. And I salute younger people for doing something that took me about ten years to get.”