Mad Money w/ Jim Cramer 1/30/26

Hey, I'm Kramer. Welcome to Mad Money. Welcome to Kramerica. Other people make friends. I'm just trying to make a little bit of money here. My job is not just to entertain, but to educate you. So call me at 1-800-743-CBC or tweet me at Jim Kramer. Sick of earnings yet? Sorry, got another big week ahead, roughly 20% of the SP 500. Living hell if you follow a lot of companies like I do. Fortunately we're coming in cold.

We had a nice pullback today, Dow dipping 179 points, SME declining 0.43%, Nasdaq shedding 0.94%. We're actually a little oversold. Now that could allow us to get a good bounce if we get any good earnings numbers, given that the market fought back hard for the lows today, which is a very bullish developer. But before we get too far into the game plan, let's talk about the biggest deal of the week, and that's the nomination of Kevin Walsh as the next. Chief of the Fed.

Walsh is a banker, he's a financier, he's a real smart guy. He's rigorous, he understands, he's disciplined. At the same time, he's dealing with a president who acts like he wants to be Walsh's boss. Even as the Fed chief once selected, supposed to be independent of the executive branch.

Tricky situation here, especially after what we've seen happen to our current Fed chief chair Pal. Trump hated the Powell, whom by the way he appointed, was so independent, refused to cut interest rates on demand. So he was endlessly ridiculed.

I do think Walsh knows the penalty he might have to pay for going against Trump. Instant and incessant hectoring on true social. Belittling. Hmm. That's something probably new to Walsh. We'll be spared rancor as long as Walsh does the president's bidding. But he's gotta be careful. The President does act as if the Fed is just another agency and the chair a merely another cabinet member.

I I know there's no quid pro quo here, but there could be some caustic fireworks. Bad for stocks if things really go awry. Bad for you and me. Of course I don't think the market went down today because of this FedPit. It was a market that was led by the collapse in silver, settling down a staggering 31%, and a dive in gold, which was down only about 11%, and a harring in a bunch of weaker tech stocks, while the defensive stocks soared.

Convoluted session, Fracty. Bears and Bulls put on gloves and went at it. And the Bears won, seemingly out of M Lee, more than anything else.

Maybe next week, which includes an employment number, will be a little more conclusive. When we come in on Monday, we'll be facing the earnings of the Walt Disney Corporation. We used to own this stock for the Travel Trust and left it because it just couldn't seem to get any traction. There was always some division that held it back. I dunno which it is this

Uh you never do. Now the journal this very evening said that we might find out this week who will be CEO of Bob Iger's successor. It could be a vote. The right choice could certainly break that log jam that's kept in such a tight range. Another uh after the close, a company that once had an electric stock, Palantir Technologies, the software consulting company run by Alex Cart.

A Carp is going to report. Now look I am expecting a terrific quarter. I am not concerned about the action. I think the stock is going to reignite. Carp's a fighter. He can come back from this. Anyway, it's up really big if you ask if you had look two years Now Tuesday's filled with high profile companies like PepsiGo, Merck, and Pfizer in the morning.

I worry about PepsiCo because of its snack division free to late. It's struggling, a casualty with GOP-1 weight loss drugs. At the same time, CEO Raymond McGuarda could be ready to take some serious actions to lessen the company's independence on snacks. Now the stock did close almost five points higher today. That's a huge f move for the stock. Maybe something's going on, or that whole group just went nuts today after a great quarter from Colgate.

Merck has a lot to talk about, namely some real wins from its bountiful acquisition spree. I'd like the stock little too heavy on Keith Truder right now, but I think he can.

spread out the wealth. On the other hand I worry about Pfizer because while its stock has a terrific yield, I haven't seen anything of late that would make me make me feel there's a new blockbuster here that could move the needle. Although I was Thinking about when I saw Verizon do that today, which was also a bond that turned into a stock that I maybe could add in the Pfizer.

After the close we get advan uh earnings from advanced microdevices AMD. I fear that it could be a terrific number and the stock will still go down, which has suddenly become the new pattern for semis. Chipotle Imports 2. Now this went so low it might actually bounce, even if the quarter isn't spectacular. We which is probably probably not, but it doesn't matter. It's too

With Amgen, I don't know if you remember at the JP Morgan Healthcare conference, I heard a lot of good things. The biotech really impressed me with a very strong pipeline. That plus good earnings and maybe some good news about this weight loss drug could send this Dow stock higher. We've also got an important analyst meeting on Tuesday. I'm talking about with Western Digital.

Oh boy, this is critical because we just got the earnings this week. They were great and yet the stock still went down. We have to find out what that's about. Western digital stock has been one of the best performers of this era, but the storage device company truly is part of the problem now, not the solution when it comes to its customers.

Sandis, Western Digital Seagate didn't see the strength of its clients coming, especially the data center demand. Plus n none planned to expand their factories enough to alleviate the tightness anytime soon. That's done real damage to their customer base. Companies like Apple, which barely finished up today in the wake of a tremendous quarter, because people worried about this chip shortage. Whose fault is that? Nobody's really. No one saw this coming except yes indeed Jensen Wong.

The godfather of AI and CEO of Nvidia. He saw it. Why didn't anyone listen to him? We were shouting it from the rooftop. Wednesday morning, Eli Lilly reports. Its earnings haven't been the propellant here. What drives the stock are new reports on GOP-1 clinical trials. But Lilly could announce some new data, and that could get the stock rolling.

At the close we hear from the best stock in the business, at least by my count, the one that we bought back, the travel trust, because I just did I had such sellers from worse here. Alphabet. Yeah, this is a company that many wrote office, the least of the magnificent seven, because they figured that wouldn't Google wreck Gemini. Instead it turned out to be Stephen Queen, by the way, the coolest of them all, and he gets to live.

Whether it be Gemini the best of the chat bots or YouTube the most popular video site in the world or Waymo, yes, self driving cars or Google itself. It doesn't matter. Outfit's the best and when it reports I think you could run. Oh, and I have a wild card for you. The president's on the war path against all sorts of companies in the health in the uh health care chain. You know, I mean we saw them this week when uh

Uh on Humana, on United Health, on CVS. Well when you get doctors and drug execs and health insurers. offline to ask who makes the most and does the least. They always say it's the drug middlemen, the distributors between the drug companies and the consumer. When I ask is, hey, is it McKesson? They don't say a thing, but they wink. I'll tell you this. When they this company reports

Thursday evening we have some real controversial stocks. It all starts with Amazon, which has become a bit of a gr battleground, frankly. This one used to roar on earnings. Now if Amazon goes up, it gets faded as sellers appear everywhere. If it goes down, you know what? At the opening, it just keeps going lower. Boston has shuffled the greatness of the company itself. We own it for the travel trust. I'm a believer. I know it hasn't been a good returner. Let's see what happens.

And then there's a firm which I think will put up a fantastic quarter and once again the Bears will be put on the run by CEO Max Levchin. I think this buy now pay later Kinkman should be bought. Yes, but ahead of the court. And then there's Reddit, which seems to move in twenty point increments every time anybody says anything. I bet it's up this time.

Finally on Friday we get an employment report that may be weaker than many people think, with wage inflation on the tamer side. That would be terrific for bonds as rates go lower and stocks can take off. Crazy? I don't think so. As a matter of fact, I think it's a distinct possibility.

The bottom line, if we can tame wage inflation, maybe the president can stop harassing Jay Powell for his last few months on the job. Wouldn't that be nice? Because at that point the Fed will have every justification to keep cutting rates. But if the employment report comes in too hot

This faithful public servant may have to go down swinging. Jim in Florida, Jim. Jimmy Chill, a big thank you to you and your staff for all of the years of help. Oh, thank you, staff. It's dynamite. Let's go to work. I'm calling about a pharmaceutical stock I bought about ten years ago and it's up quite a bit and I was thinking about selling my position in it and and getting into Abbey which has a better yield. Ticker symbol A Z N S is in a

Uh I like AstraZeneca very much in that cancer franchise turned up to be a lot stronger than I thought. I think you should hold on to that. Uh Abby reports this week. I expect a very good quarter. I like the dividend, but I think AstraZeneca's got a better portfolio at this very moment. Now if next week's employment report comes in too hot, all right It was a big week for earnings, almost 20% of the SP 500 reporting, and I'm reviewing the

And then you gotta take them to Google Bad, right? I'm discussing the five of the worst or Eats, yes, the symbol. It's the pear cupy of chilies in its Post earnings gains. take a bite of this pullback, I'll give you a hint. I think the C And I want you to stay. Question? Tweet Kramer. Mad Mentions. Send Jim an email to Mad Mentions. Call at 1-800-743-CNBC.

If we're in the busiest weeks of the year with almost 20% of the SP 500 reporting earnings, I bet it's impossible to keep track of everything. Look, I try to highlight the most important ones, but there's only so much time in the show and so much time to study. That's why tonight I want to cover ten key earning stories that did not get enough attention on our air or in whatever serves as being papers of records these days. So five good, five bad. Let's start with the good.

And then I'll get the bad. Maybe even some ugly too. Lee Van Cleave. What a hero. Back on Wednesday night, Southwest Air, symbol of love, reported a stunning quarter that said it stocked up nearly 19% yesterday, even after a weekend where bad weather caused countless flights to be canceled.

Southwest has actually been doing very well under the leadership of CEO Bob Jordan, who took up over four years ago, especially since the very smart activists and vessels at Elliott Management took a big stake in the airline back in 2024. Jordan wisely agreed to cooperate. He saw the light.

Now last year Southwest took a big risk with some new policies that made the airline a lot less customer-friendly, at least for those of us who remember the old way, and it's a lot more like the rest of the industry. No more free bags. Assigned seats. cured boarding groups, fees for additional leg room. And guess what? It's working!

When South Clips reported two days ago, the headline numbers were just okay, but they gave a very bullish full year forecast. Management says their earnings per share came more than quadruple this year, and that's why the stock took off.

Next, we've seen big runs in all sorts of semiconductor stocks this week, especially the memory and data storage players, but those they get a lot of attention. I'm going to talk about another one that was a little less explosive, but I thought really was one of one of the most important developments. in the industry and that's Texas industry. Which issued tremendous guidance on Tuesday night, saw its stock rally 10% the next day. This stock usually used to do those moves in in the 80s.

But hasn't done it a long time. Texas cancer are notable because this analog chipmaker has lagged the broader semi-Dr. Gribb in recent years. It has a little data center data exposure, about 9% of sales, but it's much more leverage to the real world economy. Most of the businesses come from industrial and automotive end markets. Now the actual quarter was a minor disappointment, but the stock roared because text instruments gave much better than expected guidance for the current quarter.

While Text Instruments typically sees a sequential earnings decline from the first fourth quarter of the first quarter, that's very usual for semi-doctor makers of the old school, due to seasonal trends for its top end markets. This time they're predicting a sequential increase from the fourth quarter. Why? Magic explained that Texans' industrial and markets are showing signs of recovery, with orders improving throughout the fourth quarter. And its smaller data center business, I gotta tell you.

I think it's really worth watching because it is gonna grow and grow. It's up sixty-four percent year over year in twenty twenty-five. That's what drove the breakout. Uh the company was actually uh effusive for the first time in since. Like nineteen eighty five. Next, how about this rally in Cisco and that's the SYY kind, the food distributor, not the networking giant.

Cisco shot up almost eleven percent on Tuesday in response to the company's earnings report that morning. So modest top and bottom line beat. But even a small beat was impressive here because Wall Street has been pretty down on the restaurant industry, which Cisco's core customer base.

Plus management explained that quote January is out of the gate strong, end quote, and they now expect their fit their earnings for fiscal twenty twenty-six, that's a twelve-month period ending in June, will come in at the high end of their previous forecast. Very interesting to have a January strong. That's typically not the pattern of the industry.

CEO Kevin Hurricane said Cisco was, quote, now solidly in positive volume growth territory, and he expects, quote, continued positive momentum for the second half of the year, end quote, meaning the first six months of calendar 2026. I gotta tell you, this was a name that had fallen off my radar drew because of the worries about the consumer and the status of the restaurant industry, but Cisco's cheap is trading eighteen times this year's earnings estimates.

With a decent 2.6% yield, and the business is clearly doing better than people thought. Fourth, hey, TT, training technologies, which rallied 8% yesterday in response to a really strong quarter. Big heating ventilation ventilation air conditioning companies like Train and Carrier have generally done well carrier just okay lately for the past couple of years because you need their climate control equipment to keep data centers from overheating, among other things.

However, train stocks sold off in the second half of last year, mostly thanks to a slowdown in the residential side of their business. Basically housing workers, you know that housing markets weak. Tram was even forced to cut its full year forecast for 2025 when it reported in late October. But a Wednesday night, train delivered a top and bottom line beat for the fourth quarter, as well as excellent booking numbers for the commercial side of the business.

On top of that, they issued a bullish forecast for 2026, implying they'll have twelve to fourteen percent year-over-year earnings growth. Nothing fancy, just a good, solid beat with an encouraging full-year forecast, underpinned by strength in their data center business. That was enough to break the stock out of its multi-month downturn.

Finally, we got encouraging signs about the freight market this week. You know, we've been worried about a freight recession here. This time, C. H. Robinson Worldwide, the logistics company, popped more than five percent yesterday. He responds to a very solid quarter. I've been looking for confirmation that a freight market recovery, not a recession, might be in the course as the transports have rallied nicely in recent months. That confirmation has proved.

Earlier this month, JB Hunt, the big trucking company, imported a good quarter mostly driven by cost cuts, management sounding far from confident about freight demand. How about C.H. Robinson? Again, I was hoping for some constructive commentary on the freight business, but instead we got more of what we heard from J.B. Hunt.

This company delivered nicer earnings be but its sales declined six point five percent year year with weak pricing in volume for ocean services as well as weak pricing for truckload services. Now, some bullish analysts tried to seize on a couple of positive aspects of the report, like higher volume in the company's truckload business. I think that's a stretch.

Uh really, it seems like C. H. Robinson's benefiting from market share gains and self help initiatives to put up good numbers in spite of a still very weak freight business. B the performance of the stock has been really great over the last year. Of course, in some ways, that makes these numbers all the more impressive. C.H. Robinson has rallied 130% from its post-liberation day lows, and Madras doing a terrific job playing the cards they've been dealt.

I was just hoping they'd get a better hand this quarter and that didn't happen, but this one's still a terrific stop. Here's the bottom line. Tonight we're covering the most important earnings stories that I haven't been getting attention. We all know that you can talk about the disk drives all you want or whatever. What we need to talk about are these, and I just gave you five winners. And if you stick around after the break, I've got five over. Losers.

that we have to Coming up, earnings season is in full swing, but it hasn't been. Good news on Wall Street. They end up a very busy week for corporate earnings. I wanna catch up on some of the biggest stories and we really didn't have much chance to cover.

Before the break, I talked about five real good ones. Now I'm gonna give you five bummers. First, sadly, because I really like these guys, there's this trade desk. Uh the advertising technology company that's gone from a market darling just a few years ago to a chronic underperformer. As these guys have struggled to adopt the new AI era, the trade test was out of the SP 500 last year, and then it ended last year as the worst performance index down 68%.

Wall Street's worried about these online advertising middlemen. They might not have much of a future in worlds where meta uh platforms can use AI to handle all their targeted advertising needs. You don't really need to know the uh what the trade desk does. And if you were hoping for a turnaround from the trade desk in 2026, you were sorely disappointed. The stock already down another 20% for the year, including a 17%. This week.

And this isn't even an earnings story. The trade desk proportioned full results in February. It's something much worse. On Monday, the company announced that had fired its CFO after only five months on the job. At the same time, management reaffirmed their guidance for the fourth quarter. In a vacuum that would be just fine, but Wall Street hates it when a CFO leaves out of nowhere. And this guy getting fired after only five months really does not inspire a lot of confidence.

Makes you worry that something might be very wrong here. Yikes! Eventually trade desks might become too cheap to ignore. At the moment, the stock's selling for roughly fifteen times this year's earnings assume, down from sixty-two times earnings at the beginning of last year. But nobody wants to stick their neck out and make that bet right now.

Out of left field, CFO departure equals sell. Next, United Reynolds plunged nearly 13% if the company reported weak results Wednesday night. That could be a sign for the economy. I get it. This big equipment rental company has reported an outright miss with mildly softer than expected sales and much softer than expected earnings. Four-year forecast for revenue, EBITDA, and cash flow also came in light.

What's the problem here? Okay, in the construction market there is some building happening, but a lot of it's coming from large companies doing mega projects, which is bad for United Rentals because the big boys can drive a much harder bargain than say some of the smaller home builders. Overall, I don't think United Reynolds is a lost cause.

Stocks now cheap, trading into this uh at less than 17 times this year's earnings estimate. Management also announced a five billion dollar buyback that's equivalent to more than 10% of its market cap. But as one analyst put it in this this week, the stock quote may remain in purgatory, end quote, for a bit. Until investors have confidence in a broader construction market recovery or see some signs that United Readers margins are moving in the right direction.

In truck rental we now like equipment share, which recently came public. That's a fast regore with an acid light lighter model. We did a profile of them earlier in the week. I really, really like it. Next, Las Vegas Sands caught my eye with a nearly fourteen percent decline yesterday. This casino company has fallen a bit off my radar ever since it made a major pivot roughly five years ago.

selling off its remaining Vegas assets and becoming more of a pure player on Asia with five casinos. Five in Macau, one in Singapore. The stock's been up and down since the trading, mainly on the strength of the Chinese consumer. Way too hard to gain. This Wednesday night, Las Vegas Sands reported a top and bottom line B, but the stock got clobbered anyway because of disappointing margins in Macau, thanks to higher promotional costs after some expensive preseason NBA games.

The management tried to spin these events as positive, and plenty of analysts defended the company, calling the post-quarter pullback a buying opportunity. Well, I'm not sure I like anything gambling you say. I know you ask me a lot about DraftKings. Boy, that's struggling. They're all struggling. Uh plus you never know w well I s win's doing better than than expected. Plus you never know when the Chinese Communist Party will do another crackdown on conspicuous consumption.

Fourth, we got uh really confusing results from automatic data, EDP America's top payroll processor. On Wednesday, uh the stock went down five one point five percent. When you zoom out, This was just the latest lag leg lower for ADP, which is now up more than twenty five percent from its highest. This is a really good company.

What's weird about this one is the fact that the quarter really didn't seem all that bad. I went through it. I didn't see much I didn't like. And if he gave us solid top and bottom line B, they also raised the low end of their four year sales and earnings estimates. uh fr uh forecast for fiscal twenty twenty six. On paper it was clean beaten raise. What gift?

Uh a to me, it looked like Wall Street simply convinced that the payroll processors are doomed thanks to the rise of, yes, I know, you're probably tired of hearing it, AI. When ADP's management was asked about this on the call, CFO Peter Hadley said they're quote, not really seeing anything discernible there, end quote, even as they're watching it closely. Even that bothered people. Jeez.

Obviously the broader job market has slowed, but ADP's numbers are fine for the f time being. I can't tell whether the market's getting this one wrong. I know the analysts were a little bit tough on these guys. For now all I know is that ADP paychecks and their fellow travelers have become The House of Pain. Finally, there's all right, this is what's a little funny, but I don't mean to laugh if you own the stock or if you work there, but roper technology.

It's a fascinating story. For over a century this was a fabulous industrial company. I always liked it so much. Dates back to the late 1800s with various different focuses over the years, maker of home appliances, pumps, other industrial products, always being the best at what they do. But starting around fifteen years ago, Roper began acquiring a series of software companies.

Gradually moving away from its metal bending roots. In this new software-centric era for Roper, the company's operated like a private equity firm, snapping up software businesses it likes. Most a mostly allowing them to operate independently, many of them I think very expensive acquisitions. And in fairness, the strategy worked great for its first 15 years.

Problem is enterprise software is going out of style in the Wall Street Fashion Show. Investors are paying much, much lower prices to earnings multiples for these stocks nowadays. As we know from the investment punishment meted out to ServiceNow, Adobe, and Salesforce.com, among other enterprise software companies.

Which brings me to Tuesday morning when Roper reported a mixed quarter, a revenue miss paired with a small earnings beat, and the stock ultimately got hit. Why? Because Roper's full year forecast missed expectations on every line. And their earnings guidance for the current quarter also came up short. Now Roper looks like a bad house in a bad neighborhood, and I'm not sure what could get investors interested in this stock again, at least until the company starts delivering some better print.

I think this one doesn't bounce back until the Enterprise Software Cohort finally gets out of the and I don't see that happen anytime soon.

I can't get to every report from this insanely busy week, but at least you're up to speed on ten more important stories from the week. Five were good, five were bad, all were important, all worth keeping an eye on. Anne Indiana, Anne. Hey Jim, I'm a club member. Thanks for taking my call. Of course. Thank you for joining me. Bugging you again. Yeah. Bugging you again about AutoZone after I read the article about supplier financing in the journal. And wondering

How much is too much and what metric or metrics I should be looking at for that? That has been you know a bugaboo. Uh look, I think this is an incredibly well run company. It generates a gigantic amount of cash. I think that this is I'm gonna say it again.

I think this whole downturn in AutoZone is going to prove out to be a terrific buying opportunity. I am not backing away. ACO I like very much. Uh and thank you again for being a member of the club. After this heavy week of earnings, sometimes it pays to pay attention to stocks that aren't There are plenty of industry stories this market. And uh much more m uh may have money, including my suicide one that I think is about to take off again after some last kind of dormant, it's Brinker.

be this company's competitor. For too many people, the future for Apple is grim, and I'm telling you those people are Rapid parts. A couple days ago I got this really impressive quarter from Brick International. That's parent company of Chili's and Magiana. This was a 25 cent earnings beat off a$2.62 basis, higher than expected revenue, which is what I like really like to see from a restaurant.

Chile saw its same store sales go at 8.6%. That's a that's incredible. Wall Street's only looking for 6.1. This time they're up against some very tough comparisons. Even better, Breaker raised its full year forecast for both sales and earnings. However, th the stock, which has more than tripled since start of 2024, has kind of stalled out over the past twelve months, is down almost fourteen percent. Now it shot up four dollars yesterday, but then it gave it back vast bulk of these gains today.

I I di that doesn't make sense to me. I think it's a buying opportunity. Let's check in with Kevin Hoffman, he's the president CEO of Brinker International Finale. Mr. Hawkman, welcome back to Mid Money. Hey, it's great to have you on the have me on the show, Jim. It's great to see you. Because, you know, Kev, I gotta tell you. I mean, as someone who's uh traded stocks for 42 years.

Uh I know I've never I usually don't do this for the guests, but you have the single greatest chart I've ever seen. It's almost as if everybody who thought that the turnaround was over has sold. And new people are coming in, and they're not deterred because they see the numbers and cannot believe how much better you're doing than everybody else. Yeah, we had another blowout quarter, Jim. You know, we had a plus nine same store sales on Chili's. That's a two-year comp.

uh of over forty percent. This was a quarter that people thought we couldn't comp the comp. We couldn't roll over that plus thirty one. And the way we were able to do it I couldn't be more proud of. We had You know, some minor menu renovations to continue to upgrade the food. We had more simplification from an operational standpoint to continue to improve those guest metrics.

Uh and then we even started our reimage program this quarter. So, you know, we had a phenomenal quarter. We're doing the fundamentals brilliantly and it this run's just gonna keep going. Well, I I you know I look at a lot of metrics and one of the things I did when I was running my restaurant.

Or just say, okay, I wanna know how many people are unhappy. I wanna know whether we have the people are more unhappy now that we're and nobody could ever do it. You know why? Because they said you can't figure it out. You figure it out at scale, and it's really positive. Yeah, you know the recipe's pretty simple. You you start with having great team members and making sure that they're taken well taken care of.

uh that they're making their jobs easier and more rewarding and more fun. And if they're having a good time, they're obviously gonna take care of the guests and then we're seeing that happen. So the guest scores continue to improve. Now we track guests with a problem on a daily basis. When I started this turnaround Uh over three years ago, that was about five percent. It's now to an uh all time lowness since we've ever tracked it.

um at a a little less than two percent. So yeah uh it was two point one percent for this quarter. So it's been just an incredible run. Take care of your people, take care and they'll take care of the guests. And then you see the sales come through. All right, now I gotta ask you something. This chicken sandwich, you say nationwide uh uh substantial advertising campaign. Do you need to do anything other than TikTok really?

Well of course we do. You know, one of the things that we've had incredible success with is advertising our three for me value. So it's ten ninety nine. You know, right now we have on air almost a half pound burger, fries, unlimited chips and salsa, and that's all f uh made fresh daily.

and then a bottomless drink. And it's an unbeatable price. You know, people are still frustrated with fast food prices. They compare that price point to what they can get with a combo meal, only you get More food, you get great service. And obviously we've had this consistency of our experience that's so high.

that people are excited about it. And we're gonna continue to advertise that value. We're gonna continue to bring news to it with our chicken sandwich lineup and we're gonna continue to win with the American consumer. One of the things that you do right, most restaurants got wrong. I don't know how Look, sometimes it may be better than luck be good, or maybe you just made a beeline on this. But the only liquor that's doing well in this entire country.

is uh tequila. Every other one is down year over year. Tequila's up. Agave spirits are great. Is it sir is it really doing good your how how good are your Margie sellers? Well, first of all the good news is you're talking to the the largest uh tequila purveyor for a restaurant in the world. So we sell a whole lot of tequila.

And because of that, we obviously have great uh buying power, but we also do great innovation. So, you know, we'll always have we call the barbell strategy. You always can get a six dollar mark of the month at Chili's. You can go all the way up to things like Don Julio or Casamigos.

And pay some more for that, but but the reality is it's an unbeatable value. So like I'll show you for January, you'll appreciate this one. We call this one the six dollar resolution breaker. Uh and it's made with uh it's made with Cuervo Blanco. Pineapple and mango and our house made sour. It's obviously a very large margarita too. It's that kind of value that the guest comes in for.

And they know they don't need to have an app, they don't need to come for happy hour. They can come any time of the day, and they know they're gonna get a six dollar margarita at Chili's, and it's always gonna be super delicious. I think also, I mean, I really believe you're about to burst out. You know that. I think that people new people are gonna come in and buy the stock.

And one of the things they should be looking at is the chilies per person checkout cost versus the other casual dining competitors and the entire casual dining industry. What's the difference between you and those? Yeah, it's pretty awesome. So in addition to the promotional value I just talked about, you know, on an everyday basis, we call it PPA or per person average check. Uh we're about three dollars less than our direct competitors in casual dining, we're about four dollars less.

Than all of casual diving. But here's what I would tell you, Jim. I think we're now considered not just the best value in casual diving, we're considered, you know, among the top. if not the top value in all of restaurants. So when people are paying, they know it's what you pay versus what you get.

You not just get more abundance and delicious food, but you get it with that service and that hospitality in a fun atmosphere and when you add all that up, that is superior value in the restaurant industry. When you do your conference call, how do you set it up? I mean one of the things you do that's really brilliant. I mean, I read a million compsol, so it's really hard for me to stay interested. But you do this. Right at the top, you talked about the bacon upgrade, the thicker bacon.

Now, how do you isolate that? Because to me, that is something that you like my wife's a baconator eater. I mean more than anyone probably per capita. And you know, we'll go and she'll notice this. People notice that stuff.

Yeah, you know, one of the things that we're trying to do here is continue to bring more and more value to the equation. So that doesn't just look like promotional value or o you know, overall everyday value. It's also bringing more quality to the products that we sell. So For example, we recently upgraded our bacon to fifty percent more bacon and then on our bacon cheeseburger we put four strips instead of two, when you add that up, that's triple the bacon than the old burger.

And then we wake up and that business is forty three percent bigger than before we made the bank it upgrade. Ribs is another one we recently upgraded two quarters ago. We added fifty percent more bones of ribs to both a half rack. And a full rack. We also got domestic ribs, which are fattier and meatier. They have fattier pigs than the European pigs.

And the result is if we take the price up a little bit, we don't take it up fifty percent or not even close to that. And the guest is telling us this is a sup superior value and that business has also grown a ton. So

The key to us is just continuing to bring the American consumer value. If we do that, we can do that, we can continue to make a ton of money, continue to grow margins, and continue to deliver the returns that our shareholders expect. Our viewers are gonna say, Okay, that's great, but How much did you raise the price big for this stuff? But the answer is how do you not? How do you not have to? I had a piece of Dover sold yesterday for$112. Are you kidding me? Are you kidding me?

There's a couple of things that we gotta do. One, we gotta keep our costs tight. So, you know, we talk about this simplification and we've, you know, eliminated a quarter of the menu. That's a lot of cost savings. That's a lot less things to inventory order. A lot less food waste, a lot less labor to prep things.

You know, those things, it's very hard to quantify, but when you add those all up, it's a whole lot easier to run the restaurants and it's a whole lot cheaper to run the restaurants. The second thing I would tell you is we have all walks of life coming in through our doors. So we have a low-income guest, we have high-income guests.

They have different needs and different ones. So even when you think about that three for me in the ten and nine ten ninety nine meal, you know, that only shows up in about nine percent of checks. It's only about five percent of our sales. So, you know, the vast majority of the menu is selling at

at at prices that you know obviously we can make that mix work and deliver the margins for our shareholders. Well it is incredible. I I do believe that people think I that it can't continue. I think it's done resting. And about to take off. You are the inflation fighter in our restaurant. Yeah, thank you Jim and I'll leave it I'll leave this team. This is sustainable. You know, we're on 19 quarters.

We're about to hit our 20th, hopefully this quarter, and we're just gonna keep it going. And people are still gonna doubt whether it's sustainable, and we're just gonna keep delivering this. I know you are.

Coming up, Kramer. Sky's the limit. Fast fire lightning round. Next. And then the lightning round is over. Are you ready, ski, dad, tongue light, home cream red runner start with Dawn? Hey Jim Kramer, how are you? Thank you for checking my Uh thank you for calling Don. My question is about King's Health. H N G E I thought I don't even remember if you remember when they came on, I thought they were terrific and they are part of the solution, not the problem. I think that that is going to be one

stocks we've seen in the healthcare sector. Let's go ahead and Fred in uh Arizona. Fred. Hi Jim. I'm talking I'm seventy eight years old and retired, so my expectates uh largely behind me. So I look for stocks with a good balance sheet, excellent dividends, and great earnings. Okay. And uh The stock of a lot got hammered today. I'm thinking of adding t it to my portfolio on Monday. It sells at five times earnings. It uh

Um pays a nine percent dividend covered two hundred percent by earnings and it's diversified tremendously over the last year through acquisitions. The stock is really hard. Too risky, too risky. We don't really know what that asset manager owns. I don't want you to buy that stock.

can't find out what it's got inside it and that has historically been a dangerous thing to own it when you don't know what they have. So I just say that they probably may have good stuff, but I just I rule those companies out. Let's go to Joe and a why Joe. Happy Aloha Friday and a big hoo-yah, Jim. I like that. What's going on?

First time caller but longtime listener, just a little Hawaiian Air Force twist for you to stay to twist to your standard greeting. Thank you for all that you and your team do to support the independence of the main street retail and you are absolutely awesome. I remember a piece you did advocate flow serve.

I remember a piece you did advocating FlowServe. Yes, absolutely, and it's been a a huge winner. Now remember FlowServe looks like what Roper used to be. Uh I love pipes, I love valves, I like by the way, I mean the one that I I've been recommending now is for the club and I think it's really good at a great Great quarter is Dover. That's a very similar situation. Now it's down six straight points. I'd rather see you in Dover D-O-V. Let's go to Gary in Texas. Gary.

How you doing, Professor Kramer? How you doing buddy? Just started reading your book. Enjoying it. Oh thank you. Excellent. Uh my my stock is energy fueled. You no no we want to stay away from that. If we want nuclear power

That's the one you want, okay? They're nuclear ahead of everybody else. I wish you could buy Westinghouse individually. That's owned by uh by that's owned by Brookfield. That's a good company too. But I've got to tell you, energy fuels I have to say no to. Two it just isn't the way you play it, so to speak. Let's go to Jeffrey in Massachusetts. Jeffrey. Happy Friday, Kim, what's up? I don't know you tell me. Uh not much. Just on my way home from work.

Alright, I'm still working. How you like that? Very funny. But after a massive earnings flashing and a current yield of six point seven five percent is they'll resort to buy, sell, or hold? You know, I think it's a very well run company. is down so low, I'm gonna say buy it. I really am. I'm gonna say Bob Katz does a good job. Let's buy that stock right here. And that, ladies and gentlemen, conclusion of the Lightning Round.

The Lightning Route is sponsored. Coming up as well. Sour on Apple? The case for why the worry warts are being too negative of the world. People are way too eager to give up on Apple. They look at last night's earnings and they say, so what? That's the past. The future's grim. The the the parts shortage is so bad for them that they'll have to pay a fortune to get components, it will crush their gross margins. And when the memory chip

but your bill comes due you'll regret you ever own this one. And that's how the stock sold off hard earlier today in response to that terrific quarter last night. I beg a different late in the day the market came around to my position. with the stock only finishing up a dollar twenty after spending most of the session in the red. I think Apple's quarter was fantastic and its future remains bright. This company's not gonna be brought down by the price of disk drives.

Floppier otherwise. It's much stronger than its critics. This tale of Apple's a strange story. Apple put up sharply better than expected results with tremendous numbers in America and for the first time in ages, greater child. Who would have thought it? I was kind of blown away by the shocking 22% iPhone revenue growth rate. Something nobody expected. Okay, nobody.

Not many saw that surge in China either. I'm fortunate to be able to have a background conversation with Tim Cook and the excellent new CFO, to go a a a a go over the numbers ahead, right before when it's just stuff we do it for background so that we're ready to go on air with. And you know what? Uh the miasma of negativity has surrounded the stock was crazy. I saw so many bright spots that I couldn't wait to talk about it.

Tim was more effusive than normal, offering superlives that I found truly comforting at a time when tech could be totally treacherous. And if you're an Apple shareholder like my Charible Trust, Cook really made you feel like the future is so much brighter than the past. Unfortunately, there was another company that reported last night, SANDISC, the best performing stock of the year so far. And of by the way, of the last twelve months too.

Sandis is the chief supplier of storage chips used in PCs and cell phones. I know it'd be an it would be an incredible report because there's just not enough storage to go around and the prices are through the roof. Anything connected to memory or storage is practically printing money this year. Now we got this kind of oddity, something called the Wall Street community, in this case the community that covers Apple, the analyst group. They almost always have one foot out of the door of the stock.

They tend to focus on the negatives. This time it's that the parts have become too expensive and will really hurt Apple's gross margins later in this year, probably as early as the second quarter. As Tim said on the Comps Core quote. It's a direct result of the twenty-three percent growth and that far outstripping what we had internally estimated and having a limited flexibility of the supply chain for some period of time. End quote. Apple took the whole supply chain by surprise.

I am an apple aficionado from way back, proudly. And I know how little hype there is from this company. They just don't do it. I don't believe that Cook and his team would be so ebullient about their discussion of Apple's current position with me if they knew the component prices were going sky high and they'd have shortfalls galore, which is how the stock was trading earlier today.

What would allow Apple to overcome these shortages? First, we don't know how much supply they have stockpiled. We know the NVIDIA got ahead of this. Jensen Wong did predict it. He did have the memory needed for his needs and still does.

So, you know, it can happen. Second, Apple's agile and it should have been able to nav it should be able to navigate the environment for better far better than the competition. I mean, the other guys really don't know how to even handle this kind of worldwide network.

Third, I know these drive companies. I once owned 5% of Western Digital, another company allocating components. They're in a business with incredible highs and dreadful lows, periods where orders abound and periods where water runs dry. Apple knows this. The storage makers know this too. They understand that Apple can be the best client there is. Ordering, let's say they can order through thick and thin. So they can't afford to shaft Apple for long.

It's too powerful. This is the time for them to give Apple a break. That way Tim Cook will remember them when the business turns down. And that's why I think Apple will pay any that they're not going to pay anywhere near the list price that we heard all day today.

More important, it's not like Apple's competitors are sitting on mouse and components either. All of them will have to raise price. Only Apple, though, gets that tremendous, enormous subsidy from phone companies eager to get you to switch carriers. I bet most customers don't even notice a price change because the phone companies might eat it. Yes, that could happen. That happened with the tariffs.

Of course I could be wrong that maybe Apple just gets hammered like everybody else, a casualty of the gigantic mob data centers that are trying to clom onto all these drives. Or maybe Tim, a supply chain master, has it under control. The streets betting on the former to happen. They sent Apple stock way down most of the day. But I'll take the other side of the trade, the one that won in today's seesaw session.

I like to say there's always the more market somewhere and I promise you fed it just for you right here on Matt Money. I'm Jim Kramer. See you. All opinions expressed by Jim Kramer on this podcast are solely Kramer's opinions and do not reflect the opinions of CNPC or its parent company or affiliates and may have been previously disseminated by Kramer on television, radio, internet, or another media.

You should not treat any opinion expressed by Kramer as a specific inducement to make a particular investment or follow a particular strategy, but only as an expression of his opinion. Kramer's opinions are based upon information he considers reliable, but neither CNBC nor its affiliates and subsidiaries warrant its complete. And it should not be relied upon as such. To view the full Mad Money Disclaimer, please visit CNBC.com forward slash madmoney disclaimer.