We recently compiled a list of the Jim Cramer Discusses Joe Rogan, Elon Musk, And These 13 Stocks. In this article, we are going to take a look at where Merck & Co., Inc. (NYSE:MRK) stands against the other stocks.

In one of his latest appearances on CNBC’s Squawk on the Street, Jim Cramer started the morning by commenting on the latest Producer Price Index (PPI) release. The PPI, which tracks inflation upstream of the supply chain, rose by 0.2% in December and fell short of economist expectations of 0.3%. However, this didn’t lead to any significant reaction in the bond market. According to Cramer, “Carl these, the bonds just don’t want to react to anything good. Of course, we can immediately say, it’s because we’re gonna get a tough CPI number tomorrow. The fact is, is these numbers are tame. People have to start recognizing that there are some good numbers coming.”

He shared other factors that might be fueling the bond market’s performance. “House prices coming down, food coming down, but it doesn’t seem to matter,” Cramer remarked. He added “What the bonds are reacting to I think is a new administration, uh, concern about what is going to be, uh, tariffs, even though it looks like they’re going to be phased in. You know David, interest rates don’t wanna come down here. And they don’t wanna come down there’s too much issuance, there’s a belief that the next administration is much more inflationary. And David it doesn’t seem to matter what is printed, the bonds don’t want to go higher. Interest rate’s not low enough.”

Another news that has made a lot of headlines recently is TikTok’s fate in the US. Cramer believes that rather than a complete bank, there could “be a gradual diminution of the service. In other words, it’s not going to be turned off. I think that this whole idea that the Chinese Communist Party is really just a gigantic private equity firm leaves me cold. I just don’t think that they are in a situation to broker a deal.”

One person that the CNBC TV show host believes isn’t discussed enough is electric vehicle billionaire Elon Musk. “I mean, Carl, it’s so exciting to talk about Elon Musk. I mean we haven’t talked about Elon, you know you have to wait maybe to nine o’ four to talk about Elon Musk. I just say we do it at the very top,” believes Cramer. He added “We have Elon Musk being the most important, well, he’s, he’s co-president right now which I think is a little absurd.. . . this man has become, Carl, a nation-state within. He’s a state within a state.”

On the topic of markets, Cramer was appreciative of the fact that the market and equal-weighted benchmark S&P indexes are up identically over the last six months “Well look I, that’s good news actually. We want to have broader leadership,” he remarked. However, without Wall Street’s favorite AI stock, Cramer believes “you have a market that’s kind of ruthless. . . David, you know that this market survives on NASDAQ fuel and not on Dow fuel. And yet people still insist on talking about the Dow.”

Finally, Cramer has also spent quite a bit of time discussing social media CEO Mark Zuckerberg’s appearance on the Joe Rogan Experience podcast. This time around, he shared “I’ll go right to Joe Rogan. I’ll be five hours in Joe Rogan. One of the most jarring things about the Joe Rogan interview was that he said he had to take a bathroom break. Well, there’s professionalism personified.” Cramer also commented on whether 38% is too much for an interviewer to speak. Taking a mixed view, he stated “I think it is. I used to put a stopwatch to my show Kudlow & Cramer. I got to speak 38% of the time so you know what, maybe it’s not so bad.”

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 yesterday.

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).

Merck & Co., Inc. (NYSE:MRK)

Number of Hedge Fund Holders In Q3 2024: 86

Merck & Co., Inc. (NYSE:MRK) is a global pharmaceutical giant that has led the specialty drug market through its KEYTRUDA cancer drug. KEYTRUDA is one of the most widely sold drugs in the world and is expected to cross $60 billion in sales by 2026. Building on the back of its strong cancer drug, Merck & Co., Inc. (NYSE:MRK) estimates that it can earn as much as $20 billion in revenue from new cancer and oncology medicines by the mid-2030s. The stock jumped by 2.3% in January after a Chinese firm announced that it would sell an Ireland-based vaccine facility to Merck & Co., Inc. (NYSE:MRK) following tough US laws. Cramer’s previous comments have appreciated the firm’s GARDASIL HPV drug, and here’s his latest take:

“Merck, which is down very badly. Even though they’ve got Keytruda and a drug that’s going to be very much life saving.”

Overall MRK ranks 6th on our list of the stocks Jim Cramer recently discussed. While we acknowledge the potential of MRK 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 timeframe. If you are looking for an AI stock that is more promising than MRK but that trades at less than 5 times its earnings, check out our report about the cheapest AI stock.

READ NEXT: 8 Best Wide Moat Stocks to Buy Now and 30 Most Important AI Stocks According to BlackRock.

Disclosure: None. This article is originally published at Insider Monkey.