In this article, we will look at the stocks in focus as Jim Cramer shared how to navigate Wednesday’s tough tape. The host of Mad Money, on Wednesday, discussed what investors can do on punishing days in the market.
When the bear comes running at you, it’s mighty difficult to hide, to stay ahead of the darn thing, to avoid being mauled. Right now, we have a situation where every time we provoke the bear by attacking Iranian oil facilities, only a few stocks can rally. When you throw in a crummy Producer Price Index reading and a Fed meeting with no hope whatsoever of a rate cut, well, you get a hideous day for the averages… These are what’s known as macro events that I just talked about, not stock stories, and they can impact the entire market. Usually, there’s a reliable set of sectors we can turn to even when things get ugly like this, but not today. Everything was awful except for a handful of oil and gas stocks.
READ ALSO Jim Cramer’s Latest 6 Stock Calls As Oil Drops and the U.S. Market Rises and Jim Cramer’s Bullish AI Investment Thesis Amid Iran Conflict: 6 Stocks in Focus
Cramer said that he does not approach markets as a geopolitical expert, but the connection between surging oil futures and falling equities is clear. He noted that oil prices climbed throughout the day, and, aside from a few unusual gainers, rising oil prices generally translate into declining stock prices. He added that the strain that higher energy costs placed on the S&P 500 was unmistakable.
The bottom line: NVIDIA is one of the fastest growing firms with one of the lowest valuations in the entire market, and that’s always tempting, even with oil up a few bucks and a recalcitrant Federal Reserve, something that may matter to the stock short term, but absolutely doesn’t matter to NVIDIA’s long-term prospects. After that festival, I gotta tell you, NVIDIA is still best in show.
Our Methodology
For this article, we compiled a list of 7 stocks that were discussed by Jim Cramer during the episode of Mad Money aired on March 18. We listed the stocks in the order that Cramer mentioned them.
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 498.7% since May 2014, beating its benchmark by 303 percentage points (see more details here).
Jim Cramer on How to Navigate Wednesday’s Tough Tape: 7 Stocks in Focus
7. Arm Holdings plc (NASDAQ:ARM)
Arm Holdings plc (NASDAQ:ARM) is one of Jim Cramer’s latest stock calls as he shared how to navigate Wednesday’s tough tape. Cramer noted the company’s potential in AI, as he said:
I like Arm Holdings, which I think will be the big beneficiary from the pivot to using not just its monster GPU architecture, but also its more agile CPUs to help manage these AI agents. They need CPUs. Arm’s always been tight with NVIDIA. I think it gets tighter.
Arm Holdings plc (NASDAQ:ARM) designs and licenses CPU architectures, system IP, and software used across automotive, computing, consumer, and IoT applications. Cramer highlighted the company’s importance to the semiconductor industry during the March 16 episode, as he stated:
As we celebrate all things AI at NVIDIA’s annual conference, I want to highlight a company that’s become increasingly important to the entire semiconductor industry: Arm Holdings. This semiconductor design company cut its teeth providing CPU designs that maximize energy efficiency, especially for smartphones. That expertise has made Arm the preferred partner for many AI systems, including NVIDIA’s. That said, for some reason, the stock has been stuck in a rut, trading sideways for the past couple of years. Can it get its mojo back? Because I gotta tell you, it’s got the earnings back… The stock is up since the last quarter, but nowhere near reflecting the kind of book of business that Rene has just outlined for the next year and a half.
6. Dell Technologies Inc. (NYSE:DELL)
Dell Technologies Inc. (NYSE:DELL) is one of Jim Cramer’s latest stock calls as he shared how to navigate Wednesday’s tough tape. Cramer showed positive sentiment toward the stock during the episode, as he remarked:
So I scanned the field for winners. I think Dell’s worth buying. This is the company that enterprises are using to connect with NVIDIA. I call it the customer’s most sought-after technology and one of the most undervalued stocks in the market. I reiterated Dell as a bullpen stock for the club in today’s morning meeting, but only if it retreats a bit from these levels.
Dell Technologies Inc. (NYSE:DELL) provides storage systems, servers, networking gear, and consulting services, as well as laptops, desktops, workstations, and accessories. Cramer mentioned the company during the March 2 episode and commented:
Next up… was another data center play with a fantastic bang-up quarter last week, Dell Technologies, up 29.4%. Now, this stock had been steadily sinking lower throughout the last fall and into the new year as Wall Street thought they’d be crushed by skyrocketing memory and data storage costs. But last week, Dell shocked Wall Street with a huge fourth quarter beat driven by strong AI product sales and far better than expected margins because they were able to pass on their own cost increases to their customer base. Dell’s got a huge backlog, and they have a very bullish outlook for the full year. It was a great conference call, which is why the stock soared nearly 22% on Friday alone. Very confident.
5. NVIDIA Corporation (NASDAQ:NVDA)
NVIDIA Corporation (NASDAQ:NVDA) is one of Jim Cramer’s latest stock calls as he shared how to navigate Wednesday’s tough tape. Cramer said that the company’s stock is “hard to understand,” as he commented:
Now, I just got back from one of the most remarkable of all places, the showcase for artificial intelligence and accelerated computing in all of its forms, NVIDIA’s GTC conference in San Jose. There, I saw so many different companies capitalizing on NVIDIA’s software and hardware platform, and they’re going to do that regardless of what happens in the Middle East. NVIDIA’s stock is hard to understand… But what keeps people from missing the big gains in the stock is that it’s really at the heart of what’s known as the fourth industrial revolution. That’s where technology overruns the way we do things. Not just companies, but individuals. They can do more with less. They can create all new industries we haven’t even imagined yet. They can generate amazing profits for companies that harness AI, whether it be ChatGPT, Anthropic, or Gemini… They’re a canvas anyone can write on… But most of all, if I didn’t own it, I would buy the stock of NVIDIA.
I know it can go down, maybe four or five points. It doesn’t mean anything. It’s small. The tech giant’s not hemmed in by Iran. It’s not shredded by stagflation fears. Its lack of upside has more to do with the structure of the market. NVIDIA’s overowned right now. That won’t matter if all the good things I saw at GTC come to fruition, though. Some stocks may be just too cheap to avoid.
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. We recently mentioned the company while discussing the best growth stocks to buy. You can read about it here.
4. Williams-Sonoma, Inc. (NYSE:WSM)
Williams-Sonoma, Inc. (NYSE:WSM) is one of Jim Cramer’s latest stock calls as he shared how to navigate Wednesday’s tough tape. Cramer highlighted the company’s earnings and the following market reaction, as he said:
We did have one report that was solid. It was from Williams-Sonoma, the retailer. It put up terrific numbers, but after a quick down move in pre-market trading, it flew up furiously before pulling back hard in the afternoon. I wouldn’t buy it when it was up 11, but it closed up less than two bucks, and that’s intriguing. That may be something to buy into weakness tomorrow.
Williams-Sonoma, Inc. (NYSE:WSM) sells cookware, kitchen tools, home furnishings, decor, bedding, lighting, rugs, and personalized or custom home products. Cramer was bullish on the company’s stock during the episode aired on December 17, 2025, as he remarked:
How about two I really like right here: Williams-Sonoma and Gap. Their tariff hit is pretty variable and pretty covered. These are all moving targets, but these two companies are firing on all cylinders. Williams-Sonoma is even guiding for a modest year-over-year increase in operating margins at the midpoint despite the tariffs.
3. The Campbell’s Company (NASDAQ:CPB)
The Campbell’s Company (NASDAQ:CPB) is one of Jim Cramer’s latest stock calls as he shared how to navigate Wednesday’s tough tape. Cramer was bearish on the stock, as he commented:
No one likes Campbell’s, which now yields 7.4%. So there seems to be no good houses in that neighborhood.
The Campbell’s Company (NASDAQ:CPB) produces and sells soups, broths, sauces, juices, frozen meals, and beverages. In addition, it offers a wide range of snacks through brands such as Pepperidge Farm, Goldfish, Snyder’s of Hanover, Cape Cod, and Kettle Brand. Cramer commented on the company’s latest quarter during the March 12 episode, as he said:
The food group is in so much trouble that they may need to do something radical to turn things around. Yesterday, Campbell’s reported one of the worst quarters I’ve seen in ages. It was awful across the board. Revenues fell 5%. Organic sales dropped 3%. The snack business, chips and pretzels, unbelievably bad. Even the bright spots like the recent acquisition of Rao’s pasta sauce got canceled out by Prego. Stock hit a 17-year low as people started wondering if Campbell’s would be able to cover their dividend. Yet management was defiant in their conviction that things are going well, which made it agonizing to listen to the conference call.
2. General Mills, Inc. (NYSE:GIS)
General Mills, Inc. (NYSE:GIS) is one of Jim Cramer’s latest stock calls as he shared how to navigate Wednesday’s tough tape. Cramer mentioned the stock during the episode and said:
I thought that General Mills might bottom on a good quarter, big yield. Sadly, the quarter wasn’t good enough. Management tried to turn minuses into pluses, but the crowd wasn’t buying it, even with that 6.5% yield.
General Mills, Inc. (NYSE:GIS) provides branded foods, including cereals, snacks, meals, baking products, frozen items, ice cream, and pet food. Cramer evaluated the stock during the March 12 episode, as he remarked:
This is not the only example. When General Mills spoke at CAGNY, a key industry conference, they told a slightly better story. When Mills reports next week, I bet pet food will shine. But there’s heavy discounting in cereal, and management doesn’t seem to recognize that the stock’s turned into a very suboptimal situation. Their review, they say, is “resulting in significantly improved competitiveness.” They do have eight leading brands, each generates a billion dollars in sales. But in the end, General Mills, a justifiably proud company, had to cut its earnings forecast, and it was the talk of the whole conference. Why? “Weak consumer sentiment, heightened uncertainty, and significant volatility have weighed on category growth and impacted consumer purchase patterns, resulting in a slower pace and higher cost of volume recovery than initially expected.” That doesn’t sound all that positive.
1. Johnson & Johnson (NYSE:JNJ)
Johnson & Johnson (NYSE:JNJ) is one of Jim Cramer’s latest stock calls as he shared how to navigate Wednesday’s tough tape. Cramer believes that the stock should have gone higher, as he stated:
What can you do on days like today? Well, the investing club… We like to buy, not big, but we’re not sellers. Why? Couple of reasons. We now think that Iran’s response could be more anemic than its previous barrage of pain. We’re going to find out soon enough though. We also like the stock market… when it’s oversold, -7 on the S&P Oscillator, that’s a key gauge that measures buying and selling pressure, and boy, that shows that there’s been way too much selling pressure.
Now, I know this implies short-termism, and we’re long-game players at the Trust, but it never pays to have a soured basis. And it’s easier to get a good basis when you have an indicator that can predict when the market’s likely to bounce. We have that right now. Of course, it’s harder to find good stocks that are worth buying when the crowd’s thinking stagflation. For instance, take the drug stocks. You know, you’re not supposed to like the drug stocks in stagflation, but I got my eye on Johnson & Johnson. It just received a green light on a really important drug for plaque psoriasis. It’s a pill, not an injection. It’s huge. But the stock was down nearly a dollar today. It should have gone higher, but it just shows you how hard it is to buck stagflation theories.
Johnson & Johnson (NYSE:JNJ) develops and sells healthcare products, including pharmaceuticals and medical technologies, with treatments in immunology, oncology, neuroscience, cardiovascular care, and infectious diseases. We recently talked about the stock while discussing Goldman Sachs top healthcare stocks, which you can read about here.
While we acknowledge the potential of JNJ to grow, our conviction lies in the belief that some AI stocks hold greater promise for delivering higher returns and have limited downside risk. If you are looking for an AI stock that is more promising than JNJ and that has 100x upside potential, check out our report about the cheapest AI stock.
READ NEXT: 40 Most Popular Stocks Among Hedge Funds Heading Into 2026 and 15 Stocks That Will Make You Rich in 10 Years.
Disclosure: None. Insider Monkey focuses on uncovering the best investment ideas of hedge funds and insiders. Please subscribe to our free daily e-newsletter to get the latest investment ideas from hedge funds’ investor letters by entering your email address below.
