Jim Cramer, host of Mad Money, on Tuesday, said that the real driver behind the day’s market rally was not hype or speculation, but strong earnings reports from companies tied to the real economy.
“Bubble? What bubble? Today, we saw what can happen when the real economy surfaces. We got some tremendous numbers from actual businesses, and I think we need to celebrate that so many companies not connected to the data center or artificial intelligence can be doing this well.”
READ ALSO: Jim Cramer Was Focused on These 13 Stocks Recently and Jim Cramer Recently Covered These 10 Stocks.
While noting that there have been very few examples of bad loans, Cramer said it is still reasonable to question whether banks are doing better. He added that the Trump administration does not appear interested in regulating banks and remarked that, regardless of where one stands on that policy, “it’s certainly good for the bank stocks.”
“But the bottom line: Today, we had a rally by the many companies in the real economy that… just put up excellent numbers. When RTX and GE Aerospace and 3M and General Motors and Coca-Cola and Danaher are all delivering strong results, you know something’s going right, not for the data center or the high-risk speculative stocks, but for the actual economy.”
Our Methodology
For this article, we compiled a list of 13 stocks that were discussed by Jim Cramer during the episode of Mad Money aired on October 21. 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 Highlighted These 13 Stocks
13. Western Alliance Bancorporation (NYSE:WAL)
Number of Hedge Fund Holders: 36
Western Alliance Bancorporation (NYSE:WAL) is one of the stocks Jim Cramer recently highlighted. Cramer mentioned the company during the episode and said:
“Then the next morning, very morning, a different regional bank, Western Alliance, announced that it too was having a credit problem, this time with a revolving credit facility that it issued. Western Alliance named the borrower. It’s a real estate investment fund called Cantor Group V, and said that they’d initiated a lawsuit in August, alleging fraud from the borrower. Now, it turns out that Zions and Western Alliance were actually both suing the same party, a California real estate investor and developer called Cantor Group… Western Alliance even said that it was providing the information about its lawsuit because Zions had made its own announcement, and they were starting to receive investor questions about their own exposure to this firm…
Bank earnings were generally pretty strong… Hey, Western Alliance, by the way, reported tonight after the close, and everything looked fine there as well. The company did guide for an elevated credit charge in the fourth quarter, but investors were expecting much, much worse.”
Western Alliance Bancorporation (NYSE:WAL) provides commercial, real estate, and consumer lending products, along with deposit, treasury management, and digital banking services.
12. Zions Bancorporation, National Association (NASDAQ:ZION)
Number of Hedge Fund Holders: 36
Zions Bancorporation, National Association (NASDAQ:ZION) is one of the stocks Jim Cramer recently highlighted. Cramer discussed the company’s earnings during the episode, as he said:
“Last Wednesday night, Zions Bancorp, which is a Utah-based regional bank, disclosed that it was taking a $50 million charge related to two commercial industrial loans… When that regulatory filing was published, it wasn’t exactly clear who the borrowers were, but a $50 million hit to a smaller regional bank like Zions is a much bigger deal than $170 million hit to a colossus like JPMorgan…
Bank earnings were generally pretty strong. Last night, Zions Bancorp reported its full third-quarter earnings report, and the overall results were fairly solid with the top line beat, a better-than-expected efficiency ratio, and a 2-cent earnings beat. After noting the previously disclosed $50 million credit charge, Zions CEO Harris Simmons said… ‘We view this as an isolated situation resulting from a particular couple of borrowers. We have no further exposure related to these borrowers or guarantors. I would note that, excluding the impact of this matter, net charge-offs were minimal at 4 basis points annualized on average loans, and credit quality generally improved for the quarter as well.’… That went a long way towards easing the concerns about Zions, and the stock rallied over 1% today in response. At this point, it’s rebounded so hard that it’s down just 2.5% from where it was trading before management disclosed that credit loss last week.”
Zions Bancorporation, National Association (NASDAQ:ZION) provides commercial, real estate, and consumer banking services. The company offers lending, deposit, and cash management solutions in addition to capital markets, investment banking, and wealth management.
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