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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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Church & Dwight Co Inc: “I’ve got to tell you, some of the other growth stocks in the same category I might as well [buy instead]. J.M. Smucker, that’s a very good company. I think it’s a little bit cheaper.”

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Monday – Friday, 6:00 – 7:00 PM ET

CNBC’s Jim Cramer on Tuesday advised investors to put cash to work in oil now that the sell-off is largely over.
“The charts, as interpreted by Carley Garner, suggest that the oil speculators have been mostly wiped out, so it’s time to buy the dips,” he said.

CNBC’s Jim Cramer on Tuesday advised investors to put cash to work in oil now that the sell-off is largely over.
“The charts, as interpreted by Carley Garner, suggest that the oil speculators have been mostly wiped out, so it’s time to buy the dips because she wouldn’t be surprised at all if crude can rally another $20 from here,” he said.

Cramer said that Garner’s prediction of a wash-out in oil prices is panning out and oil could head higher as China reopens its economy and the Biden administration looks to refill the Strategic Petroleum Reserve anytime prices dip below $70 a barrel.
To explain Garner’s analysis, he examined the weekly chart of West Texas Intermediate crude futures, the U.S. benchmark for oil.

Arrows pointing outwards

Garner believes that if not for the Covid pandemic-induced crash and Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, oil would’ve steadily climbed in a “bullish channel” starting in late 2019, according to Cramer. 
“After each of those events, oil went back into the channel — notice that — which currently has a floor of support at $70 — you can see that — and a ceiling of resistance at $95,” he said.
Oil prices bounced off the $70 floor on Monday, and should be bouncing between these levels as long as the economy stays relatively stable, Cramer said. He added that while prices could dip lower to $65 if the market sees volatility over the holidays, Garner expects their upward trend to continue.

For more analysis, watch Cramer’s full explanation below.

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Tesla stock is faring poorly since CEO Elon Musk bought Twitter.
Musk sold billions of dollars’ worth of his Tesla holdings to finance the Twitter takeover and has been embroiled in controversy ever since.
Economic conditions and an aging product lineup have also contributed to pressure on Tesla’s share price.

CEO of Tesla Motors Elon Musk speaks at the Tesla Giga Texas manufacturing “Cyber Rodeo” grand opening party in Austin, Texas, on April 7, 2022.
Suzanne Cordeiro | AFP | Getty Images

Shares in electric vehicle maker Tesla have fallen 28% since October 27, when CEO Elon Musk bought Twitter and appointed himself “Chief Twit,” or CEO, of the social media business.
By way of comparison, other major automakers like Ford, GM and Volkswagen are slightly up since Oct. 27, as is BYD, a Chinese company that makes electric vehicles and batteries. U.S. electric truck maker Rivian has fallen by 27% over that period.

On Tuesday, Tesla shares closed at $160.95, down more than 4% for the day. It was a rare exception among growth-oriented tech stocks, which mostly rose after cooler-than-expected inflation data came out early in the morning.

The decline in Tesla stock price has prompted the company’s largest retail shareholder Leo Koguan, who is a billionaire and founder of the IT services firm SHI International, to call for the company’s board to “perform shock therapy to resuscitate stock price,” namely by way of a share buyback.
Musk sold billions of dollars’ worth of his Tesla holdings to finance the Twitter takeover. Since he took over the company, Musk has been regularly posting incendiary tweets, especially aimed at people who hold center-to-left political values, and whom Musk often paints as enemies with a “woke mind virus.”

Arrows pointing outwards

Tesla’s 2022 selloff

For example, Musk took aim at Director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases Dr. Anthony Fauci, and trans people, tweeting over the weekend: “My pronouns are Prosecute/Fauci.”
The offensive tweet drew over 1 million “likes” on Twitter, where Musk has over 120 million listed followers, as well as criticism from the White House, and from former CIA director John O. Brennan. White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre called Musk’s tweets about Fauci “incredibly dangerous” personal attacks.

Kristin Hull, Nia Impact Capital founder and a Tesla shareholder, wrote on Twitter following that: “So many issues with the Tesla brand, when the board can’t rein in the CEO.”
Economic conditions and an aging product lineup have also contributed to pressure on Tesla’s share price. Tesla has delayed mass production of its sci-fi-inspired, trapezoidal pickup truck, the Cybertruck. Tesla originally showed off the Cybertruck design in 2019, at which time the company expected to start production in 2021.
The company held an event at its Nevada battery factory to mark the start of deliveries of its fully electric, heavy-duty Semi truck last month. At the event, Tesla execs including Elon Musk made no mention of previously touted self-driving tech, a million-mile warranty they had previously teased, a price for the Semi, nor any anticipated production numbers.
Tesla is also facing backlash over a years-long delay in delivering self-driving technology through software updates to its customers’ cars. Customers are increasingly suing Tesla in the U.S. to attain refunds for self-driving systems they paid for and expected to be delivered already.
Tesla markets its driver assistance systems as Autopilot, Enhanced Autopilot and Full Self-Driving capability in the U.S. None of these systems make its cars safe to drive without a human behind the steering wheel, attentive to the road and driving task at all times.
The California DMV is investigating Tesla and has formally complained that it has engaged in false advertising around these systems.
Some Tesla fans see the plummeting stock price as a buying opportunity, despite Musk’s new distraction with Twitter.
The company is ramping up production at a new vehicle assembly plant in Austin, Texas, and another one outside of Berlin. The company has brought Shanghai Manufacturing leader Tom Zhu to the states to help mature the Austin operation.

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Monday – Friday, 6:00 – 7:00 PM ET

CNBC’s Jim Cramer on Tuesday outlined what needs to happen for the Federal Reserve to finally beat inflation.
“Without a well-deserved crash in crypto and a sign of higher unemployment acknowledged by [Federal Reserve Chair] Jay Powell, this CPI reading has to be treated as a one-off number,” he said.

CNBC’s Jim Cramer on Tuesday outlined what needs to happen for the Federal Reserve to finally beat inflation after the monthly consumer price index report showed that prices rose less than expected in November.
“Without a well-deserved crash in crypto and a sign of higher unemployment acknowledged by [Federal Reserve Chair] Jay Powell, this CPI reading has to be treated as a one-off number,” he said.

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Cramer said that while the CPI data is a good sign for the Fed, the central bank needs to tamp down inflation in more areas of the economy, specifically in wages. This means that there needs to be much more wreckage in the job market, which is yet to be seen, he added.
Yet another obstacle for the Fed is that speculative assets have managed to stay afloat, according to Cramer. Bitcoin jumped to its highest level in over a month on Tuesday after the cooler-than-expected CPI reading – despite the spectacle of crypto exchange FTX’s collapse. 
The Securities and Exchange Commission on Tuesday charged former CEO Sam Bankman-Fried with misappropriating funds.
“Today should have been a huge victory for Jay Powell on a speculation front because part of beating inflation is draining out the speculative juices in the economy. Yet, there’s still a ton of juice left to be drained from crypto,” Cramer said.
Both high wages and the resilience in crypto suggest that the Fed still has a long way to go, he concluded.

“The Fed has to start somewhere in the fight against inflation and today’s a good beginning, but … [Powell’s] got to crush inflation for good,” he said.

Jim Cramer’s Guide to Investing

Click here to download Jim Cramer’s Guide to Investing at no cost to help you build long-term wealth and invest smarter.

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Monday – Friday, 6:00 – 7:00 PM ET

CNBC’s Jim Cramer highlighted two utility stocks: Constellation Energy and Sempra Energy.
Cramer advised investors to consider adding shares of “steady-eddy” utility companies to their portfolios for their dependability.

CNBC’s Jim Cramer on Tuesday offered investors a list of utility stocks he believes should be on their shopping lists.
“The utilities are a great place to hide when the economy’s deteriorating, but the best of them work even when the economy’s doing fine,” he said.

Stocks notched their second day of gains on Tuesday after new data showed that prices rose less than expected in November. Investors are looking to the Federal Reserve’s December meeting on Wednesday, which is largely expected to conclude with a 50-basis point rate hike.
Wall Street also continues to worry that the economy could tip into a recession next year, despite the anticipated easing of the Fed’s inflation strategy.
Cramer advised investors to consider adding shares of “steady-eddy” utility companies to their portfolios for their dependability. “They also tend to protect you with bountiful dividends that can cushion any potential downside,” he said.
Here are his top picks:
Constellation Energy

The nuclear-powered electric utility company, which was spun off from Exelon earlier this year, is the top performing utility stock so far this year. Cramer said he likes the stock because he believes nuclear energy is the best option for carbon-free energy production in a reasonable timeframe. The company is also sure to attract funds looking for ESG plays, he added.

Sempra Energy

Shares of Sempra energy are up over 24%, and the stock is the third top performer in its sector this year. Cramer said that he likes the company because of its wide natural gas pipeline network, growth at a reasonable price and CEO Jeff Martin’s strong leadership.

Jim Cramer’s Guide to Investing

Click here to download Jim Cramer’s Guide to Investing at no cost to help you build long-term wealth and invest smarter.

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The Arctic is becoming wetter and stormier as global climate change puts its vulnerable ecosystems and local communities at risk, scientists said Tuesday in an annual assessment of the Arctic.
The researchers described how hotter air temperatures, melting sea ice, shorter periods of snow cover, increased wildfire and rising levels of precipitation have forced wildlife and Indigenous people in the region to adapt.
Scientists warned that maritime ship traffic is on the rise in the Arctic as sea ice declines, with the most notable increases in traffic occurring among ships traveling from the Pacific Ocean through the Bering Strait and Beaufort Sea.

Martin Leonhard of the East Greenland Ice-Core Project (EastGRIP) operates snow blower putting a new snow floor for the winter-storage weather port tent at EastGRIP camp on August 9, 2022. EastGRIP is an international science station on the Greenland ice sheet, the second-largest ice body in the world after the Antarctic ice cap.
Lwimages AB | Getty Images

The Arctic is becoming wetter and stormier as global climate change puts its vulnerable ecosystems and local communities at risk, scientists said Tuesday in an annual assessment of the region.
The researchers described how hotter air temperatures, melting sea ice, shorter periods of snow cover, increased wildfire and rising levels of precipitation have forced wildlife and Indigenous people in the region to adapt.

2022 was the Arctic’s sixth warmest year on record, continuing a decades-long trend in which Arctic air temperatures have warmed faster than the global average, the report said. The Arctic’s seven warmest years since 1900 have been the last seven years, and researchers pointed to a slew of signs that the region is undergoing a dramatic shift.
For instance, a heat wave in Greenland in September prompted severe ice melt for the first time in more than 40 years, the report said. Climate change has triggered longer summers in Greenland and accelerated the retreat of glaciers.
Scientists also noted that maritime ship traffic is on the rise in the Arctic as sea ice declines, with the most notable increases in traffic occurring among ships traveling from the Pacific Ocean through the Bering Strait and Beaufort Sea.

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The rise in ship traffic opens economic opportunities for new trade routes, but also poses potential damage to the ecosystem and Arctic communities. Scientists have predicted that 2035 Arctic sea lanes might be ice-free in the summertime.
Nearly 150 Arctic scientists from 11 countries developed this year’s Arctic Report Card. The assessment “underscores the urgency to confront the climate crisis by reducing greenhouse gasses and taking steps to be more resilient,” National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration administrator Rick Spinrad said in a statement.

Scientists warned that Arctic precipitation is on the rise across all seasons and these seasons are shifting. The changes have disrupted the lives on people, animals and plants that have previously experienced traditionally cold and dry conditions.
The Arctic is warming nearly four times faster than the rest of the Earth, researchers discovered this year, a phenomenon that is raising sea levels across the world. A one-foot rise in global sea levels would have major consequences for coastal communities, as sea level rise threatens to displace almost 200 million people by the end of the century.

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Hedge-fund billionaire Ken Griffin has sued the IRS and the Treasury Department over the “unlawful disclosure” of his tax information.
The claims stem from Griffin’s inclusion in a ProPublica series in 2021 examining the taxes paid by top billionaires like Elon Musk and Carl Icahn.
The leaked tax returns sparked an uproar in Washington, with the IRS inspector general and Justice Department investigating and Republicans frustrated by a lack of answers.

Ken Griffin, Citadel, at CNBC’s Delivering Alpha, Sept. 28, 2022.
Scott Mlyn | CNBC

Hedge-fund billionaire Ken Griffin has sued the IRS and the Treasury Department over the “unlawful disclosure” of his tax information, escalating the battle in Washington over leaked tax filings of super-wealthy people including Warren Buffett and Jeff Bezos.
In a complaint filed Tuesday in federal court in the Southern District of Florida, Griffin, founder and CEO of Citadel, accuses the IRS of violating its “legal obligations to safeguard and protect his information from unauthorized disclosure,” and willfully and intentionally failing to “establish appropriate administrative, technical or physical safeguards” over its record system.

The claims stem from Griffin’s inclusion in a ProPublica series in 2021 examining the taxes paid by top billionaires like Elon Musk and Carl Icahn, several of whom paid zero federal income taxes in certain years. ProPublica used IRS tax data provided by an anonymous source, and it’s unclear how the data was obtained.
Griffin reported an average income of $1.7 billion from 2013 to 2018, ProPublica said, citing his tax returns. One ProPublica article focused on Griffin’s opposition to an Illinois ballot measure – which he spent $54 million to oppose – which would have increased his state tax bill by over $50 million a year.
Griffin was not listed as one of the billionaires who paid zero or low tax rates in any one year, and, in fact, the ProPublica tax information showed Griffin pays a higher effective tax rate than many top earners. It also showed he was the second-largest American taxpayer between 2013 and 2018.
In his lawsuit, Griffin said he is “proud of his success and has always sought to pay his fair share of taxes.”
He said that in or after 2019, “IRS personnel exploited the IRS’s willful failure to establish adequate administrative, technical, and physical safeguards for the IRS’s data and records systems to misappropriate confidential tax return information for the highest earning U.S. taxpayers, including Mr. Griffin, and then unlawfully disclosed those materials to ProPublica for publication.”

The IRS and Treasury didn’t immediately respond to a request for comment.
The leaked tax returns sparked an uproar in Washington, which continues to escalate. The IRS inspector general and Justice Department are investigating the disclosures, but there have been no findings or charges, and Republicans say they’re frustrated by a lack of answers.
Republican members of the House Ways and Means Committee in October sent a letter to Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen saying “the American people remain in the dark about who was responsible and how the Treasury Department allowed this to happen.” Republicans have also highlighted the leak in their opposition to the $80 billion in additional IRS funding passed by the Democrats this summer.
Griffin was the second-largest donor to Republicans in the midterm elections, according to OpenSecrets, spending $60 million on federal elections.
People close to Griffin said he’s taking on the IRS to protect Americans’ privacy and to make sure similar leaks don’t happen to others in the future.
“IRS employees deliberately stole the confidential tax returns of several hundred successful American business leaders,” Griffin said in a statement. “It is unacceptable that government officials have failed to thoroughly investigate this unlawful theft of confidential and personal information. Americans expect our government to uphold the laws of our nation when it comes to our private and personal information – whether it be tax returns or health care records.”

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The rate on the popular 30-year fixed-rate mortgage fell to 6.28%, but that’s still dramatically higher than where it was a year ago.
The decline came after a lower-than-expected reading of the November’s consumer price index, or CPI, a widely watched measure of inflation.
“There have been a handful of pieces of relatively good news for the housing market lately, but we’re far from out of the woods,” said one economist.

A prospective home buyer, left, is shown a home by a real estate agent in Coral Gables, Florida.
Getty Images

The average rate on the 30-year fixed mortgage dropped to 6.28% Tuesday, according to Mortgage News Daily. It is now at the lowest level since mid-September.
The decline came after a lower-than-expected reading of the November’s consumer price index, a widely watched measure of inflation. The report sent investors rushing into U.S. Treasury bonds, causing yields to drop. Mortgage rates follow loosely the yield on the 10-year Treasury.

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“The second consecutive month of reassuring CPI data continues to build a case that inflation has turned a corner, but rates will be careful about reading too much into that potential shift given the volatility of the data in recent months,” said Matthew Graham, chief operating officer at Mortgage News Daily. “The bond market will also want to see what the Fed does with this info in tomorrow’s updated Fed rate forecasts in the dot plot.”
Mortgage rates began rising at the start of this year and accelerated in the spring and summer, with the 30-year fixed going from around 3% to well over 7% by the end of October. That sent the housing market into an early deep freeze. Sales of existing homes have fallen for nine straight months and were down 24% in October year-over-year, according to the latest read from the National Association of Realtors.
But rates then fell sharply in November, after the CPI report for October indicated that inflation was cooling. The rate ended November at 6.63%. Some suggested, albeit cautiously, that the drop in rates might be bringing buyers back to the market.
“There are some very very modest green shoots over the last few weeks, as rates have come down, but I am not ready to get sucked back into the conversation we had in August when we felt better,” Doug Yearley, CEO of luxury homebuilder Toll Brothers, said on the company’s quarterly earnings call with analysts last week. Yearly was referring to a very brief rate drop in August.
Redfin reported homebuyer demand “has started ticking up” in November. It’s demand index, which measures requests for home tours and other homebuying services from Redfin agents, was up 1.5% from a month earlier but down 20% from a year earlier during the four weeks ending Nov. 27.

“There have been a handful of pieces of relatively good news for the housing market lately, but we’re far from out of the woods,” said Redfin deputy chief economist Taylor Marr. “Key indicators of homebuying demand will likely be teetering on a knife’s edge with every data release that comes out related to the Fed’s path to eventually bringing rates down.”
All that optimism, however, did not translate into higher mortgage rate locks for homebuyers, which are generally an indicator of future home sales. Those rate locks fell 22% in November, compared with October, and were down 48% year-over-year, according to mortgage tech and data firm Black Knight.
“It’s still extremely unaffordable even with rates coming down, even with prices coming down in each of the last four months. We’re still less affordable than we were at the peak of the market in 2006, and you’re seeing that play out in the rate lock numbers,” said Andrew Walden, vice president of enterprise research strategy at Black Knight.
Walden points to inventory still being about 40% shy of where it should be, while the homebuilders continue to pull back and potential sellers stay on the sidelines. Even as prices weaken and rates come down, he said both are still substantially higher than they should be compared with incomes to make housing affordable by historical standards. And none of those are going to move that much any time in the near future.
“As we move throughout 2023 you’re going to see prices continue to soften, you’re going to see incomes hopefully continue to grow and eat up some of that gap, and I think likely we are going to see rates come down from where they are today, but it’s going to take an extended period of time to get there,” said Walden.

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