In this article, we will look at Jim Cramer’s 5 Stock Q1 Recap: S&P 500 Winners vs. Nasdaq 100’s Worst Performers. Please visit Jim Cramer’s 19 Stock Q1 Recap: S&P 500 Winners vs. Nasdaq 100’s Worst Performers, if you’d like to see the extended list and methodology behind it.
5. CF Industries Holdings, Inc. (NYSE:CF)
CF Industries Holdings, Inc. (NYSE:CF) is among the stocks in focus as Jim Cramer reviewed the S&P 500’s top performers and the Nasdaq 100’s biggest laggards for the first quarter. Cramer highlighted the reasons for the stock’s price action, as he commented:
The seventh best performer in the S&P was CF Industries, up nearly 68%, which makes some of the key inputs for fertilizer. Even before the war, we had the beginning of a bull market in agriculture. Then, when the Persian Gulf got blocked off, we realized there would be a fertilizer shortage. Now, that’s bad for just about everybody, including you, because the food price is going to go up. But it’s terrific for CF Industries and its compadres. Not that many of them, though.
CF Industries Holdings, Inc. (NYSE:CF) produces ammonia and nitrogen products like granular urea and ammonium nitrate. The company also provides diesel exhaust fluid, urea liquor, and nitric acid.
4. Dow Inc. (NYSE:DOW)
Dow Inc. (NYSE:DOW) is among the stocks in focus as Jim Cramer reviewed the S&P 500’s top performers and the Nasdaq 100’s biggest laggards for the first quarter. Cramer said that the stock could pull back in case the war ends and the Strait of Hormuz is opened. He said:
Let’s talk about the next group, the companies that benefit from Iran’s shutdown of the Strait of Hormuz. You got LyondellBasell, it’s up 86%, it’s plastics, Dow, up 78%, polyethylene chiefly, well, they make a lot of others, but that’s really the driver, the third and fourth best performers in the S&P. These are two commodity chemical companies, and their stocks were some of the worst performers in the index last year, but they were already starting to bounce back in January, weeks before the war with Iran kicked off, because everybody thought we’d get multiple rate cuts this year, and that’s true for textbook cyclical stocks like the petrochemicals. Turns out they benefit even more from petrochemical shortages caused by the Iranian government. I think Dow and LyondellBasell might be at risk of a pullback if the war ends and the Strait reopens. But then again, there’s a real possibility Iran will keep the Strait closed after we leave just to show us they mean business. I don’t want to, I really don’t want to mess with these… I think you should kaching kaching.
Dow Inc. (NYSE:DOW) develops chemical and material products used in packaging, construction, transportation, and consumer industries.
3. Ciena Corporation (NYSE:CIEN)
Ciena Corporation (NYSE:CIEN) is among the stocks in focus as Jim Cramer reviewed the S&P 500’s top performers and the Nasdaq 100’s biggest laggards for the first quarter. Cramer mentioned the stock during the episode and said:
Going further down the list, the eighth-best performer, Ciena, is, it’s in the same boat. It’s another fiber optic play that’s up 66% thanks to a surging demand for networking from the data center. Ciena also returned to its place in the S&P 500 back in February. As long as we keep building these things, they’re going to need companies like Ciena. So again, you see the pattern that I’m concerned about?
These stocks just came right back today, and they provided the leadership for today and then the last day of the quarter. Here’s the problem. We know how bad the last quarter was, right? So therefore, we know these don’t have a lot of followers, and they don’t have a lot of followers even today.
Ciena Corporation (NYSE:CIEN) builds networking equipment, including optical systems, routers, and switches, and provides software to manage and automate networks.
2. Lumentum Holdings Inc. (NASDAQ:LITE)
Lumentum Holdings Inc. (NASDAQ:LITE) is among the stocks in focus as Jim Cramer reviewed the S&P 500’s top performers and the Nasdaq 100’s biggest laggards for the first quarter. Cramer mentioned the company’s recent addition to the S&P 500, as he remarked:
Next up, the second-best performer in the S&P was Lumentum Holdings. That’s a fiber optics play that just got added to the index last week, hence the 90.7% gain in the first quarter after the stock quadrupled last year. As long as the AI data center build-out continues unabated, I think these fiber optics stocks can keep winning, although maybe not as much as they’ve been winning over the last 15 months. Still, good for them. Welcome to the big show, Lumentum.
Lumentum Holdings Inc. (NASDAQ:LITE) designs and sells optical and photonic products, including lasers and components, for cloud networking, data centers, and industrial applications. Cramer mentioned the company during the March 12 episode and said:
If you’re looking for groups to buy into weakness as rising oil prices crush the stock market, you can do a lot worse than the data center suppliers. Later this month, two optical companies are joining the S&P 500: Coherent, which we spoke to earlier this week, and Lumentum. Now, both of them are getting $2 billion investment from NVIDIA, but Lumentum’s been the better performer. It’s up nearly 900% over the past 12 months, despite an 8% decline today as part of that broader tech-led sell-off.
1. Sandisk Corporation (NASDAQ:SNDK)
Sandisk Corporation (NASDAQ:SNDK) is among the stocks in focus as Jim Cramer reviewed the S&P 500’s top performers and the Nasdaq 100’s biggest laggards for the first quarter. Cramer highlighted it as the top-performing S&P 500 stock for the first quarter. He stated:
Let’s do tech hardware first. The number one performer in the S&P was Sandisk, up 167.7%. The maker of flash memory storage products more than quadrupled last year, and it kept running in the first quarter, thanks to the data center-induced memory shortage. This time, Sandisk broke away from the rest of the pack, Western Digital, Seagate, and Micron, which are up 18 to 57%. I mean, it’s still pretty darn good, but nowhere near close to Sandisk. The thing is, while the memory stocks were all white hot in January, then resilient in February and early March, they did get obliterated over the last couple of weeks.
Micron, for example, reported an incredible quarter in mid-March, but its stock fell from $461 on March 18th all the way down to $321 on Monday, even though it was a good quarter. Can these stocks recover from the recent pullbacks and start moving higher? Well, if you’re a memory bull, the last two days have been pretty darn encouraging. As soon as President Trump started talking about unilaterally ending the war, Sandisk and its compadres just caught fire. I always tell you this is inherently a boom and bust industry, but we’ve only had four quarters in the boom so far. Historically, I’ve found that they tend to last at least six. Still, my guess is that the easy money’s already been made here. I don’t blame if you want try to be in, but it’s not my style.
Sandisk Corporation (NASDAQ:SNDK) sells NAND flash-based storage solutions, including solid-state drives, embedded storage, removable cards, and USB drives.
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