With the market trying to parse conflicting economic indicators, like strong employment but weak housing, auto, retail and oil sectors, Jim Cramer is looking for resolution.
“I don’t even know if there is a market to care about now. There are just incredibly pronounced sectors and remarkably vicious rotations into and out of them,” the “Mad Money” host said.
Thursday has some of the week’s most important earnings reports, including one disputed retailer at the center of many analyst debates.
“After the close we hear from a company that’s become very controversial: Nike,” Cramer said, referencing conflicting views about whether investors should buy or sell shares of the sports apparel retailer before it delivers earnings.
“Me? I despise battlegrounds, and Nike’s the Wall Street equivalent of the Somme. If you want to invest in apparel, go buy some PVH, which is underrated and doing fabulously,” he said.
Cramer also sat down with Federal Realty Investment Trust President and CEO Don Wood, who came out bullish on his company’s position in the embattled REIT space.
“If you sit and you think about it, with every bit of retail news that happens out there, no matter what it is, it slams the REITs as much or more, in some cases, as the retailers,” Wood told Cramer on Friday. “Do you know that in our income stream, 8 percent of the income stream is grocer, 9 percent of the income stream is full-priced apparel, effectively, 6 percent is discount, 6 percent is residential rents, 7 percent is office rents? Basically, it’s the most diversified income stream in places that you wouldn’t possibly say, ‘Oh my gosh, the real estate is bad and it’s not as valuable.'”
Wood touted his company’s high-quality properties, saying that they have given him more choices when economic conditions are unfavorable.
As retail executives tell investors and analysts in their conference calls that they will aim to negotiate lower rents for some of their under-performing locations, Wood said that while that can happen with some, others might not succeed.
“In some cases they’ll be able to, in other places they won’t be able to. It depends on the leverage in that particular spot,” the CEO said.
Speaking of struggling retailers, after Bed Bath & Beyond reported a shocking earnings miss on top of negative same-store sales, Cramer had to shed light on the once high-growing retailer’s current troubles.
“Bed Bath & Beyond’s stock took a bath today and it’s beyond hope because of, you guessed it, Amazon,” the “Mad Money” host said.
The home improvement chain delivered 53 cents earnings per share compared to Wall Street estimates of 66 cents, and a 2 percent same-store sales decline, a key measure in the retail industry that tracks the success of each store.
“It’s a truly existential crisis for this once-high-growth retailer because Bed Bath’s got a frightful problem: the more it beefs up its online business, the worse it does,” Cramer said.
President Donald Trump may have pulled the United States from the Paris climate agreement, but Entergy Chairman and CEO Leo Denault said that does not change much for his business.
“In reality, what we’re going to do with our asset mix is unlikely to be different now than it would’ve been with the Paris accord,” Denault told Cramer on Friday.
The CEO said that Entergy, an energy player making the transition from being a wholesale power generator to being a Southern utility play, is already moving away from less sustainable power sources like coal.
“We burn very little coal as it is. We have 50-year-old coal plants. It’s only about 7 percent of our generation,” Denault said. “Over time, they are [going to close] because you just don’t spend the money on 50-year-old plants to keep them going that you would with the new technologies being much more efficient, much more environmentally friendly.”
Finally, Cramer turned to a company called Athenahealth, which helps doctors and hospitals keep track of medical records, care and their finances using Athena’s cloud-based software platform.
Athenahealth shares have been relatively volatile since the company came public in 2007, but when activist fund Elliott Management announced a 9.2 percent stake in Athenahealth, its stock soared almost 40 percent.
The idea is that Elliott Management will be able to either reform Athenahealth’s management or put the company up for sale, both good deals in Cramer’s book.
“Here’s the problem: Athenahealth has reported two bad quarters in a row and yet now its stock is only a few points away from its 2016 highs. I think it’s way too risky to speculate on takeovers in situations where the fundamentals are unsound and that goes double when the stock in question has already run,” the “Mad Money” host said.
In Cramer’s lightning round, he flew through his take on some callers’ favorite stocks, including:
Ulta Beauty: “I think that [CEO] Mary Dillon is doing a remarkable job. I liked that tie-up recently with Estee Lauder. [Estee Lauder CEO Fabrizio] Freda’s doing an unbelievable job. Fabrizio and Mary are two of the best executives in the industry and I want you to buy Ulta. Look, and I know the chart looks bad. Alright, alright, alright.”
Nutanix: “I think Nutanix is undervalued here. I like enterprise storage. I can’t believe the stock isn’t up more after that terrific quarter.”
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