Jim Cramer Talked About These 14 Stocks & Discussed AI And Layoffs

In this piece, we will look at the stocks Jim Cramer discussed. 

In a recent appearance on CNBC’s Squawk on the Street, Jim Cramer discussed a Wall Street Journal report mentioning white collar layoffs and how AI appeared to finally be hitting hard. He commented:

“Yes it is and I think that, look if the economy were stronger, maybe the layoffs wouldn’t be so big. But they’re coming and they’re going to be very big.”

With the Federal Reserve’s interest rate decision due later in the day, Cramer shared that he believes that mortgage rates have to drop for relief in the housing market:

“Well we’ve got to try to figure out how to make it so that these mortgage backed, that the rate goes lower. I mean we’re still not getting any relief in housing. We do have two economies, we have the data center economy and then we have the real economy. And I point out, what does the real economy mean.”

He also commented on how the economy appeared to be divided into two portions, which were data center and non-data center. Calling the latter the “real economy,” Cramer shared:

“Real economy. The real economy. And we sit here and we talk about, we listen to the morning show, about you know SNAP, what happens to food stamps. I mean I’m just telling you right now that the American people are trying to figure out how to get by and they’re not going to pay up for expensive biscuits.  That’s not what they’re doing.”

Our Methodology

To make our list of the stocks that Jim Cramer talked about, we listed down the stocks he mentioned during CNBC’s Squawk on the Street aired on October 29th.

For these stocks, we also mentioned the number of hedge fund investors. 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).

14. NVIDIA Corporation (NASDAQ:NVDA)

Number of Hedge Fund Holders In Q2 2025: 235

After NVIDIA Corporation (NASDAQ:NVDA)’s GTC Conference in Washington, Cramer had a lot to say about the firm. He discussed the firm’s earnings multiple, CEO Huang’s comments about a $500 billion revenue opportunity, and China approvals:

“[As shares rose after Huang’s GTC conference and approached $5 trillion and Carl commented on BofA’s report of consensus shifting from 80 cents when ChatGPT emerged to now being ten bucks] Yeah I mean that’s what happens when you have a stock that looks like a very high price to earnings multiple but isn’t. You do have to have a suspension of belief because this man has pulled off something rather [inaudible]. If you look at all the companies that were speaking at GTC, you’ll see that he’s integral to every single industry. I wanna be sure, the number that he actually gave, the 500 billion in orders, that actually may be a bit of a, a bit of an overstatement of what he might have meant to say. Because I think that you are looking for something that’s more, about a 100 billion dollars lower. It’s not hyperbole but I think that I just want to walk it back a little, David, because you know, if you look at Ben Reitzes’ piece from Mellius, you will see that piece right there. . .that’s a good piece in terms of what the real number is.

“Some people think that we are splitting hairs, but we are talking about a 100 billion dollars. It did add yesterday the equivalent of a Mastercard. . .and I just think it’s important to keep the perspective that this is just a juggernaut. I mean a lot of it is that they have a new chip, new platform, I don’t like to use the term chip, that the Rubin, that people like. Remember they are the way that Pentium used to be, they have the Richard Feynman all set. So one of the things that Jensen explained, Jensen Huang the CEO explained to me is, what you do is you want to think where you want to be and then you walk back. That’s how he does his iterations. You know I’m completely enamored of the product line of Lisa Su. But Jensen is ahead when it comes to load, with software. And David, inference, I guess it’s just not whatever compute you can use.

“The narrative shifted in the middle of the night from one saying, what a great day at GTC, to three points additional when the President said, Blackwells will be discussed. . .I’m wondering whether Jensen Huang, hasn’t at last, with David Sacks, convinced the President that it is better for the Chinese to write on our programs than on Huawei. That has been Sacks’ approach. Now obviously Navarro has felt that is a very globalist view. And globalists were out for a while. But if Jensen has convinced them, then David it is a 50 billion dollar market. Quickly he would always say look it’s not in our numbers. But what’s happened is that people are betting that it will be in the numbers. Be prepared for some disappointment.

“It’s tough to move the needle for a five trillion company [with 5 billion of additional of revenue expected]. . .I once doubted Jensen. He said it could be ten billion. . .he said it could be ten trillion. I said I’m trying to get my head around two trillion. He said what does it matter? What does it matter, the size of our company? What matters is what we’re accomplishing. . .you’re trying to contain it in the four walls of a spreadsheet or by our little lilliputian minds and we can’t. . .Jensen is trying to get it so that you have an inexpensive robot in your house doing all the things that you don’t want to do.”

13. CrowdStrike Holdings, Inc. (NASDAQ:CRWD)

Number of Hedge Fund Holders In Q2 2025: 66

CrowdStrike Holdings, Inc. (NASDAQ:CRWD), along with Palo Alto Networks, is one of Cramer’s top plays in the cybersecurity space. The CNBC TV host has remained optimistic about the sector throughout 2025 as he believes that the growth in computer networking and data, courtesy of AI, will create more opportunities for the industry. In this appearance, he discussed CrowdStrike Holdings, Inc. (NASDAQ:CRWD)’s share price:

“Can I just say that NVIDIA was very interesting. I was going back forth with George Kurtz, one of my favorites along with Nikesh Arora. Boom, there wasn’t one note where Jensen said that he felt that nobody could protect agentics better than Crowdstrike. Crowdstrike stock went up ten dollars within one minute. And so there is a kind of a magic, as if by magic touch. I, you know I don’t think anyone’s been behind NVIDIA more than me. I just want people to realize that you don’t take a stock up ten dollars on the idea of everything, everybody knew this.”

12. Celestica Inc. (NYSE:CLS)

Number of Hedge Fund Holders In Q2 2025: 63

Celestica Inc. (NYSE:CLS) provides contract manufacturing, supply chain, and other services to businesses. Cramer discussed the firm’s role in the AI ecosystem and its investor presentation in New York City the day before. He cited Celestica Inc. (NYSE:CLS)’s partnership with Broadcom to point out that thinking about AI demand as “zero sum” was ill-advised:

“Let me give you an unknown company that gave you a presentation in New York yesterday. A Toronto company called Celestica. Now Celestica is making a lot of the product for Broadcom. They’re preferred partner for Broadcom. And these are all converging. Carl, we’re beginning to see, what I always felt could occur, which is multiple players. It’s just too big for Jensen. And don’t freak out every time someone else comes up with something new. And Celestica is one of the most unbelievable stories, it’s up 280 percent, 270. When you see these stories, people tend to say, you know what, oh my god it’s zero sum. It’s Lisa Su, not Jensen Huang. It’s Hock Tan not Lisa Su. We’re looking at it all wrong. There’s room for everybody.”

11. Bloom Energy Corporation (NYSE:BE)

Number of Hedge Fund Holders In Q2 2025: 44

Bloom Energy Corporation (NYSE:BE) is a fuel cell manufacturer that enables electricity generation from fuels such as natural gas without relying on combustion. The firm has partnered with utility American Electric to supply data centers with electricity. Cramer used Bloom Energy Corporation (NYSE:BE) as an example of how companies with exposure to data centers are seeing their fortunes turn around. The firm has seen interest in its products due to shorter generator delivery timelines when compared with gas-powered electricity generation turbines. Here is what Cramer said about Bloom Energy Corporation (NYSE:BE):

“Witness a little company called Bloom Energy. BE. Well they have a non combustible engine which they have been working on for 20 years. And I have just counted these guys out because they have lost hundreds, hundreds of millions of dollars over the last seven years that they have been public. And then boom, everybody wants them, everybody wants their on-prem energy package. I mean there they are. They have real earnings.”

10. Nucor Corporation (NYSE:NUE)

Number of Hedge Fund Holders In Q2 2025: 47

Nucor Corporation (NYSE:NUE) is one of the largest steel companies in America. Cramer has frequently discussed the firm in 2025, and most of his comments have surrounded Chinese steel flooding the US market to drive down prices. However, this time he commented that Nucor Corporation (NYSE:NUE) had positioned itself to benefit from the boom in AI data center construction by leveraging its scale to provide steel:

“I had Nucor on last night. Do you know that Nucor is the only company that can add scale, provide steel for the data centers? I mean I think a lot of people are saying, this whole thing is a colossal bubble. But then you talk to Leon Topalian. Leon Topalian is a steel person. And they can’t meet, well he said they can meet the demand, but oh my god, the next quarter they said they threw a little cold water on the quarter. But I just think that when you have these companies, and you don’t think of that, whether it be Caterpillar, whether it be Nucor, whether it be Cummins, whether it be Bloom Energy. The orders are there. I don’t know what to say. The orders are there.”

9. Advanced Micro Devices, Inc. (NASDAQ:AMD)

Number of Hedge Fund Holders In Q2 2025: 113

Advanced Micro Devices, Inc. (NASDAQ:AMD) designs CPUs and GPUs that are used in PCs and data centers. Along with NVIDIA, it also caters to the AI market through its products. The last few months have been great for Advanced Micro Devices, Inc. (NASDAQ:AMD) as the shares have benefited from the firm’s partnership with OpenAI to provide the latter with AI GPUs. Cramer has discussed the firm multiple times since the partnership was announced. He has praised Advanced Micro Devices, Inc. (NASDAQ:AMD) CEO Lisa Su and credited her with consistently insisting that the firm’s products were catching up to NVIDIA when it came to AI performance. In this appearance, he commented that while Advanced Micro Devices, Inc. (NASDAQ:AMD)’s products were great, NVIDIA was nevertheless ahead in several aspects:

“That’s how he does his iterations. You know I’m completely enamored of the product line of Lisa Su. But Jensen is ahead when it comes to load, with software. And David, inference, I guess it’s just not whatever compute you can use.”

8. The Boeing Company (NYSE:BA)

Number of Hedge Fund Holders In Q2 2025: 101

Wednesday was an important day for The Boeing Company (NYSE:BA) as far as Squawk on the Street was concerned since the firm’s CEO, Kelly Ortberg, gave an interview on the program. Ortberg appeared after the firm’s earnings, ahead of which Cramer had disclosed that his trust had owned The Boeing Company (NYSE:BA)’s shares. Here’s what the CNBC TV host said about the firm after Ortberg’s interview:

“. . .as Phil [Lebow] was talking about. This is one of those situations where I’ve been sitting here waiting for free cash flow to go positive. I feel like this chart, sure the charge was big and it was a little big bigger than I thought, but Kelly did talk about it at the Laguna conference earlier in the Fall, that look there are issues and I think you could have sussed it out, it’s not cash. But this is a major turn and this man is not understood, Kelly Ortberg. I mean for instance, we’ve got the strike going on right there with the International Association of Machinists, they’ve got people crossing that picket line. He’s not going to tolerate, I’m not calling it nonsense because I was a union member for a long time, but he’s not going to tolerate a union holding them hostage anymore. I think people are underestimating how strong this person is versus the previous group of leaders that they had at Boeing.”

7. Mondelez International, Inc. (NASDAQ:MDLZ)

Number of Hedge Fund Holders In Q2 2025: 49

Mondelez International, Inc. (NASDAQ:MDLZ) reported its earnings earlier this week, which saw the firm post $9.74 billion in revenue to beat analyst estimates. However, the firm added that its full-year EPS could drop by 15%, which was higher than the earlier estimate of 10%. Cramer discussed Mondelez International, Inc. (NASDAQ:MDLZ) in the context of price-conscious Americans choosing to prefer value over branded products:

“Look, I want to talk about Mondelez. I know that people think why bring that up. . .well Mondelez makes biscuits, okay. . .they make belVita, okay. belVita breakfast biscuits. You go to, if you go to Costco, you can have a Costco biscuit for literally, one third of the price of a Mondelez biscuit. These guys cited biscuits as being weak in America.  Well I am saying is that the American consumer is getting choosier. And they’re not going to pay up for a branded version belVita if they can buy just a Costco biscuit.”

6. Fiserv, Inc. (NYSE:FI)

Number of Hedge Fund Holders In Q2 2025: 94

Fiserv, Inc. (NYSE:FI) is a financial technology company that provides payment, security, debit card processing, and other services to merchants. The firm’s earnings report earlier this week, which saw it post $4.92 billion in revenue and $2.04 adjusted earnings to miss analyst estimates, was devastating as the shares sank by a whopping 44% in the aftermath. Investors were particularly spooked by Fiserv, Inc. (NYSE:FI) reducing its full-year guidance to $8.50 to $8.60 from an earlier $10.15 to $10.30 and slashing revenue growth guidance to 3.5% to 4% from the earlier 10%. Here is what Cramer said about Fiserv, Inc. (NYSE:FI):

“I mean I look at the Fiserv numbers. And I’m thinking, what happened here? And you’ll look this, FI’s down a lot. There’s talk that perhaps one of the subsectors they sell into, which is merchant solutions, missed. Now merchants solutions, we haven’t even talked about how weak retail might be but when you look at that, that’s not a three for two split, David.

“[After Carl commented that the 20 year chart looks a lot different] Yes, and that’s Frank Bisignano who put together a great company with First Data, but holy cow, bingo.”

5. Etsy, Inc. (NASDAQ:ETSY)

Number of Hedge Fund Holders In Q2 2025: 47

Online marketplace Etsy, Inc. (NASDAQ:ETSY) created quite a bit of stir earlier this week after its third-quarter earnings report. While the firm’s $678 million revenue and adjusted earnings of $0.63 beat analyst estimates, investors were blindsided by CEO Josh Silverman stepping down from the role. Cramer discussed Silverman leaving the CEO role and Etsy, Inc. (NASDAQ:ETSY)’s business environment:

“I’m looking for signs of wherever the consumer might be weak and Josh Silverman is stepping up to executive chair after eight years of being CEO. At the same time we are seeing weakness in their earnings. It was a not great miss, and I’ve got to tell you David, Etsy is either, you can say maybe the website’s not that good, or you could say well maybe people aren’t buying as much. Whatever. The stock is getting hit, in part really because of the earnings not necessarily because Josh stepped up. But I like to keep in front of us because I know Shopify is doing quite well so I’m questioning whether the problem is in Etsy and not [inaudible].”

4. Caterpillar Inc. (NYSE:CAT)

Number of Hedge Fund Holders In Q2 2025: 76

Like he did with Nucor, Cramer used Caterpillar Inc. (NYSE:CAT) as another example of a firm pivoting itself to benefit from the boom in AI data center construction. He discussed former CEO Jim Umpleby and Caterpillar Inc. (NYSE:CAT)’s different businesses:

“Now I think that, look I love this fellow, Joe Creed. But can we please give Jim Umpleby the credit here, the chairman who was CEO. Who decided to embark on a secular growth path. Get rid of the things that people were looking at all the time, that episodic China growth, the lever to housing. And he has levered the company to data center. How can you not? And it’s just, remember they have a great engine business too but the resource business great. I think this is an amazing story. David, this stock was at 69 when Goldman downgraded it. Many years ago because they said, you know what, we’re done. We’re done. This thing is just too, up and down.”

3. Generac Holdings Inc. (NYSE:GNRC)

Number of Hedge Fund Holders In Q2 2025: 51

Generac Holdings Inc. (NYSE:GNRC) is an industrial machinery manufacturer that makes and sells products such as generators, monitoring systems, and home energy management systems. The firm reported its third-quarter earnings earlier this week and posted $1.1 billion in revenue and $1.82 in earnings per share. Both of these missed FactSet compiled estimates of $1.2 billion and $2.18. Cramer discussed Generac Holdings Inc. (NYSE:GNRC) results and commented that while the firm attributed its woes to fewer hurricanes, there might be other factors at play:

“You know Generac wanted to blame storms, and I’m always worried that in the end, what you’re dealing with Generac, is you’re dealing with a company that you have to borrow money. And, when you have to borrow money, rates are high. And you’re also, remember, one of the reasons you might take a Generac is you get a new house. And then you might want to have one.”

2. PPG Industries, Inc. (NYSE:PPG)

Number of Hedge Fund Holders In Q2 2025: 39

PPG Industries, Inc. (NYSE:PPG) reported its third-quarter earnings earlier in the week, with its $4.08 billion revenue and $2.13 in EPS beating analyst estimates. However, full-year EPS guidance fell short of estimates. Cramer wondered why PPG Industries, Inc. (NYSE:PPG) was struggling as its peers were doing well:

“PPG is a quandry because some of the chemicals are starting to have good numbers. Dow had good numbers. And it’s kind of surprising to me that they can’t put together a couple of good quarters. They, they should. I don’t get it, I mean if Dow had good numbers, PPG should have good numbers. . . .that group is real. It’s the real economy. And we are distrustful of the good economy. . .but it does have aerospace, and aerospace is good. You listen to Kelly Ortberg. The orders are great. But if it’s real, I mean the big surprise this week was Sherwin-Williams doing well. I didn’t expect Sherwin-Williams to do well.”

1. Palantir Technologies Inc. (NASDAQ:PLTR)

Number of Hedge Fund Holders In Q2 2025: 78

Palantir Technologies Inc. (NASDAQ:PLTR) was in the news this week after NVIDIA CEO Jensen Huang mentioned the firm during his GTC Washington keynote. NVIDIA announced a partnership with Palantir Technologies Inc. (NASDAQ:PLTR) through which the firms will use NVIDIA’s GPUs for Palantir’s Ontology platform. The technology stack resulting from the deal aims to target “operational AI” by delivering analytics, workflows, and other services. Palantir Technologies Inc. (NASDAQ:PLTR)’s shares have gained 161% year-to-date and are close to the $200 mark. Cramer has been repeatedly bullish on the firm throughout the year and has been joyous about predicting that the stock would cross the $100 and $150 levels before it did. Naturally, he discussed Palantir Technologies Inc. (NASDAQ:PLTR)’s share price again in this appearance:

“Who did the best yesterday that didn’t get the credit? Palantir. And here we go. My fifty, my 150 go to 200 price target, I’m tempted, I’m tempted. . I even think they’re starting to like me but they would never admit that. That would be too hard for them.”

While we acknowledge the potential of PLTR to grow, our conviction lies in the belief that some AI stocks hold greater promise for delivering higher returns and have limited downside risk. If you are looking for an AI stock that is more promising than PLTR and that has 100x upside potential, 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. Insider Monkey focuses on uncovering the best investment ideas of hedge funds and insiders. Please subscribe to our free daily e-newsletter to get the latest investment ideas from hedge funds’ investor letters by entering your email address below.