In this article, we will discuss: Jim Cramer Rubbished Circular AI Deals & Commented On These 18 Stocks. For more stocks, you can head to Jim Cramer Rubbished Circular AI Deals & Commented On These 5 Stocks.
Even as some media reports claim that AI deals that see firms such as Amazon invest in providers like Anthropic only for the latter to procure computing services from the former are circular, CNBC’s Jim Cramer is adamant that they aren’t. After Amazon and Anthropic signed a deal where Amazon would invest $5 billion in Anthropic and Anthropic would procure $100 billion of AWS cloud services from Amazon, Cramer remarked that the deal was just a natural consequence of the structure of the AI industry:
“Amazon has compute so Anthropic has to pay for their compute and let them invest in the company. Circular deals are meant to puff up earnings. No earnings are being puffed here, believe me. However we are seeing a solid return on the data center now.. Jensen was right all along”
Our Methodology
For this article, we compiled a list of stocks that Jim Cramer discussed during the episode of Squawk on the Street aired on April 16th and tweeted about. 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 2025, which was taken from Insider Monkey’s database of 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 498.7% since May 2014, beating its benchmark by 303 percentage points (see more details here).
18. Apple Inc. (NASDAQ:AAPL)
Number of Hedge Fund Holdings in Q4 2025: 169
Consumer electronics giant Apple Inc. (NASDAQ:AAPL) created quite a bit of a splash yesterday after it announced that CEO Tim Cook would be stepping down from his role. Cook, who took over from the firm’s renowned founder Steve Jobs, saw Apple Inc. (NASDAQ:AAPL) become one of the most valuable companies in the world. Bernstein discussed the firm on March 18th as it kept an Outperform rating and a $340 share price target for the company. It remarked that Apple Inc. (NASDAQ:AAPL) was currently expanding its product portfolio to cater to the needs of the lower end bracket as well. To wit, the firm’s incoming CEO, John Ternus, is currently the senior vice president of Hardware Engineering. Cramer has been one of Apple Inc. (NASDAQ:AAPL) ‘s strongest defenders and has repeatedly asserted that it is better to own the shares rather than to trade them. The CNBC TV host also praised current CEO Tim Cook after visiting Apple Inc. (NASDAQ:AAPL) supplier Corning’s factory in Kentucky last year. Naturally, he was lost for words as he learned about Cook’s departure and tweeted:
“Stunning: Tim Cook stepping down. This is tough news for those of us who have learned so much from him…
“Very hard.. Tim’s the best….”
17. ServiceNow, Inc. (NYSE:NOW)
Number of Hedge Fund Holdings in Q4 2025: 118
ServiceNow, Inc. (NYSE:NOW) is an enterprise workflow automation software firm. Its shares are down by 32% over the past year and by 30% year-to-date. Truist discussed the firm on April 15th as it lowered the share price target to $125 from $175 and kept a Buy rating on the stock. The financial firm discussed ServiceNow, Inc. (NYSE:NOW)’s role in enterprise AI rollout and outlined that its strong industry position can help the firm in this regard. Oppenheimer also discussed the firm on the same day. It cut the share price target to $130 from $175 and kept an Outperform rating. As per Oppenheiner, ServiceNow, Inc. (NYSE:NOW)’s Q1 update could do little to soothe investor fears about the impact of AI on the enterprise software market. The shares gained 9.9% between April 14th and 16th, and Cramer discussed the movement in the broader context of the enterprise software market:
“This is the complete revenge of the software companies, whether it be ServiceNow and Salesforce . . .And, the question is what’s real, what’s not. What’s oversold, and what’s really taking off. . .Now David, all of these are linked. You and I knew that Blue Owl could make it. . .that it was a gating issue, liquidity issue.
“ServiceNow, 50% of it. . went to program, AI”
Lakehouse Global Growth Fund discussed ServiceNow, Inc. (NYSE:NOW) in its Q1 2026 investor letter:
ServiceNow is a category leading US software business that automates complex corporate workflows across IT, HR, and customer service. It acts as a deeply embedded digital utility for the world’s largest enterprises, with 80% of the G2000 as customers and industry leading renewal rates around 98% – underscoring the mission critical nature of their platform. Recently, ServiceNow has experienced a significant drawdown due to the “death of software” and AI “seat contraction” narrative.
However, its quarterly results released at the end of January came in ahead of both its own guidance and analyst expectations. Revenues grew 19.5% in constant currency terms to US$3.6 billion and operating profit grew 31% to US$1.1 billion. Crucially, the company directly countered the AI “seat contraction” / AI “loser” narrative by disclosing monthly active users on the platform grew 25% year-on-year and that their new AI solutions hit US$600 million in annual contract value (ACV). This exceeded their US$500 million target set for 2025 and management also noted they are on track to exceed their US$1 billion ACV target for 2026…” (Click here to read the full text)
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