During the most recent episode of Mad Money, Jim Cramer opened the show by emphasizing just how much American companies depend on China, during a time when the U.S. President is looking to strike a deal with the Chinese President:
“President Trump better be a much tougher negotiator than President Xi because right now we’re so hooked on China. It’s almost hard to believe. […] Every day I hear some company say that it’s doing its best to wean itself off China. But we depend on so much. We depend on them for manufacturing, on our goods, our raw materials that it’s just not easy. Sometimes it can’t even be done.“
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Jim Cramer also gave his own view on the current administration’s trade strategy
“Some in the White House believe that allowing imports from Vietnam might give China a stealth way, a back door to get around the tariffs. Now, that’s why Vietnam’s tariffs from Liberation Day is 46%. That it’s crazy. China and Vietnam haven’t been buddy buddies since the early 70s. They still have periodic border disputes. It would be easy for our government to audit American companies from Vietnam to see where the goods originate, where this stuff comes from. Let’s be a little more rigorous, please. And Trump’s first term moving from China to Vietnam was the right move. Now it’s dead wrong. Retailers behind the scenes are furious, but who wants to be called out in this environment.”
Our Methodology
For this article, we compiled a list of 9 stocks that were discussed by Jim Cramer during the Mad Money episodes that aired between the 27th and 31st of May 2024. We then calculated their performance for the past 12 months, until June 4th, 2025, market close. We have also included the hedge fund sentiment for the stocks, which we sourced from Insider Monkey’s Q1 2025 database of over 900 hedge funds. The stocks are listed in the order that Cramer mentioned them.
Please note that this article mentions Jim Cramer’s previous opinions and may not account for any changes to his opinions regarding the stocks that are mentioned. It is primarily an examination of how his previously provided opinions have panned out.
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).
9. Novo Nordisk A/S (NYSE:NVO)
Number of Hedge Fund Holders: 60
In a prior call, a viewer asked about Novo Nordisk A/S (NYSE:NVO) as a long-term growth stock. Cramer gave it credit but made it clear he preferred Eli Lilly due to a promising Alzheimer’s-related drug in its pipeline. He said:
“NVO is a good growth stock… but I like Lilly better because Lilly may have, and it hasn’t happened yet, a little bit of a kick from another drug that it’s working on involving dementia… and I sure hope they solve it, but we’ve not seen anything about it yet.”
The pharma stock did not prove to be a growth stock at all, as it has declined by -49.32% since.
Novo Nordisk A/S (NYSE:NVO) is a Denmark-based pharmaceutical company that specializes in diabetes care, obesity treatments, and hormone replacement therapies.
Cramer continues to like Eli Lilly better. Here’s what he said about Novo on May 2:
“Next, did Novo Nordisk deliver a knockout punch to Eli Lilly when it signed a deal to be the preferred GLP-1 supplier to CVS on Lilly’s earnings day, no less? What a comeuppance. I think there’s plenty of gas in the Lily tank, especially once it tells it’s, you know, once it’s got this pill formulation that’s going to be available next year. I think it’s going to matter tremendously.”
8. Pfizer Inc. (NYSE:PFE)
Number of Hedge Fund Holders: 99
In that older episode, a viewer asked whether it was time to sell or hold shares of Pfizer Inc. (NYSE:PFE), a stock struggling with post-COVID uncertainty and weak pipeline sentiment. Cramer acknowledged the challenges but urged patience, highlighting the company’s acquisition of Seagen:
“I think we’re going to see some results from Seagen — remember they bought Seattle Genetics. You’ve got that yield, they’re paying you to wait. It’s kind of like a CD with maybe some upside.”
He said to be patient with the Seagen deal, but PFE is down -20.52%, showing it was the wrong call.
Pfizer Inc. (NYSE:PFE) is a multinational pharmaceutical corporation that develops and manufactures medicines and vaccines across therapeutic areas including oncology, cardiology, and infectious disease.
Cramer hasn’t changed his view on the pharma stock at all. Here’s what he said on May 30:
“Oh, they are. You know something, David, I’m with you. 7% yield. It’s got to be something big coming out of that Seagen acquisition real soon about some hard to beat cancers. I am with Albert Bourla and I am with you. I think we can own the stock of Pfizer.”
7. Bristol-Myers Squibb Company (NYSE:BMY)
Number of Hedge Fund Holders: 69
In an older segment, a long-time listener asked about Bristol-Myers Squibb Co. (NYSE:BMY) given its dividend and drug pipeline. Cramer wasn’t optimistic and said he’d prefer Pfizer for yield-focused investors. He stated:
“I think that you’re going to be paid to wait for things… but it’s going to be a long wait. If I want to be paid to wait, I’d rather be in Pfizer than I would be in Bristol-Myers.”
Cramer picked the wrong name, as BMY rose +15.13% while Pfizer lagged.
Bristol-Myers Squibb Company (NYSE:BMY) is a global biopharmaceutical company focused on developing drugs for cancer, cardiovascular disease, and immunological disorders.
Although Cramer holds the stock in his charitable trust, he’s still waiting for it to bottom before buying back into it. Here are his comments from May 14:
“Let’s get started with the stocks that sold off hard today, because I think it’s really important, because you know most, if not all, of these companies. Why don’t we start with Bristol Myers, which we own for the Charitable Trust? Now here’s a drug company with a decent oncology franchise that happens to be facing what’s known as a huge patent cliff, alright… meaning it’s about to have some highly lucrative drugs lose their patent protection, therefore not make them much money at all. We own it in part because of the yield. They’re paying you to wait for new drugs that turn things around. The chief one is COBENFY. It’s a potentially revolutionary drug that treats some tough neurological problems, including schizophrenia. Now we sold some of this stock when it had this ridiculous spike right here… some bizarre rotation into safety, but now Bristol’s in the mid-40s. Now, we haven’t bought back all of the stock that we sold. We’re waiting for it to bottom because its most recent studies using COBENFY, it’s one study, it came up snake eyes. Management has said over and over again that it can pay the dividend, which gives you a 5.6% yield. Why not buy more? Honestly, because I think it can go lower still without evidence that COBENFY is doing better.”
6. Builders FirstSource, Inc. (NYSE:BLDR)
Number of Hedge Fund Holders: 58
In an older call, a viewer asked about buying the dip in Builders FirstSource, Inc. (NYSE:BLDR), especially after the stock approached a key technical level. Cramer expressed concern about broader housing sector weakness, citing negative commentary from Home Depot and Lowe’s at the time. He replied:
“You know how much I like this company but I’ve got to tell you both commentary from Home Depot and Lowe’s was not instructive… not constructive… and it makes me concerned that there is still another leg to fall here. Let’s do this… 162… if it goes to 150, then let’s do something, but we’ve got to wait.”
Craner’s call to wait proved smart, as the stock fell -27.56%.
Builders FirstSource Inc. (NYSE:BLDR) is a leading supplier and manufacturer of building materials, trusses, and prefabricated components to professional contractors in the residential construction industry.
On May 20, Cramer admitted he’s intrigued by the stock and gave his own analysis on it:
“Hey, by the way, while we’re talking about building materials, can we not forget about Builders FirstSource, which is a major consolidator in what used to be a highly fragmented industry? This stock’s been a huge long-term performer, but it’s peaked early last year, and the stock has been tumbling ever since because it’s tied not too directly to a not-so-hot housing market, and that’s because of interest rates. Unlike the rest of the market, Builders FirstSource didn’t recover much in April. Then, when the company reported on May 1st, the stock went lower still because management lowered their full-year forecast.
They’re just not feeling good about single-family housing market. I don’t blame them. It’s not, it’s stagnant. With things looking so bleak for Builders FirstSource, it caught my attention last week, though, when the company disclosed that its Chairman, Paul Levy, had bought a staggering 500,000 shares in the open market for an aggregate purchase price of $55.5 million. That’s about $111 per share.
I gotta tell you, I love to see insider buying, especially when the stock’s been doing badly and the insider’s committing a significant amount of money. Levy’s the founder of JLL Partners, that’s a private equity firm that established Builders FirstSource in the late 90s. So he is been there from the get-go. He knows the business as well as anyone could, and he just increased his stake in the company by 43%.
Now I always tell you that executives sell their stock for all sorts of reasons… but they only buy their own stock in the open market for one reason: because they think it’s going to go higher. So that’s certainly an encouraging thing to see from Mr. Levy at Builders FirstSource. Consider me intrigued.”
5. Axcelis Technologies, Inc. (NASDAQ:ACLS)
Number of Hedge Fund Holders: 27
In an older segment, a viewer asked about Axcelis Technologies, Inc. (NASDAQ:ACLS) following a notable price decline. Cramer reaffirmed the company’s strong fundamentals but noted that the stock was being overlooked by the market at the time. He said:
“That company is a very good semiconductor company… it’s been left behind. I find that very interesting.”
Cramer stayed positive, but the stock crashed -46.86%, proving him wrong.
Axcelis Technologies Inc. (NASDAQ:ACLS) develops and manufactures ion implantation systems and related equipment used in the fabrication of semiconductor chips.
4. TEGNA Inc. (NYSE:TGNA)
Number of Hedge Fund Holders: 33
When a viewer asked about TEGNA Inc. (NYSE:TGNA), Cramer dismissed the stock entirely during that past episode, expressing strong disinterest in anything related to traditional broadcast television. He responded with:
“This is TV stations and I just don’t care for anything involving linear TV. It’s just not where I want to be. I’m sorry.”
Despite dismissing it, the stock is up +11.66% over the past year, making Cramer’s take too harsh.
TEGNA Inc. (NYSE:TGNA) is a broadcasting and digital media company that owns and operates dozens of local television stations and delivers news content to regional markets across the U.S.
3. Astera Labs, Inc. (NASDAQ:ALAB)
Number of Hedge Fund Holders: 45
Back then, a viewer asked about Astera Labs, Inc. (NASDAQ:ALAB), which had recently IPO’d and was gaining attention at the time. Cramer liked the business fundamentals but warned that recent IPOs were still caught in speculative hype. He responded with:
“I like Astera Labs. It’s a little high… a lot of the newer companies that have come public are still involved in a halo. This one started to go down today… Let’s let it come in. There’s a little too much halo to the new IPOs… they are all trading at very high levels right now.”
Cramer was wrong to warn against the IPO-hype as the stock climbed an additional 55.56% since then.
Astera Labs, Inc. (NASDAQ:ALAB) is a semiconductor connectivity company that designs purpose-built chips and system-level solutions to accelerate data transfer between CPUs, GPUs, memory, and AI infrastructure components in data centers and cloud environments.
Astera had a bad start to the year. When asked about it on May 14, Cramer gave a mixed outlook saying it’s a good place to buy but not the best value out there:
“Okay, Astera Labs is a company that is incredibly well run, that has tremendous growth, but like many other companies, that stock has come down in value. I actually think it’s a good place to buy, given the fact that so many of these other stocks actually even have higher price-to-earnings multiples.”
2. Apple Inc. (NASDAQ:AAPL)
Number of Hedge Fund Holders: 159
In that older episode, a caller brought up Apple Inc. (NASDAQ:AAPL) after news broke of strong year-over-year iPhone sales growth in China. Cramer noted the news was positive but emphasized that macroeconomic factors like rising interest rates were pressuring the broader market. He replied:
“Apple was up $2.30–$2.40 at 5:00 AM on this news and then it just proceeded to give up the ghost the whole day because the rest of the market was under a lot of pressure… I think Apple is a buy here. I want you to own it, I don’t want you to trade it.”
Cramer’s steady confidence was fair, with the stock up only +4.76%, this wasn’t one of his best calls.
Apple Inc. (NASDAQ:AAPL) is a global consumer electronics and software company best known for its iPhone, Mac computers, and services ecosystem including iCloud, Apple Music, and the App Store.
Discussing the company’s position regarding the recent trade tensions, he said the following on June 2:
“I don’t even want to think about what’s happened to Apple because it dared to move some iPhone manufacturing from China to India. Trump’s hitting those phones with a 25% tariff because he wants them to be made in the US. From Apple’s perspective, it’s probably cheaper just to pay the 25.”
1. Palantir Technologies Inc. (NASDAQ:PLTR)
Number of Hedge Fund Holders: 77
When asked about Palantir Technologies Inc. (NASDAQ:PLTR), Cramer surprised viewers by walking back his previous support. He said he could no longer recommend the stock due to a lack of clarity around the business model.
“I think here’s the problem… I know that the back end is good… It’s very tough to understand what they really do for the government. So therefore I am no longer going to say that that’s a stock to own. I can’t figure out what they do.”
Cramer’s call to drop Palantir was clearly wrong as the stock surged +524.62% since.
Palantir Technologies Inc. (NASDAQ:PLTR) develops big data analytics platforms used by government agencies and enterprises for intelligence, defense, and operational decision-making.
However, Cramer recently recommended the stock as one of the riskiest ones he would recommend a baby with $1000 to buy. Here are his comments from June 3:
“When you give money to a baby, what you’re really doing is investing in long-dated assets that can compound over time. Truly amounts to something by the time the kid turns, I don’t know, even 18. So what should the baby do with her money? Well, I just have a plan. We need this baby to take risk, but we also need her to be diversified. I know that the prevailing money management orthodoxy is to go all in on index funds because the experts don’t believe you’re smart enough to handle your own money. But the truth is that in this case, you can… split the baby’s account.
You want to put $500 in the Nasdaq 100 to get diversified exposure, and this one does skew toward tech, I don’t mind that, and then you want to pick five stocks for the other 500. I prefer the first one to be risky. You could take a Palantir, ridiculously expensive stock, consulting company uses AI to conquer organizations, show them how to become more efficient.”
While we acknowledge the potential of PLTR as an investment, 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.
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