Jim Cramer, host of Mad Money, on Friday said that many companies are performing far too well to justify the level of negativity that is visible in headlines and investor sentiment.
“The fourth year of the bull market begins just as the third ends with skepticism, with disbelief and contempt for the bulls. Of course, that’s been the hallmark of the entire run, hasn’t it? The conventional wisdom says that the true believers are either frauds or mountebanks or morons, people who embarrass themselves every time they do some buying into the dips. Never mind that buying the dips has made investors a lot of money over this run and so many others in the last 45 years.”
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Cramer went further to say that contempt in the market does not only come from the bears, it cuts both ways. He mentioned that the true underperformers are not those who bought into the market, but the skeptics who repeatedly miss major upward moves. He pointed to the market action on Friday morning where, around 6:00 AM, it seemed that the market would open about 1% lower, largely due to fears over bad loans at banks. However, the market opened, and a series of banks reported that they were doing fine.
“Why do the bears keep being betrayed by the market? I think it’s because the pessimists and their buddies in the media tend to lose track of what they’re investing in, not the S&P 500, the index itself, but the companies in it.”
Our Methodology
For this article, we compiled a list of 10 stocks that were discussed by Jim Cramer during the episode of Mad Money aired on October 17. We listed the stocks in the order that Cramer mentioned them. We also provided hedge fund sentiment for each stock as of the second quarter of 2025, which was taken from Insider Monkey’s database of over 900 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 Recently Covered These 10 Stocks
10. NIKE, Inc. (NYSE:NKE)
Number of Hedge Fund Holders: 81
NIKE, Inc. (NYSE:NKE) is one of the stocks Jim Cramer recently covered. Cramer highlighted the reasons why he would be a “buyer” of the stock. He said:
“Same deal with Nike. The previous CEO took a good company and turned it into an also-ran… Now that Nike old hand, Elliott Hill has come in, he needs to reinvent the entire business. First, he needs to go back to the old brick-and-mortar distribution network… It means new science and innovation have to be developed, which seems to have been obliterated under the previous regime. Third, he has to fix China, not a quick fix. Oh, and let me just tell you, there’s still inventory within the system, and that holds down earnings. But most importantly, he’s got management and the rank and file rowing in the same direction because he was much loved before he left… This is another stock though that’s been pulling back as analysts realize that the fast turnaround is impossible. Again, they don’t seem to understand that turnarounds do take a lot of time. This is precisely the moment when people want to give up on Starbucks and on Nike, which is why I want to be a buyer, not a seller of both.”
NIKE, Inc. (NYSE:NKE) is an athletic and casual footwear, apparel, equipment, and accessories company that sells its products under brands, including Nike, Jordan, and Converse.
9. Starbucks Corporation (NASDAQ:SBUX)
Number of Hedge Fund Holders: 66
Starbucks Corporation (NASDAQ:SBUX) is one of the stocks Jim Cramer recently covered. Cramer discussed the company’s ongoing turnaround under CEO Brian Niccol, as he commented:
“Brian never encouraged me to be as bullish as the analysts were. He emphasized endlessly that the turn would take time… What Brian ultimately found was that the whole Starbucks story was based on having fewer people working and a reliance on technology to do the job done… It was a slippery slope that led to a crash. Some analysts now blame the stock’s latest downturn on the slowness of the turn itself. I blame the decline on the lack of recognition from the analyst community, that Brian wasn’t playing UPOD. He wasn’t underpromising in order to over-deliver…
Now at last, I think Brian has his arms around what’s been going wrong. He knows that staffing, not technology’s the answer. He recognizes that not all the stores can be kept open because their layout doesn’t allow for a third-place transformation. I see the analysts turning against him though, largely because they got ahead of themselves, and that tells me it is time to buy Starbucks, not to sell it.”
Starbucks Corporation (NASDAQ:SBUX) sells coffee, tea, and ready-to-drink beverages along with food items through company-operated and licensed stores.
