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.

Loading chart…

Loading chart…

EVgo Inc: “I don’t want to own the stock because the company does not make a lot of money. … I mean, like none.”

Loading chart…

Loading chart…

Vale SA: “This is not the time in the cycle, the business cycle, that you want to own that stock.”

WATCH LIVEWATCH IN THE APP More

Monday – Friday, 6:00 – 7:00 PM ET

CNBC’s Jim Cramer on Thursday gave investors his top stock picks for three different recession outcomes.
“We’ve got mild, we’ve got moderate and we’ve got severe. … . Can we avoid a recession altogether? There’s always the chance,” but investors shouldn’t hold their breath, he said.

CNBC’s Jim Cramer on Thursday gave investors his top stock picks for three different recession outcomes.
“We’ve got mild, we’ve got moderate and we’ve got severe. … . Can we avoid a recession altogether? There’s always the chance,” but investors shouldn’t hold their breath, he said.

Investors have piled into tech stocks this week, betting on a market bottom and driving this week’s rally. All the major averages gained on Thursday.
The “Mad Money” host said that while he’s outlining three possible scenarios for the economy and his favorite stocks for each, investors shouldn’t build their portfolios by betting on just one outcome. “You need something for every possibility,” he said.
Here are his top stock picks for a possible mild, moderate or severe recession.

Mild

Cramer said a mild recession is possible, since the banks recently reported strong quarters, many people have money saved from during the pandemic and the job market is still strong.
“Companies will still have a downturn in their earnings, but many stocks have already come down hard in anticipation of a deeper recession. … They’re acting quite well here because they’re down so much,” he said.

Here is his list of stocks suitable for a mild recession:

Moderate

If Wall Street starts to expect a moderate recession, investors will have to pull in their horns and be more selective about their choices, according to Cramer.
“You can buy the higher yielding stocks, as interest rates will start to trend down, reducing the bond market competition. But you’ve got to only buy high yielders that can still make their numbers,” he said.
Here is his list of stocks suitable for a moderate recession:

Severe

In the case of a severe recession, “you have to buy the ultimate defensive plays. … Anything related to advertising, tech and the industrials will crush you,” Cramer said.
Here is his list of stocks suitable for a severe recession:

Disclosure: Cramer’s Charitable Trust owns shares of Amazon, Constellation Brands, Coterra, Johnson & Johnson and Pioneer Natural Resources.

WATCH LIVEWATCH IN THE APP More

Amazon is starting to roll out some of the electric delivery vans that it developed in partnership with Rivian, the companies announced Thursday.
The vans will be deployed in a handful of cities to start, including Seattle, Baltimore, Chicago and Phoenix.
The move marks a significant step forward in Amazon’s efforts to decarbonize its last-mile delivery fleet, an effort which began in 2019 when then-CEO Jeff Bezos announced the company would purchase 100,000 vans from Rivian.

Rivian CEO RJ Scaringe and Udit Madan stand in front of the new Amazon EV van powered by Rivian. Amazon and Rivian unveil their final custom Electric Delivery Vehicles (EDV) to begin using them for customer deliveries, in Chicago, Illinois, July 21, 2022.
Jim Vondruska | Reuters

Amazon is beginning to roll out some of the electric delivery vans that it developed with Rivian Automotive, the companies announced Thursday. 
In September 2019, Amazon founder and then-CEO Jeff Bezos stood on stage at the National Press Club in Washington, D.C., to announce that the company had purchased 100,000 electric vehicles from the startup as part of its ambitious push to achieve net-zero carbon emissions across its operations by 2040. 

Amazon debuted a version of the van in October 2020, and then tested the vehicles in a number of cities throughout 2021. Now, Amazon says it will use the electric vehicles to make deliveries in a handful of cities, including Baltimore, Chicago, Dallas, Kansas City, Nashville, Tennessee, Phoenix, San Diego, Seattle and St. Louis, among others. 
Amazon said it expects to have “thousands” of Rivian vans in more than 100 cities by the end of this year, the first step toward its goal of having 100,000 electric delivery vehicles on the road in the U.S. by 2030.
“Fighting the effects of climate change requires constant innovation and action, and Amazon is partnering with companies who share our passion for inventing new ways to minimize our impact on the environment,” Amazon CEO Andy Jassy said in a statement. “Rivian has been an excellent partner in that mission, and we’re excited to see our first custom electric delivery vehicles on the road.”
Rivian CEO R.J. Scaringe said the vehicle deployment is a “milestone” in efforts to decarbonize last-mile delivery. 

Rivian CEO RJ Scaringe and Amazon CEO Andy Jassy tour one of the company’s electric delivery vans.

Amazon oversees a mammoth shipping and logistics network, and much of its delivery operations are in-house. As part of that, it increasingly relies upon an sprawling army of contracted delivery companies to ferry packages to customers’ doorsteps, which primarily use dark blue Amazon-branded vans that burn fossil fuels. 

The Rivian rollout has faced some challenges. Last November, Amazon delivery drivers charged with testing the vehicles claimed the vans’ battery drained quickly when heating or cooling was on, threatening the vehicle range, and alleged the battery takes an hour to recharge, according to The Information. An Amazon executive told the outlet that the vehicles would have a range of 150 miles, more than enough for many delivery routes.
In May, Rivian filed a lawsuit against a supplier of seats for delivery vans ordered by Amazon, spurring concerns that it could delay the vans, The Wall Street Journal reported.
Rivian has faced a series of challenges in ramping up production of its own R1T and R1S electric vehicles. The company cut its 2022 production forecast in half in March, to just 25,000 vehicles including Amazon’s vans, amid supply chain constraints and early issues with its assembly line. It reiterated that forecast earlier this month. Rivian will report its second-quarter results on August 11.
Amazon, which has backed Rivian through its Climate Pledge Fund, says it remains committed to creating a more sustainable delivery fleet. To support the electric vans, Amazon has added thousands of charging stations at its delivery depots in the U.S.
Amazon has tapped other automakers besides Rivian to electrify its fleet. In January, Amazon said it would buy thousands of electric Ram vans from Stellantis, and it has also ordered vans from Daimler’s Mercedes-Benz unit for package deliveries.
— CNBC’s John Rosevear contributed to this story.
WATCH: Rivian’s CEO confident the company can produce 25,000 vehicles this year

WATCH LIVEWATCH IN THE APP More

AT&T shares fell after the phone company’s second-quarter earnings.
AT&T’s cash flow took a hit for the quarter, which CEO John Stankey attributed to greater expenses and late payments on phone bills.

A man walks with an umbrella outside of AT&T corporate headquarters on March 13, 2020 in Dallas, Texas.
Ronald Martinez | Getty Images

AT&T shares fell Thursday after the company said its cash flow was hurt by customers’ later phone payments and company spending on building 5G infrastructure.
AT&T said customers have been paying their bills about two days later than they did the same time last year. That alone affected about $1 billion in quarterly cash flow, the company said.

“There’s clearly some dynamics in the economy. We have customers that are stretching out their payments a little bit,” AT&T CEO John Stankey told CNBC. “We expect that they’re going to continue to pay their bills, but they’re taking longer to do it. That’s not atypical in an economic cycle.”
Given its costs, including investments in subscriber growth, AT&T lowered its full-year free cash flow guidance from the $16 billion range to the $14 billion range.
Shares closed down almost 8% at $18.92.
For its second quarter, AT&T reported revenue of $29.64 billion, down from $35.7 billion in the year-earlier period. Excluding the impact of divestitures, operating revenue was up about 2%.
Analysts on average were expecting revenue of $29.55 billion, according to Refinitiv.

The company said its adjusted earnings were 65 cents per share, which was above the 61 cents analysts had expected.
As part of its plan to combat cash flow issues and the inflationary environment, AT&T said in May that it would begin to raise prices on older wireless plans, according to Bloomberg. It increased monthly fees by up to $6 a month on single-line plans and up to $12 a month on family plans.
“We went in there and said that we’re going to have to raise some prices on these long-standing plans,” Stankey said on CNBC Thursday.
Stankey also forecast “a more tepid economic environment moving forward,” but said the investments the company is making would “build the franchise for decades to come.”

WATCH LIVEWATCH IN THE APP More

Convenience store chain 7-Eleven has slashed roughly 880 corporate jobs in the United States.
The eliminations come roughly a year after it completed its $21 billion acquisition of rival C-store business Speedway.
The cuts were of certain jobs in the company’s Irving, Texas, and Enon, Ohio, support centers, as well as field support roles, according to a company spokesperson.

Peter Parks | AFP | Getty Images

Convenience store chain 7-Eleven has cut roughly 880 corporate jobs in the United States, CNBC has learned, roughly a year after it completed its $21 billion acquisition of rival C-store and gas station business Speedway.
7-Eleven is owned by the Japanese retail conglomerate Seven & i Holdings, which came under pressure earlier this year from the San Francisco-based investment company ValueAct Capital to consider strategic alternatives. ValueAct had been urging Seven & i to narrow its focus to 7-Eleven, and it backed a new slate of directors on the Japanese company’s board.

More recently, businesses in the U.S. have been grappling with inflation on everything from fuel to labor to rent, which are weighing on profits. Many companies are now either hitting the brakes on hiring or beginning to lay people off, as they look for opportunities to slash expenses.
7-Eleven has also been contending with higher prices at gas pumps, which have led some consumers to hold off on filling up the tank, or buying extra goods inside of its retail shops.
7-Eleven operates more than 13,000 locations across North America, according to its parent company’s most recent annual filing, roughly 9,500 of which are under its namesake banner.
The company didn’t immediately confirm how many employees it has in the U.S.
“As with any merger, our integration approach includes assessing our combined organization structure,” a 7-Eleven spokesperson told CNBC in an emailed statement. “The review was slowed by Covid-19 but is now complete, and we are finalizing the go-forward organization structure.”

The person said the cuts were of certain jobs in the company’s Irving, Texas, and Enon, Ohio, support centers, as well as field support roles. 7-Eleven is headquartered in Irving, and Speedway is based in Enon.
“These decisions have not been made lightly, and we are working to support impacted employees, including providing career transition services,” the company spokesperson added.
7-Eleven bought Speedway in order to beef up its presence in the U.S., particularly in the Midwest and along the the East Coast. The Federal Trade Commission, however, charged that the takeover of Marathon’s Speedway subsidiary violated federal antitrust laws. 7-Eleven was later ordered to sell over 200 retail outlets to settle the matter.
7-Eleven has meantime been testing so-called “Evolution” stores that offer customers special coffee drinks, local grub and features such as mobile checkout. It opened its ninth in the country, in Dallas, in June.

WATCH LIVEWATCH IN THE APP More

The iconic black and orange monarch butterfly is threatened with extinction because of habitat destruction and climate change, international conservationists said on Thursday.
The monarch butterfly, known for its annual migration across North America, was placed in the endangered category of the International Union for the Conservation of Nature’s Red List of Threatened Species.
More than 40,000 species are now threatened with extinction, according to the IUCN, as scientists warn that the Earth is undergoing a sixth mass extiction event driven by human activity.

A monarch butterfly in the butterfly pavilion at the LA County Natural History museum Wednesday, June 1, 2022.
David Crane | MediaNews Group | Los Angeles Daily News via Getty Images

The iconic black and orange monarch butterfly is threatened with extinction because of habitat destruction and climate change, international conservationists said on Thursday.
The monarch butterfly, known for its annual migration across North America, was placed in the endangered category of the International Union for the Conservation of Nature’s Red List of Threatened Species.

Every autumn, millions of the butterflies undertake the longest known migration of any insect, flying thousands of miles from breeding grounds in the eastern U.S. and Canada to spend the winter months in Mexico and California.
The monarch population has declined between 22% and 72% over the past decade, scientists said. The western population is at the greatest risk of extinction, declining by 99.9% from an estimated 10 million butterflies to just 1,914 butterflies between the 1980s and 2021.
The larger eastern population has declined by 84% from 1996 to 2014, the IUCN said.
More than 40,000 species are now threatened with extinction, according to the IUCN, as scientists warn that the Earth is undergoing a sixth mass extinction event driven by human activity.
Contributing factors to the steep decline include logging and deforestation that have destroyed large swaths of the butterflies’ winter shelter in Mexico and California. Pesticides and herbicides used in agriculture also have killed butterflies and the milkweed plants that the larvae feed on. High temperatures fueled by climate change have also triggered earlier migrations before milkweed is available.

More from CNBC Climate:

“Today’s Red List update highlights the fragility of nature’s wonders,” IUCN Director General Bruno Oberle said in a statement. “To preserve the rich diversity of nature we need effective, fairly governed protected and conserved areas, alongside decisive action to tackle climate change and restore ecosystems.”
Scientists are concerned whether enough monarch butterflies will survive in order to maintain the population and avoid extinction. Conservationists are urging people and organizations to help protect the species, from planting milkweed to reducing pesticide use.
“It’s heartbreaking that monarch butterflies are now classified as endangered by the IUCN Red List, the preeminent international scientific body on extinction,” said Stephanie Kurose, senior endangered species policy specialist at the Center for Biological Diversity.
“The Fish and Wildlife Service must stop sitting on its hands and protect the monarch butterfly under the Endangered Species Act right now, instead of hiding behind bureaucratic excuses,” Kurose said.

WATCH LIVEWATCH IN THE APP More