You want to own ‘great American companies, not junk’

CNBC’s Jim Cramer on Friday looked ahead to next week’s pivotal market events, including a busy slate of corporate earnings reports and a meeting of the Federal Reserve’s policymaking arm.

The “Mad Money” host’s comments came after the Nasdaq Composite concluded its worst week since October 2020, falling 7.6% over the past five sessions.

Cramer said if investors pay attention to the companies he highlighted on next week’s earnings calendar, they may be “appropriately surprised at all the money these great American enterprises are making.”

“But as for the not-so-great American enterprises, like the SPACs or most of the recent IPOs, they’ll be stuck in the house of pain for the foreseeable future,” he said. “We don’t know what’s going to cause the market to turn around. I am saying if you buy great American companies, not junk, you tend to do pretty well historically.”

All earnings and revenue estimates are from FactSet.

Halliburton

• Q4 earnings before the bell; conference call at 9 a.m. ET Monday
• Projected EPS: 34 cents
• Projected revenue: $4.09 billion

Cramer said he believes Halliburton’s conference call is a must-listen for energy investors. Specifically, he said he’ll be looking for management’s commentary around drilling and whether the newfound discipline in the oil industry is starting to show cracks given the price of crude. That discipline was a key reason for the strength of energy stocks last year, he said, as well as their strong start in 2022.

IBM

• Q4 earnings after the close; conference call at 5 p.m. ET Monday
• Projected EPS: $3.30
• Projected sales: $16.07 billion

Cramer said he’s expecting “very little” from IBM’s quarter, given the distinct circumstances surrounding the company’s spin-off of its infrastructure services unit, Kyndryl.

General Electric

• Q4 earnings before the open; conference call at 8 a.m. ET Tuesday
• Projected EPS: 85 cents
• Projected revenue: $21.31 billion

Johnson & Johnson

• Q4 earnings before the bell; conference call at 8:30 a.m. ET Tuesday
• Projected EPS: $2.12
• Projected sales: $25.29

Both GE and Johnson & Johnson announced significant break-up plans last year and their respective stocks didn’t react well, Cramer noted. Considering that fact, along with the general negative sentiment hitting Wall Street right now, Cramer said investors can afford to take their time to analyze both companies going forward. “Neither one is going to run away from you,” he said.

Lockheed Martin

• Q4 earnings before the open; conference call at 11 a.m. ET Tuesday
• Projected EPS: $7.16
• Projected revenue: $17.66 billion

Cramer said Lockheed Martin is favorite company reporting Tuesday morning because of the geopolitical situations involving both Russia and China. “Let’s see what CEO Jim Taiclet has to say,” Cramer said.

American Express

• Q4 earnings before the open; conference call at 8:30 a.m. ET Tuesday
• Projected EPS: $1.86
• Projected revenue: $11.54 billion

Cramer said he’s a fan of American Express ahead of its quarterly results, citing a rebound for small and medium size businesses and the continued recovery of travel.

Microsoft

• Q2 2022 earnings after the close; conference call at 5:30 p.m. ET Tuesday
• Projected EPS: $2.31
• Projected sales: $50.65 billion

Microsoft’s quarter is incredibly important, Cramer said. In particular, Cramer said investors will be focused on the tech giant’s Azure division and whether the cloud computing operation is continuing to grow.

Federal Open Market Committee

• The Fed’s policymaking arm’s first meeting of 2022 begins Tuesday and ends Wednesday
• Fed Chair Jerome Powell set to hold press conference around 2:30 p.m. ET Wednesday

“Powell will talk about his schedule of rate hikes and as long as he doesn’t say he’s going to do it in lockstep, I bet we’ll be fine,” Cramer said, while acknowledging that some on Wall Street believe the market’s downturn is in anticipation of Powell’s scheduled press conference Wednesday.

Boeing

• Q4 earnings before the bell; conference call at 10:30 a.m. ET Wednesday
• Projected EPS: Loss of 35 cents
• Projected revenue: $16.48 billion

Cramer said he’s setting expectations low going into Boeing’s print. “If you expect nothing, you’re never disappointed,” he said, noting that he owns the stock for his charitable investment trust.

“The aerospace cycle is too good to ignore, but the company is not well-managed,” he said.

Tesla

• Q4 earnings after the close; conference call at 5:30 p.m. ET Wednesday
• Projected EPS: $2.26
• Projected sales: $16.99 billion

Cramer said he expects Tesla to deliver another good quarter. He noted that Tesla has a lot of updates to give, including on its first manufacturing plant in Germany.

Intel

• Q4 earnings after the bell; conference call at 5 a.m. pm ET Wednesday
• Projected EPS: 90 cents
• Projected sales: $18.33 billion

Cramer said he’ll be listening for insight into how Intel plans to fund its big announcement Friday regarding plans to build semiconductor factories in Ohio.

McDonald’s

• Q4 earnings before the open; conference call at 8:30 a.m. ET Thursday
• Projected EPS: $2.34
• Projected revenue: $6.03 billion

The restaurant industry has faced a slew of challenges during the Covid pandemic, including inflationary pressures, Cramer said. “We are headed to a winner-take-all scenario, and the last man standing will most certainly be McDonald’s, among others,” he said.

Apple

• Q1 2022 earnings after the close; conference call at 5 p.m. ET Thursday
• Projected EPS: $1.89
• Projected revenue: $118.74 billion

Cramer, whose charitable trust owns shares of Apple, said he thinks the iPhone maker’s earnings report could be “anticlimactic.”

“For the first time in ages, Apple’s stock won’t be coming in hot, which gives you a real chance to make some money on the company I always say you should simply own, not trade,” he said.

Chevron

• Q4 earnings before the bell; conference call at 11 a.m. ET Friday
• Projected EPS: $3.11
• Projected revenue: $44.59 billion

Cramer said he believes Chevron, another holding in his charitable trust’s portfolio, “should be a monster,” calling it a “lean, mean oil machine.” He added he hopes the stock falls post-earnings so the trust can add to its position.

Caterpillar

• Q4 earnings before the open; conference call at 8:30 a.m. ET Friday
• Projected EPS: $2.26
• Projected revenue: $13.17 billion

Caterpillar finds itself situation in “one of the more challenged industries because its raw costs are going up, but orders may or may not be able to override the impact,” he said.

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