In this article, we will take a look at 12 stocks that Jim Cramer discussed 6 months ago during his show on July 29, 2024, and examine whether he was right or wrong about those stocks.
Back then, Cramer was talking about the “great broadening” which he described as the event where every stock was rallying except for the large cap stocks. He said:
“This market is not experiencing a small cap rally, it’s experiencing a rally in everything else but the tech titans.”
He also pointed out that many small-cap stocks were being bought indiscriminately through index funds like the Russell 2000, the S&P Small Cap 600, and the S&P Mid Cap 400.
“The big institutions don’t have time to examine all these different small-cap stocks, they just buy the index itself as an entity because it’s still historically cheap, even after this rally.”
That’s the essence of the broadening—some real treasures and some real trash getting scooped up together. He then explained:
“The treasure being companies that do better when interest rates go down like when the Fed starts cutting.”
Unlike the cash-rich tech giants that don’t need lower interest rates, small caps benefit tremendously from falling rates. That’s why investors were selling their big-tech winners from earlier in the year and cycling into cheaper small-cap stocks.
Jim Cramer was particularly enthusiastic about this narrative back then and said that investors should “celebrate the market’s good breadth”.
Our Methodology
For this article, we compiled a list of 12 stocks that were discussed by Jim Cramer during the episode of Mad Money on July 29, 2024. We then calculated their performance from July 29th, 2024, market close to February 4th, 2025, market close. We have also included the hedge fund sentiment for the stocks, which we sourced from Insider Monkey’s Q3 2024 database of over 900 hedge funds. The stocks are listed in the order that Cramer mentioned them.
Note: This article covers Jim Cramer’s commentary from July 29, 2024, and does not account for any changes in his opinions regarding the stocks mentioned. Therefore, the commentary should not be mistaken for his latest opinions on any of the stocks that are mentioned.
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12. McDonalds (NYSE:MCD)
Number of Hedge Fund Investors: 60
McDonald’s had reported weak same-store sales back then, missing both revenue and earnings expectations. But instead of getting punished, the stock jumped nearly 4%. But Cramer wasn’t buying the optimism, saying:
“Frankly, nobody was truly disappointed by McDonald’s because everyone expected them to have bad numbers.”
The company had rolled out a $5 value meal plan to spark demand, but Cramer saw it as a desperation move:
“The fact that McDonald’s would kick out a plan to return to growth was enough to get everyone excited.”
However, the stock is up 11% since the episode aired in July, which shows that McDonald’s growth has, in fact, been working so far.
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