We recently published a list of Jim Cramer Recently Discussed These 9 Stocks. In this article, we are going to take a look at where Citigroup Inc. (NYSE:C) stands against other stocks that Jim Cramer discussed recently.
Jim Cramer, the host of Mad Money, discussed the current economic outlook on Monday as he outlined why he believes the possibility of a recession this year may be less likely. He pointed out that while it is easy to be negative in the current climate, the situation is almost too obviously bad, which makes him hesitant to align with the pessimistic view.
“This morning, Craig Melvin interviewed me on the Today Show, and he correctly asked, are we going into a recession? I stuck my neck out and I said, no. Will the tariffs hurt? Yes. Will prices go higher? Yes. Could there be shortages? Absolutely.”
READ ALSO Jim Cramer Commented on These 8 Stocks Recently and Jim Cramer’s Game Plan for This Week: 16 Stocks in Focus
Cramer emphasized that the way to understand whether a recession is likely often lies in employment figures. He noted that right now, there are more job openings than there are people to fill them. According to Cramer, the disparity makes it challenging for a recession to take hold in the near future. He recognized that some people would be impacted by corporate cost-cutting measures, often referred to as “mitigation” by CEOs.
“That’s the term CEOs are using when they talk about getting costs down to offset the impact of tariffs. Mitigation efforts usually mean taking supply chain costs out, but they also mean laying people off.”
However, Cramer noted that companies are not rushing to let go of workers because they fear they would not be able to rehire them when business conditions improve. He pointed out that, historically, economies tend to recover, and it is difficult to derail growth when so many jobs are still being created. Cramer expressed confidence that upcoming reports, including the monthly labor data due on Friday, would show a healthy job market, which would further complicate the notion of a recession.
“That will make it very hard once again to slip into a full-blown recession anytime soon, and perhaps in several quarters, we will have a more steady and predictable trade policy. Anything’s possible.”
Our Methodology
For this article, we compiled a list of 9 stocks that were discussed by Jim Cramer during the episode of Mad Money aired on April 28. We listed the stocks in ascending order of their hedge fund sentiment 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).
Citigroup Inc. (NYSE:C)
Number of Hedge Fund Holders: 101
When a caller asked about Citigroup Inc. (NYSE:C), Cramer stated:
“I want you to buy Citi. It’s not my favorite. You’re absolutely right. I sold Wells, just one more consent decree knocked down. Capital One is my absolute favorite. I think you should buy that aggressively, but I like your idea.”
Citigroup (NYSE:C) is a well-known name in the global financial sector. The company offers a wide range of services, such as cash management, trading, and investment banking. On April 11, Cramer commented, “Citigroup’s gotten so loved that it’s probably going to roar no matter what is said, such is the admiration for CEO Jane Fraser and she certainly earned it.”
Moreover, on April 16, RBC Capital analyst Gerard Cassidy cut Citi’s stock price target from $85 to $78 and kept an Outperform rating after the company’s first-quarter report. Citi posted stronger results than expected, beating both RBC’s forecast and the broader market consensus.
Management expressed confidence in reaching their medium-term goal of a 10% to 11% ROTCE by 2026, compared to 9.1% in Q1. RBC said the lower price target shows a drop in non-interest income, though it was partly balanced by a rise in net interest income.
Overall, C ranks 1st on our list of stocks that Jim Cramer discussed recently. While we acknowledge the potential of C as an investment, our conviction lies in the belief that AI stocks hold greater promise for delivering higher returns, and doing so within a shorter timeframe. There is an AI stock that went up since the beginning of 2025, while popular AI stocks lost around 25%. If you are looking for an AI stock that is more promising than C but that trades at less than 5 times its earnings, check out our report about this cheapest AI stock.
READ NEXT: 20 Best AI Stocks To Buy Now and 30 Best Stocks to Buy Now According to Billionaires.
Disclosure: None. This article is originally published at Insider Monkey.
