Jim Cramer, the host of Mad Money, said on Monday that he wanted to revisit the major macro questions he asked at the start of 2025 and see how events actually played out.
“Okay, I came up with four big macro questions… First question, does the yield on the 10 Year Treasury go to 4% or 5% first, or neither?… This is one where we got a definitive answer because the 10 Year went to 4% first… What happened in 2025? Specifically, the 10 Year broke below 4% briefly in that post-Liberation Day washout last spring, setting up a 52-week low of 3.88 in April. More recently, now that the Feds started cutting short-term interest rates, the 10 Year has touched the 4% level a couple of times… Of course, the bulls would feel better if the 10 Year had fallen below 4% and stayed there, but that’s not the case with the benchmark yield currently sitting at about 4.15%… That’s fine for stocks.”
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Turning to the second question, Cramer noted that it was whether the labor market would stay tight through 2025. On that front, he said the answer appeared to be clearly negative. He explained that job growth slowed sharply over the course of the year, shifting from more than 100,000 jobs added per month in the early months of 2025 to an average of roughly 17,000 jobs per month from June through November. He described that pace as “kind of pathetic. Moving to the third question, he said what he was really trying to assess was how the Trump administration would affect the stock market, and his conclusion was that the administration has, overall, been fine for stocks.
“Fourth, the last big macro question we asked was whether corporate earnings would keep growing like we expected in the end of about 2024… The estimates have gradually climbed back to levels that are now above what we were looking for at the beginning of the year. The other big thing to note here is the fact that the earnings expectations for next year are higher. Rather than the 12% earnings growth that Wall Street was projecting for 2026, now we’re looking for nearly 14% earnings growth next year. That’s going to be anvery high benchmark… Looking at these numbers, you can see why the market’s had another strong year of gains. At the end of the day, earnings growth is the single most important determinant of your stocks, the direction, and the fact of the matter is that earnings growth outlook has gradually gotten better over the past 12 months.”
Our Methodology
For this article, we compiled a list of 12 stocks that were discussed by Jim Cramer during the episode of Mad Money aired on December 22. We listed the stocks in the order that Cramer mentioned them. We also provided hedge fund sentiment for each stock as of the third quarter of 2025, which was taken from Insider Monkey’s database of 978 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 427.7% since May 2014, beating its benchmark by 264 percentage points (see more details here).
Jim Cramer Discussed 12 Stocks and Macroeconomic Conditions
12. NVIDIA Corporation (NASDAQ:NVDA)
Number of Hedge Fund Holders: 234
NVIDIA Corporation (NASDAQ:NVDA) is one of the stocks Jim Cramer discussed along with macroeconomic conditions. Cramer noted the effects of the company being banned from sale in China during the episode, as he said:
“Maybe you could argue that NVIDIA was held back by a ban on selling even dumbed-down AI chips to China, which was initially partially repealed recently. But with NVIDIA still up more than 36% for the year, and China basically completely excluded from their numbers, it clearly didn’t do that much damage. It could be upside too if they shipped that H200 to China this spring, which is what press reports indicated earlier today. NVIDIA, I say own it, don’t trade it.”
NVIDIA Corporation (NASDAQ:NVDA) develops accelerated computing and AI platforms, GPUs for gaming and professional use, cloud services, robotics and embedded systems, and automotive technologies. During the December 18 episode, Cramer mentioned the company and said:
“The rest of tech took its cue from Micron and broke the recent downtrend, even though the supply-demand situation for most of these companies, quite different from Micron. For instance, let’s say two of my favorites, Broadcom and NVIDIA, both of which are up today. They simply do not have the same situation at all… NVIDIA and Broadcom are what’s known as fabulous companies. They make their chips through Taiwan Semi. That’s who actually does the manufacturing. If demand overwhelms supply, it’s Taiwan Semi’s problem. That’s why even though Micron’s crying about demand, it doesn’t exactly translate to Broadcom and NVIDIA, unlike Western Digital and Seagate, which are basically in the same kind of business as Micron, albeit with less intellectual property.”
11. Apple Inc. (NASDAQ:AAPL)
Number of Hedge Fund Holders: 166
Apple Inc. (NASDAQ:AAPL) is one of the stocks Jim Cramer discussed along with macroeconomic conditions. Cramer highlighted how the company tackled the tariffs, as he remarked:
“I also asked what the impact of President Trump’s trade policies would be on tech, and by and large, this hasn’t been a major issue. There were times that tariffs on China and India looked like they might impact Apple, but the company won exemptions by making large domestic investment commitments. I say Apple, own it, don’t trade it.”
Apple Inc. (NASDAQ:AAPL) manufactures and sells devices such as the iPhone, Mac, iPad, along with its line-up of wearables and accessories. The devices are supported by the company’s app ecosystem, AppleCare, and cloud tools. During the December 17 episode, Cramer called the company a “buyback monster.” The Mad Money host stated:
“Second, don’t forget that Apple, the second-largest company in the world, also happens to be a buyback monster, having shrunk its share count by 33.7% since the end of 2015. The stock’s up 933% over that same period. I always say own Apple, don’t trade it, so tonight, I just want to point out that this is a $4 trillion company that still managed to repurchase more than a third of its shares over the past decade.”
