Expect a rally if there’s good news from retail giants & China

CNBC’s Jim Cramer on Tuesday said that investors should keep an eye on retailer earnings and Covid news from China as indicators for how Wednesday’s trading session will go.

If we get more good news from China tonight “along with fine quarters from Target and Lowe’s …  we’re going to have another one of these great days tomorrow. But if we don’t get that good news, we’re going to end up with a miserable, horrible, Walmart-style view of the world,” the “Mad Money” host said, referring to the retail behemoth’s quarterly earnings miss.

Cramer’s comments come after Shanghai reached “zero Covid status” on Tuesday, which means it saw three consecutive days of no new cases outside of quarantine zones.

“When you get a positive out of China … you get a run in many stocks that we’ve had way, way too much fear for: Tesla, Nike and Apple,“ he said.

Cramer also pointed to other retailers and companies in the travel industry that reported upbeat quarters, suggesting healthy consumer spending and boosting related stocks.

Home Depot saw better-than-expected profit and revenue in the first quarter while United Airlines raised its current-quarter revenue forecast. Both companies’ stocks closed up on Tuesday. Shares of Delta and American Airlines saw gains piggybacking off of United’s rosy revenue guidance.

More broadly, the Dow Jones Industrial Average rose 1.34% while the S&P 500 increased 2.02%. The tech-heavy Nasdaq Composite gained 2.76%.

“There were a lot of just run-of-the-mill winners, too, like the Nasdaq names that were under so much pressure yesterday. I felt that on Friday and yesterday. … The close was simply horrible yesterday. I couldn’t believe the amount of” damage done to new companies, Cramer said.

“Now they’re bouncing. What’s happening here? I think there is a bifurcation — a subtle one — that’s happening right now. The haves, and the haves are Airbnb, DoorDash and Block, formerly Square, and then there’s everything else,” he added.

Disclosure: Cramer’s Charitable Trust owns shares of Walmart.