Raphael Stevens

Monday – Friday, 6:00 – 7:00 PM ET

It’s that time again! “Mad Money” host Jim Cramer rings the lightning round bell, which means he’s giving his answers to callers’ stock questions at rapid speed.

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Vimeo Inc: “I can’t recommend a stock here that is losing money. So I say, no.”

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Vale SA: “Vale is located in Brazil. And [there is] political risk there. I don’t take political risk on ‘Mad Money.'”

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Monday – Friday, 6:00 – 7:00 PM ET

CNBC’s Jim Cramer on Wednesday identified 10 stocks in the S&P 500 that investors should consider grabbing at the right price.
“These stocks could have more room to run, especially if you think they were driven down to artificially low levels by tax-loss selling or artificial dumping,” he said.

CNBC’s Jim Cramer on Wednesday identified 10 stocks in the S&P 500 that investors should consider grabbing at the right price.
“Consider me intrigued, but only if we have a couple more down days like today that give you a better buying opportunity because these stocks have all been overbought,” he said.

Here is his list:

Tesla
Align Technology
Catalent
Warner Bros. Discovery
Meta Platforms
Nvidia
Royal Caribbean
Carnival
SVB Financial
Norwegian Cruise

Cramer came up with the list by examining the top-performing stocks so far this year in the S&P 500. He acknowledged that the stocks still have a ways to go to rebound from their lows in 2022, but said that doesn’t mean they won’t eventually make up their losses.
“These stocks could have more room to run, especially if you think they were driven down to artificially low levels by tax-loss selling or artificial dumping,” he said.
Cramer also warned investors that while the S&P 500 winners could be good investments, they should stay away from many of the stocks that have rallied this year after a tough 2022 — especially the ones that investors shorted heavily.
“I’m not going to climb on board the Carvana bus or the Upstart train. The fundamentals — they’re just too ugly,” he said.

Disclaimer: Cramer’s Charitable Trust owns shares of Meta Platforms and Nvidia.

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During his State of the Union address, President Joe Biden urged Congress to pass his billionaire minimum tax.
While the idea drew cheers, it’s full of complications.
CNBC’s Robert Frank breaks down how such a tax would affect a billionaire like Tesla CEO Elon Musk.

Elon Musk attends the 2022 Met Gala at the Metropolitan Museum of Art.
Angela Weiss | AFP | Getty Images

President Joe Biden drew loud cheers during his State of the Union address Tuesday night when he proposed a new tax on the rich.
“Pass my proposal for a billionaire minimum tax,” Biden told Congress. “Because no billionaire should pay a lower tax rate than a school teacher or firefighter.”

Biden’s billionaire tax, however, also hits top millionaires. And rather than simply raising tax rates, it effectively taxes wealth, including unsold stocks, bonds and real estate.
According to the White House explainer on the tax, which Biden first proposed last year, the billionaire minimum tax would require households with total net wealth over $100 million to pay a minimum effective tax rate of 20% on an expanded measure of income that includes unrealized capital gains.

Under the plan, households would calculate their effective tax rate for the minimum tax. If it fell below 20%, they would owe additional taxes to bring their effective rate to 20%.
The big change is taxing unrealized capital gains as income. Currently, if a taxpayer owns a stock, bond, real estate or other assets, they don’t typically owe capital gains until it’s sold. Biden proposes taxing “unrealized gains,” meaning a tax on the annual paper gain in value even if it’s not sold.
So, if a tech founder owns $1 billion in stock and the stock increases in value to $1.5 billion during the year, they would owe a tax of up to $100 million on the $500 million paper gain – even if they didn’t sell a single share.

The White House says it would account for losses with credits, and by spreading payments and credits out over time. Taxpayers can spread the first payment — which is a tax on their total wealth — over nine years. Payment for the tax on annual gains after that can be spread over five years, which the White House says “will smooth year-to-year variation in investment income.”
Yet taxing unrealized gains is increasingly complicated with today’s wealthy – most of whom have fortunes tied to volatile tech stocks that swing wildly from year to year.
Take the example of Elon Musk:

If the billionaire minimum tax started in 2020, he would have owed a tax of $31 billion on his total net worth, which at the start of the year was $156 billion.
In 2021, his net worth increased by $121 billion, so he would owe $24 billion in taxes for the year.
In 2022, however, his net worth fell by $115 billion on Tesla’s stock decline. If he already paid the 2021 tax, he will have paid billions of taxes on wealth that he no longer has.
The government would then have to send him a $23 billion refund check. Or any credit for 2022 would take years to use, and would depend on Tesla’s stock recovering.
If Musk had needed to take a margin loan sell stock to pay the 2021 tax, those costs wouldn’t be offset with a tax credit.

“Applying the tax to tech stocks, and other assets that are volatile, is tricky,” said Steve Rosenthal, a senior fellow at the Urban-Brookings Tax Policy Center. “What if the multi-millionaire is stock rich, but has little cash to pay the tax? Or is unable to borrow large sums against the volatile stock? And what happens if after a quick climb, the stock declines rapidly? Would the government write large refund checks?”  
The Biden administration says that aside from restoring “fairness” to the tax code, the billionaire minimum tax would raise $360 billion in added revenue over 10 years. The White House said the tax would apply only to the top one-one hundredth of one percent (0.01%) of American households. It said more than half the revenue will come from households worth more than $1 billion.
Opponents say that aside from potentially being unconstitutional, the billionaire minimum tax would be difficult to administer – especially for an IRS already understaffed.
“Realization-based taxation is the norm around the world,” said Erica York, senior economist and research manager with The Tax Foundation’s Center for Federal Tax Policy. “And for good reason, because the alternative of taxing unrealized gains would be extremely complex and administratively costly.
Added Rosenthal: “The super-rich own lots of assets, which would require lots of valuations. How would the IRS determine whether multi-millionaires filed properly?”

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Dominion Voting Systems said Fox News and its parent company still haven’t produced evidence, two months before the two are set to go to trial.
A Fox attorney said he disagreed, pointing out Dominion has been late to produce documents itself.
Dominion sued Fox for $1.6 billion, arguing the company and its networks made false claims that its voting machines rigged the 2020 election between Joe Biden and Donald Trump.

A person walks past Fox News Headquarters at the News Corporation building on May 03, 2022 in New York City.
Alexi Rosenfeld | Getty Images

Dominion Voting Systems is calling out Fox News and its parent company, Fox Corp, for failing to turn over evidence, with less than two months before the companies are set to go to trial over a defamation lawsuit.
On Wednesday, attorneys for Dominion and Fox met before a Delaware Superior Court judge to discuss scheduling for upcoming checkpoints.

However, an attorney for Dominion said they are concerned that some evidence – such as certain board meeting minutes and the results of searches of personal drives – has yet to be produced by Fox and its cable TV networks. While this issue was already raised in July and January, the Dominion attorney said Wednesday they are still missing documents.
“We have not gotten anything. We pointed out categories of missing documents for both Fox News and Fox Corp that are still missing. And we are not talking about a document slipping through … we are talking about categories of documents,” said Dominion attorney Justin Nelson on Wednesday.
Nelson said Dominion’s attorneys had been assured that Fox’s legal team would “ask the hard questions about missing documents so that we didn’t have to do it and engage in further discovery practice.”

“And that just hasn’t happened,” Nelson said, “and I understand why because they can’t do it.”
Fox attorney Dan Webb, a veteran trial attorney added to Fox’s roster last year, said he disagreed with much of what Nelson said during the hearing Wednesday.

“The parties are having problems on both sides,” Webb said Wednesday. “I think 70,000 documents were recently produced on damages, which is a huge issue in this case, that were late produced.”
Dominion brought the defamation lawsuit against Fox and its right-wing cable news networks, Fox News and Fox Business, seeking $1.6 billion in damages. It argues the networks and their anchors made false claims that Dominion’s voting machines rigged the results of the 2020 election.
Both attorneys acknowledged that Fox sent a letter to the special master Tuesday night regarding the matter. The Delaware judge on Wednesday didn’t weigh in further.
Dominion’s attorney Nelson refuted any issues Fox raised about Dominion’s production of documents in the case. “As best as I can tell, Dominion has still produced more documents than Fox in this case,” Nelson said.
In recent months, Fox Corp executives including Chairman Rupert Murdoch and his son and Fox CEO Lachlan Murdoch have faced questioning as part of the lawsuit.
Meanwhile Fox’s TV personalities, including Maria Bartiromo, Sean Hannity and Tucker Carlson have also appeared for depositions.
Hannity reportedly admitted he didn’t believe Dominion cheated Republican Donald Trump in the 2020 election, which Democrat Joe Biden won. The reported statements differ from the claims made on Hannity’s show following the election.
Documents and depositions have otherwise remained private. The New York Times recently requested that the documents in the case be unsealed.
Fox has vigorously denied the claims in the lawsuit that is being watched closely by First Amendment watchdogs and experts. Libel lawsuits are typically centered around one falsehood. But in this case Dominion cites a lengthy list of examples of Fox TV hosts making false claims even after they were shown to be untrue. Media companies are often broadly protected by the First Amendment.
Fox’s calls to dismiss the case have been denied by the court. A trial is slated to begin April 17. Neither side has shown signs of entering settlement talks. Dominion’s attorney said Wednesday the legal team, which had hoped for an earlier trial date, doesn’t want it moved any later despite the issue with evidence production.
“We are put in this impossible situation of preparing for trial where there are missing documents,” Nelson said.
Also Wednesday, Fox posted better-than-expected quarterly earnings bolstered by strong ad revenue. Class A shares of the company rose more than 3%.
Correction: This story was updated to clarify what Dominion’s attorney said about his client’s document disclosure.

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Mattel’s fourth quarter missed analyst’s expectations on sales after a disappointing holiday quarter.
Mattel shares fell sharply in after-hours trading.
Mattel had hoped the holiday season would boost sales as inflationary pressures continue to squeeze consumer demand.

The Mattel company logo is pictured during the inauguration of the expansion of the Montoi plant, in Escobedo, Mexico March 15, 2022.
Daniel Becerril | Reuters

Barbie-maker Mattel posted fourth-quarter results after market close on Wednesday that came in well below Wall Street’s expectations after holiday sales failed to offset slowing consumer demand.
CFO Anthony DiSilvestro attributed the low performance to fewer orders from retailers and higher costs to manage inventory.

The company had hoped that the “all-important holiday season” would be a potential buoy for sales as demand has slowed amid inflation.
“Our fourth quarter results were below our expectations, as the macro-economic environment was more challenging than anticipated,” CEO Ynon Kreiz said in the Wednesday earnings announcement.
Shares of Mattel were down roughly 10% in after-hours trading on Wednesday.
Here’s how Mattel performed in the fourth quarter, compared with what Wall Street anticipated, based on an average of analysts’ estimates compiled by Refinitiv:

Adjusted earnings per share: 18 cents vs. 29 cents expected
Revenue: $1.40 billion vs. $1.68 billion expected

For the three months ended Dec. 31, the company reported net income of $16.1 million, or 5 cents per share, a plunge from $225.8 million, or 64 cents per share, a year earlier.

The toy manufacturing giant had been confident at the beginning of last year that it would continue to ride its pandemic momentum, driven by toy-buying parents trying to keep children at home entertained. It said it expected customers to be minimally fazed by price hikes as inflation and currency headwinds ramped up manufacturing costs.
But customers appeared to feel the squeeze as the company’s toys, like Barbie and Hot Wheels, become increasingly expensive, and the company’s fourth-quarter sales declined 22% year over year .
Mattel saw its North America segment decrease 26% during the period, weighed down by declining sales in its young children’s brands like Fisher-Price, dolls and action figures. International sales also fell, off 18%.
The company underperformed its own full-year earnings expectations, reporting 2022 earnings per share of $1.11. In October, the company cut its forecast to an expected range of $1.32 to $1.42.
As it enters its 2023 fiscal year, Mattel is projecting adjusted earnings per share for the full year of between $1.10 and $1.20. It anticipates continued sales declines in the first half of the year as retailers further reduce inventory levels.
The inflationary environment has put pressure on toy manufacturers industry-wide. Rival toymaker Hasbro cut 15% of its workforce in January and simultaneously warned of weak holiday performance. Hasbro went into the fiscal year markedly more conservative than Mattel as macro pressures mounted and it adjusted to a leadership change.
As consumer demand slows from its pandemic highs, Mattel has been working to diversify its revenue streams, using the intellectual property of its toy brands for non-manufacturing ventures.
Its “Barbie” movie starring Margot Robbie and Ryan Gosling is scheduled for a July 21 release. Mattel announced last April that J.J. Abrams’ production company Bad Robot would produce a Hot Wheels movie in partnership with Warner Bros. Discovery. The company has a dozen other feature films in the works for brands like Polly Pocket, Barney and more.
The project is a part of Kreiz’s larger strategy to use the “built-in fanbase” to transition Mattel from purely a toy manufacturer to a multi-segmented house of toy franchises.

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Disney reported fiscal first-quarter earnings that beat on the top and bottom line.
This is CEO Bob Iger’s first earnings since he returned to the company in November.
A recent price hike for Disney’s streaming services likely led to the loss of around 2.4 million Disney+ subscribers during the quarter.

LOS ANGELES – Smaller subscriber losses and a beat on the top and bottom lines were the highlights of Disney’s fiscal first-quarter earnings report.
While the company’s linear TV and direct-to-consumer units struggled during the period, its theme parks saw significant growth year-over-year.

Shares of the company were up 5% after the bell.
Here are the results, compared with estimates from Refinitiv and StreetAccount:

Earnings per share: 99 cents per share, adj. vs 78 cents per share expected, according to a Refinitiv survey of analysts
Revenue: $23.51 billion vs $23.37 billion expected, according to Refinitiv
Disney+ total subscriptions: 161.8 million vs 161.1 million expected, according to StreetAccount

With CEO Bob Iger back at the helm, Disney is seeking to make a “significant transformation” of its business by reducing expenses and putting the creative power back in the hands of its content creators.
“We believe the work we are doing to reshape our company around creativity, while reducing expenses, will lead to sustained growth and profitability for our streaming business, better position us to weather future disruption and global economic challenges, and deliver value for our shareholders,” Iger said in a statement ahead of the company’s earnings call.
During the call Iger announced that the media and entertainment giant would reorganize, cut thousands of jobs and slash $5.5 billion in costs. The company will now be made up of three divisions:

Disney Entertainment, which includes most of its streaming and media operations
An ESPN division that includes the TV network and ESPN+
A Parks, Experiences and Products unit 

Iger’s return comes as legacy media companies contend with a rapidly shifting landscape, as ad dollars dry up and consumers increasingly cut off their cable subscriptions in favor of streaming. Even the streaming space has been difficult to navigate in recent quarters, as expenses have swelled and consumers become more cost conscious about their media spending.
A recent price hike for Disney’s streaming services likely led to the loss of around 2.4 million Disney+ subscribers during the quarter. The company had been expected to lose more than 3 million, according to StreetAccount.
The company said Wednesday that it will no longer provide long-term subscriber guidance in an effort to “move beyond the emphasis on short-term quarterly metrics,” Iger said on the call. Netflix made a similar decision late last year.
Additionally, as was forecast by Disney in previous quarters, its direct-to-consumer business has once again posted an operating loss. In the most recent quarter, the operating loss was $1.05 billion, narrower than the $1.2 billion Wall Street had predicted.
Net income was $1.28 billion, or 70 cents a share, compared with $1.1 billion, or 60 cents a share, a year ago. Revenue rose 8% to $23.51 billion from $21.82 billion a year ago.
A bright spot for Disney came from its parks, experiences and products divisions, which saw a 21% increase in revenue to $8.7 billion during the most recent quarter.
A little more than $6 billion of that revenue came from its theme park locations. The company said guests spent more time and money during the quarter visiting its parks, hotels and cruises as well as on additive digital products like Genie+ and Lightning Lane.
Additionally, Iger said the company will ask its board to approve the reinstatement of its dividend by the end of the calendar year. Disney suspended its dividends in early 2020 due to the pandemic.
“Our cost-cutting initiatives will make this possible, and while initially it will be a modest dividend, we hope to build upon it over time,” Iger said.
Tune in to CNBC at 9 a.m. ET Thursday for an exclusive interview with Disney CEO Bob Iger.

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Shares of Michael Kors owner Capri Holdings plunged Wednesday.
Revenue fell across the company’s luxury brands, which also include Jimmy Choo and Versace, dragged lower by slowing traffic in China.
The company slashed its earnings forecast for fiscal year 2023 and came in under Wall Street expectations.

A general view outside of a Michael Kors location
Christopher Jue | Michael Kors | Getty Images

Shares of Michael Kors owner Capri Holdings plunged 23% Wednesday after the company missed earnings expectations and cut its annual profit forecast.
High-end fashion companies outperformed many other industries last year amid decades-high inflation, but increasing prices have led some consumers to curb spending on luxury goods. Some industry experts expected brands such as Michael Kors, which has a younger and less wealthy customer base, to take a larger hit than higher-priced brands like Hermès.

Here’s how the company did:

Earnings per share: $1.84 vs. $2.22 expected by analysts, according to Refinitiv.
Revenue: $1.51 billion vs. $1.53 billion expected by analysts, according to Refinitiv.

The apparel manufacturer reported a 6% drop in revenue from the year-ago period. Capri reported that net income was $225 million, down from $322 million in the year prior.
Revenue fell across the company’s luxury brands: Michael Kors revenue fell 7.2% year over year to $1.1 billion, Jimmy Choo revenue fell 5.6% to $168 million, and Versace revenue fell 0.8% to $249 million.
Each division posted double-digit revenue declines in Asia as the result of slower store traffic following China’s unwinding of its zero-Covid policy.
Capri also reported a 21% increase in net inventory as of Dec. 31, totaling $1.19 billion. That marked an improvement over the prior quarter, the company said, and it expects inventory levels to fall below the prior year by the end of the current quarter.

“Overall, our performance in the third quarter was more challenging than anticipated,” CEO John Idol said in an earnings release. “We were disappointed with the performance of our global wholesale business in the quarter which resulted in expense deleverage and a lower operating margin.”
Idol said the company has begun efforts to “better align operating expenses with the change in revenue.”
Capri said it now expects full year 2023 sales of $5.56 billion, below analyst expectations of $5.72 billion, according to Refinitiv. The company slashed its full-year earnings per share forecast to $6.10 from a prior forecast of $6.85.
Capri’s fiscal year 2024 forecast came in under estimates, as well: The company expects earnings per share of $6.40 on approximate revenue of $5.8 billion. Analysts polled by Refinitiv had been expecting earnings per share of $7.24 and revenue of $6.03 billion.

Stock chart icon

A 5-day chart of Capri Holdings stock.

Clarification: Capri Holdings said it expects inventory levels to fall below the prior year by the end of the fourth quarter. A previous version of this story misrepresented the company’s statements about inventory.

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