During Thursday’s episode of Mad Money, Jim Cramer cautioned investors against letting excessive pessimism shape how they approach the stock market.

“My view, you can be as cynical and corrosive as you want about the vast majority of things in the world in life. But if you’re trying to make big money in the stock market, you’re actually better off being critical and constructive. Reflexive negativity is not a smart strategy, and you’ll most certainly trade yourself into oblivion with very little show for it.”

READ ALSO: Jim Cramer Put These 8 Stocks Under a Microscope Recently and Jim Cramer Commented on These 6 Natural Gas Players.

Cramer pointed out that markets often offer strong opportunities, especially on days when sentiment is low, and if investors remain too skeptical, they miss out. He emphasized that these chances do not appear in isolation; they show up often in what he called “the greatest market in the world.” As per Cramer, many stocks that were once dismissed or “left for dead” ended up rebounding. He noted, “The cynics missed all of these moves,” and went on to say, “You could have caught all of them.”

“So here’s the bottom line: If you examined these same opportunities with a jaundiced eye, too critical, too negative, I know what would’ve happened. You would’ve passed on all of them. But if you were open-minded, if you were constructive, any one of these could easily have made you a boatload of money.”

Our Methodology

For this article, we compiled a list of 12 stocks that were discussed by Jim Cramer during the episodes of Mad Money aired on May 15. We listed the stocks in the order that Cramer mentioned them. We also provided hedge fund sentiment for each stock as of the fourth quarter of 2024, which was taken from Insider Monkey’s database of over 1,000 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 373.4% since May 2014, beating its benchmark by 218 percentage points (see more details here).

Jim Cramer’s Recent Comments On These 12 Stocks

12. Fluor Corporation (NYSE:FLR)

Number of Hedge Fund Holders: 48

When Cramer was asked about Fluor Corporation (NYSE:FLR) during the episode, he remarked:

“No, FLR. Engineering and construction, we’re going to buy letter J, we’ll buy Jacobs. Now I’ve gotta tell you, the best one happens to be private, which is Bechtel, but the next, we’ll take J, that’ll do it. AECOM is not bad either.”

Fluor (NYSE:FLR) delivers engineering, construction, and project management services across industries like energy, infrastructure, manufacturing, and government. The company also offers technical staffing, consulting, and specialized solutions for nuclear, environmental, and low-carbon energy projects. ClearBridge Investments stated the following regarding Fluor Corporation (NYSE:FLR) in its Q4 2024 investor letter:

“2024 proved a particularly active year for new idea generation: we added 23 new investments while exiting 29 due to a variety of considerations, including acquisitions, market capitalization constraints, and our assessment of forward return potential. While many of the new investments we made during the year are of relatively modest size, we will continue to build these positions over time provided company execution and end market prospects remain intact. In the fourth quarter we initiated five new investments: Oscar Health, TG Therapeutics, Clearwater Analytics, Fluor Corporation (NYSE:FLR) and Modine.

Fluor is one of the largest engineering, procurement and construction firms, with global scale supporting megaprojects across various end markets. With an improved contract structure mix and balance sheet, the company is poised to benefit from an array of high-priority investment projects in markets such as data centers, GLP-1 manufacturing, mining and nuclear energy.”

11. Onto Innovation Inc. (NYSE:ONTO)

Number of Hedge Fund Holders: 50

A caller asked if it was a good time to get into Onto Innovation Inc. (NYSE:ONTO), given the stock’s recent pullback. Here’s what Cramer had to say in response:

“No, I mean look, test and measurement is always going to be letter A. That’s what I like. I like Agilent. I’m not going to change my mind.”

Onto Innovation (NYSE:ONTO) designs and builds process control tools and software used in semiconductor manufacturing. The company’s products support metrology, inspection, lithography, and yield management, with additional services like software licensing and spare parts. Invesco Small Cap Value Fund stated the following regarding Onto Innovation Inc. (NYSE:ONTO) in its Q4 2024 investor letter:

“Onto Innovation Inc. (NYSE:ONTO): The company is a semiconductor capital equipment manufacturer that provides process control solutions for microelectronics manufacturing, including defect inspection, metrology systems and software to enhance yield and reduce costs. The company has benefited from the artificial intelligence (AI) boom, but weakness during the quarter provided an attractive entry point for the fund.”