Mad Money 07/21/26 | Audio Only

My mission is simple, to make you money. I'm here to level the playing field for all investors. There's always a bull market somewhere, and I promise to help you find it. Madam Money starts now. Hey, I'm Kramer. Welcome to Mad Money. Welcome to CR America. Other people make friends. I'm just trying to make a little bit of money here. My job is not just to entertain, but to teach you. So call me at 1800743 CBC. Tweet me at Jim Kramer. Holy cow people. I am not anti- tech. I AM NOT A LITE. I LIKE DATA centers so much I WISH I LIVED IN ONE. AND I did sleep next to a nuclear power plant during the rather ignominious time I lived out of my car. No police officer has ever roused someone sleeping in a 1978 Ford Fairmont in the parking lot next to some long shuttered Sacramento new facility. Yet on a day like today where the Dow gained 385 points, that's climbed 89%. But the NASDAQ jumped 1.29%. People are talking about being like, I'm running around here with my hair on fire trying to get you out the biggest winners of all time, the memory stocks, the DAS, and the glorious high bandwidth plays like Micron and SK Hyix. That's my nickname for SKH Highix because this monster from Korea that now trades here has hijacked our trading and often determines how our chip stocks are going to end up. Yes, the addition of that stock in the NASDAQ 100, which should happen soon, plus the inclusion of SpaceX has added a ton of volatility, something I don't think you truly appreciate. Oh, and I wish I had some hair to catch on fire. But that's old news. Some of you have complained to me that I've kept you out of SanDisk, which is up 570% year to date. Micron up 240%, Segate up 224%, Dell up 20 221%, and Western Digital up 218%. I don't know how that's possible. I've liked Micron for ages and if you ask Michael Dell who's the most positive person in the media toward his amazing company, I bet he'd say Jim Kramer, so I'm not anti-tech, but I do like diversification. We've had some sickening days of late where all these stocks that I just mentioned got clobbered. I started this show in 2005, determined to keep people in the market and not get blown out. Many of you forget that a whole generation of investors was wiped out by betting on the internet. Another whole cohort was destroyed, just destroyed by the great recession because they owned too many stocks that were connected to finance. They just didn't know it. These two events are the reasons why we all defaulted to index funds going for average because average was per se diversified. Now, I run an investing club and I wrote a book called How to Make Money in Any Market. Both stand for picking some individual stocks, but only after you build up a comfortable position S&P 500 index fun. Most of the so-called smartest investors have spent no time studying what happens to your portfolio if you buy an index fund and marry it with some of the greatest stocks of all time. They hate it when you buy individual stocks. They want your money so that they can pick them for you. I hate their disdain for your stock picking abilities. It is condescending. It is petty and is arrogant. But I do want you to know all the risks included in concentration risk, which is one of my uh biggest worries when it comes to this group. In the end, I like tech, but I like it in a lot of different places. If you think Johnson is about band-aids, you don't know the company. They sold that business. J&J is a company with aaa balance sheet that invents new life-saving drugs practically every month. Later in this show, you're going to hear from 3M's Bill Brown. His company, which used to be a tremendous innovator, is now back like the old 3M with scores of new products in all sorts of industries, including data centers. It could have a multier move using its industrial scientific savvy. HEY, HOW ABOUT CVS, the only real drugstore left in this country that also provides healthy insurance through Etna? Win two different ways. Or have you considered the tech that goes into running a bank like Goldman Sachs or Wells Fargo or BNY and how you're buying these stocks at valuations that radically lower than almost all of tech? Robin Vince, CEO of and chairman of BMY when I just introduced you last week. He just joined this evening the board of OpenAI and OpenAI Foundation. Bank tech meets AI tech happy. It just doesn't make sense to me why you can't diversify into these other stocks and sectors and make money. Something we've done with my charitable trust where we've given out almost $5 million in gains by being diversified through thick and thin for more than two decades. I don't want you getting blown out because you own nothing but semis and the group has a bad day. I fear you will take your licks and move on to another form of investing like cash, especially those of you on margin. I certainly don't rebel at owning tech. Hey, my travel trust's largest positions are Apple and Nvidia for heaven's sake. Sure, these haven't kept up with SanDisk or Western Digital lately, but they are unique, excellent companies that are making fortunes. Apple stock is advanced. Nvidia stock stuck for the moment. Some of that's because it doesn't sell enough in China. I think it's because Nvidia's clients are so anxious to both praise it and work against it. And the media loves to report it whenever a customer tries to design their own chips away from Nvidia. But it's really cheap and arguably Nvidia. I think it's the best run company in the world. Like I always say, you should own Apple and Nvidia, not trade them. I think Apple's brand will allow it to pass the higher cost of memory on to telco carriers while they also get the benefit of Alpha Alphabet's AI spending. Nvidia, my position on this one's become controversial. I wanted Nvidia to be the chip of choice for China so that the Chinese would write on our tech. That was a controversial position. It wouldn't be used by the Chinese military because they don't want to rep to be dependent on American chipmaker anyway. But once Nvidia started to run against a brick wall in China, I didn't want more American companies to give away trade secrets to the Chinese in order to be able to get cheaper AI. Hey, why don't you go look at the case Micron brought in 2017 against a Chinese entity that stole so much micro intellectual property that the case became a criminal investigation by the Justice Department. One that the Chinese company plead guilty to. I'm not making this stuff up. I respect Nvidia so much and won't listen a reason, but not if national security is at stake by allowing China to have secret access to so much data from so many of our different companies. I don't think that's smart. So here's my advice. If you want to go own a memory chip maker, I like Micron. If you want GPUs, to me that's AMD or Nvidia. If you want CPUs, that's Intel racks called Dell Optics. Make it corny. We always forget that when you get a big pop in semis, that's a good time to reposition. But I need you to recognize that as much as I like Micron or Nvidia or Apple consider how you're doing in software say right not that well also consider if you bought Micron at 1,200 at its high now it's at 970 how about Western Digital 799 it's 548 when you look at it like that these stocks are down so much that if you bought them on borrowed money well you're not watching the show you're gone I don't know what you're looking at I don't know maybe the uh the I don't know what you're looking at that's up to you okay so be aware that if Someone who has worked in margin. That's right. Worked in margin at Goldman Sachs. Do you know I've taken someone's keys after a big blow in technology. Send me what you have. They give me the keys. As a hedge fund manager, I moved into a tech brokerage house office after it was cleaned out because it couldn't meet its margin requirements. I've seen so many people never ever come back here because of 330 doss that got blown out in 2000. So, I mean, what do you think? I I know where my ankle I just had here. But this is I'm trying to get better. I got a big wedding this weekend with my uh son, my stepson. Just trying to do a good job. You know, what can you do? Anyway, the bottom line, every one of the people who were uh in these margin situations, do you know that they're rich and brilliant before they became poor and stupid. That's where I'm coming from. And not only do I not apologize for my stance, I know I'll lose you as a viewer and a club member sometime in the next year if I don't make you take the need for diversification more seriously. That's the right one. Randy Randy in Michigan. Randy, >> hey, thanks Jim for all you do. Uh, I rel I religiously follow your strategy for one specul speculative stock in my portfolio. I purchased the stock for 34 after the IPO in April and attended the uh earnings call in May and the stock I'm calling about is AX. >> Yeah, defense technology. Um, people have turned against defense because they think the budget's going to be a real problem for them. Uh, I'm not going to disagree with that. I've been looking at all these defense stocks. They're not. They don't seem to be coming back as long as they're spending so much money in Iran or at least trying to take out Iran. That's what the plan is. Let's go to Timothy in North Carolina. Timothy, >> big question about FedEx with them immigrating express to the ground. How do you see their growth potential the next five years coming? >> I've been I've been flum by FedEx. It's been it was down six yesterday. It's up nine today. I think that Raj Superman is killing it. I think that you want to own FedEx into the holiday season. FedEx Freight I think is the the spin-off I think is terrific. I kept them both for the travel trust. I usually get rid of one. I did not do that. I think FedEx Freight has a great advantage. They're going to be able to take out costs and be much more focused. So there you are. Tech I don't know. I don't tech I don't know. All right. Am diversification is always important, but I'm pounding the table on it right now. Especially I can't believe I have to defend myself for diversification after all we've been through on Man Money tonight. Kimberly Clark's buying Ken View. So, how does this position the CPG company for more success? I'm taking a look at the steady Eddie dividend uh payer and giving you my take. You probably hate it because it's steady and pays a dividend. Anyway, the credit card companies have been holding up well lately, but what does that hold for the future? I'm going off the charts and 3M just reported a fabulous quarter that sent the stock up nicely. I'm sitting down with the company's bankable CEO to find out more about the quarter and the path going forward. So, I want you to stay with the diversified Kramer. >> Don't miss a second of MadMoney. Follow Jim Kramer on X. Have a question? Tweet Kramer #madmentions. Send Jim an email to madmoney@cnbc.com or give us a call at 1800743 CNNBC. Miss something? Head to madmoney.cnbc.com. Even though the last couple of days have been terrific for most of the AI data center stocks, they're bouncing after multi-week beatd down that may be more cautious on the entire group. I urge you to be a little more selective. Like I told you last night, you might want to use this moment, the bounce, to trim some of your tech holdings and start diversifying into sectors that are less volatile, as we've been doing for the travel trust, which you can follow along by joining the CBC Investing Club. Which brings me to the stock of Kimberly Clark, the personal care company you know as Huggies Diapers, Kleenex, and a bunch of other paper products. Like many consumer package good stocks, this one's finally found its footing after struggling for years. Best of all, Kimberly Clark realized it needs to consolidate, which is why it's acquiring Ken View, J&J's old consumer health business. I want you to think there Tylenol Neutrogena Listerine Band-Aids. These are everyday necessities that consumers buy regardless of the state of the economy or the price of gasoline. Doesn't hurt that Kimberly Clark will pay you handsomely while you wait for the deal to close. Company raised his quarterly dividend to A128 per share earlier this year, giving it a 4.74% yield at these levels. This is not just a dividend aristocrat with 54 consecutive years of dividend increases. This is a dividend king. Unfortunately, the stock itself has been going nowhere for ages. Kimberly Clark's down 20% over the past five years, 15% over the past 12 months. It It's had a better start in 2026, up over 7% year to date. But it's still trading near its cheapest valuation in a decade, aside from the lows from earlier this year at 14 times this year's earnings. Thank heaven something cheap. I think this is a one. It's a steal given all the cost cutting opportunities ahead from the Ken View deal. Especially when you consider that you're not going to see Chinese tissues in your bathroom or Chinese diapers on your babies. Last November, Kimberly Clark agreed to buy Ken View for 48.7 billion in cash in stock last November. More than 80% of that though is in stock. When this transaction closes, existing Kimberly Clark shareholders are expected to own 54% of the combined company, while existing Ken View shareholders will own 46%. They're paying with stock in part because they don't want to blow up the balance sheet. The deal seems likely to close in the second half of the year with Kimberly Clark CEO Mike Shu, my favorite consumer products group, Honcho, staying on chairman and CEO of the combined enterprise. That enterprise will own $10 billion brands and sell products to touch nearly half of the world's population. The strategic fit makes so much sense. The strengths of the two companies are complimentary. Kimberly Clark has spent years improving its commercial execution, its manufacturing network, its digital marketing and relationships with major retailers, while Ken View brings stronger scientific capabilities and relationships with healthcare professionals including pediatricians, dermatologists, and dentists. Kendu has terrific brands, but the company has struggled to generate consistent growth since being spun off from J&J. Kim Clark believes it can apply its commercial playbook to those brands and get them growing again. Mike Shu said that the closer he looks at Ken View, the better the opportunity gets. I agree with him. Then there's a geographic opportunity. This is one of the things that excites me most about it. Kimberly Clark believes it can accelerate Ken View's brands in China, Mexico, South Korea, and Indonesia. Can view can help expand Kimberly Clark's categories in India and Western Europe. Handy and glove. The companies are targeting about $2 billion in total run rate synergies. That includes $ 1.9 billion in cost savings and $500 million of incremental profit from revenue opportunities offset by $300 million that will be reinvested in the business. Management expects to capture the cost savings within three years of closing and the revenue benefits within four years. They say the deal will be additive to earnings within the second year. Okay, good enough to me. Sure. I would like it to be the first year. You can't have everything. Of course, this is a massive integration and large consumer mergers rarely go according to plan. To achieve these savings, Kimberly Clark and Ken View plan to spend $2.5 billion during the first two years postc closing. But Kimberly Clark has earned some credibility on efficiency. The company's delivered productivity savings of around 6% annually for many years in a row, including in the last quarter. It's already more than halfway through a 5-year, $3 billion productivity enhancement program that was launched in 2024. And look, the base Kimbley Clark business was already doing just fine. In the first quarter reported in late April, they delivered a healthy top and bottom line beat fueled by solid volume growth. Kimberly Clark has been improving both its premium and value products. Households have gotten more selective, especially in North America. And Kimberly Clark feels the need to offer something compelling at every price point to fend off private label competition. Now, Kimberly Clark reports second quarter earnings on in two weeks on August 4th. I'm not expecting a blowout quarter. Streets looking for $21 earnings per share, one of four $4.23 billion dollars in revenue. Quarter also faces the tough comparisons of the year after North American volumes grew more than 5% in the year ago period. There's also this distribution center fire in LA, something that's weighted on the business in the second quarter. Big paper products fire, but management expects shipments to accelerate in the second half as the company ramps new products, moves beyond the fire related impact, and faces easier year-over-year comparisons. In other words, maybe not great quarter ahead, but maybe better quarters after. Of course, there are legitimate risk here. I need you to know these. The Ken View transaction is enormous. Existing Kimberly Clark shareholders will own only 54% in the comb buy business. So, we're talking some serious delusion. Company will take on additional debt and plans to limit share repurchases until its leverage ratio gets back to down around two. Sensible, but probably will not help the stock. Chemy's plants are fantastic, but fantastic brands do not necessarily guarantee fantastic execution. Kim Clark needs to integrate two large global organizations, combine systems and supply chains, avoid distracting the core businesses, and deliver billions of dollars in savings. The Ken View portfolio also brings additional regulatory risk that didn't exist for tissues and toilet paper, including ownership of the Tylenol brand, something that wasn't controversial until RFK Jr., HHS secretary, drew an unproven link between Tylenol and autism, claimed that Ken is refuted. But that's why the stock trades at a big discount, the SP500. So, let me give you the bottom line, and this is not a runaway situation. And this is one of those things I'm trying to show you that you can add while you take a little bit of tech out of your portfolio. I'll I'm looking for stocks with good potential upside that will also let you sleep at night. Kim Clark is a defensive business with a 4.7% yield and a cheap stock that is protected from a lot of foreign competition. Plus, the Ken View acquisition gives it an incredible path towards faster growth, higher margins, and a much broader health and wellness platform. I'm not expecting second quarter report to be the catalyst here, but I think it's a great long-term opportunity. In fact, I actually hope it sells off in the quarter, which it very well will letting you buy some on week. Your whole portfolio cannot be in memory chips. Money's back after the break. >> Coming up, is now your chance to cash in on the credit card stocks? Framers going off the charts to find out next. For months, we've been hearing endless hand ringing about the state of the consumer. Something that's only gotten worse since the retinal war with Iran sent the price of oil back into the 80s. But this market isn't always as obvious as you'd expect. And the consumer is surprisingly resilient, which is confounding a lot of these economists. Just last week, we got some solid retail sales numbers for June. Retail sales were up 6.7% year-over-year last month. That's extraordinary. National Retail Foundation is projecting that they'll grow 4.4 clip for the full year. I think it's actually too low. And consumer spend, you know what? How they do it? They use credit cards. They represent 35% of consumer transactions. Far and away the most frequently used single payment method. About 81% of Americans have a credit card, usually three or four. On average, consumers tend to eat up about 29 to 30% of their available balance. The median household has a cash balance of about $8,000, but many consumers would rather use credit for purchase than draw in their cash and savings. All this is to say that the three big credit card companies, Visa, Mastercard, and American Express have a tremendous read on the state of the economy. And after a very rocky first quarter, these stocks have been steadily chugging higher since April. And that's why tonight we have the privilege of going off the charts with the help of Bob Lang, old friend, founder of exclusive explosive options.net and the author of know your options to take a closer look at the major credit card companies and what their stocks look like and what they're telling us. Why don't we start with Visa? That's the most used credit card. 60% of card holders have one. I've got one. I don't know if you do. Check out the daily chart. Visa's been roaring higher on terrific relative strength lately. I mean, this is not what Visa's chart looks like when the consumer is being squeezed. When you look at the moving average convergence divergence, that's the MAC D, and it's right here, which is that's an important momentum indicator that can detect changes in the stock's trajectory before they happen, not you know, look, this isn't a coincidence thing. This is a predictive. It made a bullish crossover in mid June. That's what really got people excited. Okay. Right there. Uh, but that's when the black line crosses over the red line and it's one of the most positively reliable patterns there is out there. Sure enough, the stock's been on fire ever since the cross and you can see how on fire it's been. Now, I want you to look at the onbalance volume line down at the bottom. Okay, this is really important because it's a lot of people don't bother to look at this. This is a volumebased technical indicator that adds volume on up days and subtracts volume on down days to gauge buying and selling pressure. It can help spot trend reversals. Lately, Visa's on balance volume has been spiking and that's a strong sign that big institutions can't get enough of this one. This is rather extraordinary. How much they love it. Meanwhile, the stock's in a solid uptrend, having made a series of higher highs and higher lows. Again, textbook bullish. Last quarter, Visa rolled out a $20 billion buyback. Lang thinks there's a chance they might add more to the repurchase plan when they report again next week. In his view, a good quarter should push this $355 stock to 400 by the fall, even as it's currently within spitting distance of an all-time high. Now, remember, unlike American Express, Visa and Mastercard have no credit exposure. They don't have losses if you don't pay. And that's why they're so gloved by mutual funds. Now, let's take I want to talk about the next chart, which is one of my absolute favorites. Michael Miak runs it. It's Mastercard. Ma, second most commonly used credit card. 25 to 30% of card holders have one. Again, you can see that the stock's going crazy in the last few weeks. Bouncing like mad off of it June low. Although, unlike Visa, it still hasn't taken out its January highs. This is what I mean, by the way, when I say you need to diversify away from some of your tech. Mastercard is a tech company in bank clothing. It's always been a terrific place to be. Lang knows that Mastercard has made a bullish uh trend channel of higher highs and higher lows. The MACD line that I told you about threw off a buy signal last month. Let's go to that. Here we have the buy signal where the black crosses red. Okay. Um the same bullish crossover as we saw. Visa. The relative strength index. Another key momentum indicator has been trending steadily higher. Put this at the top this time. We like that. um but hasn't quite reached overbought territory yet where would be a little bit too dangerous for me. Lang points out that Mastercard stock hasn't just been flying here. It's been flying on high volume and you know that's you can see that that's a spike in volume. Uh and the onbalance volume is pushing higher in a very encouraging way. I told him people don't look that enough. Here we go. That's the subtraction edition. as he sees it, the stock has legs, but there's a powerful sibling resistance of about $35 from here at 573, which is where the stock was trading before a gap down in January. Lang betting Mastercard can challenge its January highs in the not too distant future. This one uh also reports next week and we know that Mastercard's been a voracious buyer of its own stock. If they announce any kind of additional capital return, either an increased buyback or dividend boost, well, that could give the stock wings. Now, finally, there's one that I have been near and dear for as long as I can remember, and that's America's Express. Now, this only has 10% of purchase volume with fewer cards in circulation, but their card holders tend to spend a lot more money. Plus, they charge fees for their best cards, basically making you pay for access to their generous rewards programs, but it's a fantastic business model. But remember, they do have credit risk. So, what does Line see in the daily chart? Okay, American Express has been flying since this early June. uh just like Visa and Mastercard after it broke out above its 200 day moving average. Lang points out that it tested that new support level several times then finally made a nice jump higher on strong volume. In his view that's a very successful strong volume goes up like that. Meanwhile, the MACD line still flashing a buy. Let's go there. Black line crosses the red, right? Uh and this stock's been strong at a time when the market's been weak. Line thinks it's likely to be a smooth sailing until the 350 level uh which gets closer there February highs was for the 370. Uh that's where the sellers came out last time. Um now I've got to tell you in his view Mark Express is the best in class. Given that we've seen big numbers in travel here, Lang expects that AMX will shoot the lights out when reports on Friday. This Friday. Now I agree with him that this company's best to beat. But I also want to point out that American Press's stock, no matter what they seem to report, tends to sell off in response to earnings on that Friday, even when the numbers terrific. Then it gradually finds its footing afterwards and mount strong rallies in between quarters, which is why I always say, you know, around like 10:30, 11, you might want to buy this one. I'm not kidding. It's been a good prediction so far. Here's the bottom line. The charts in Bob Lang suggest the big three credit card companies are poised to report excellent results this earning season, allowing their stocks to keep running. I think he's got a point. Uh, these three have run up dramatically over the past few weeks, so they're coming in hot. That often makes things a little more difficult. I almost hope that they report good numbers and sell off anyway, giving you a better buying opportunity as all three of these are remarkably good companies. Now, we're going to take some calls and we're going to start with Jim in Wyoming. Jim, >> thanks for taking my call. Longtime listener since the days of Cuddlo and Kramer. Oh, I miss >> and and and thanks for all your excellent advice. I've benefited substantially. My question today is about PayPal. What do you think? >> Okay. Uh I think you can actually win now PayPal on either return and Ricky Lores is there. I know he had a hard time at U Packard. I I don't know what he can do with uh with PayPal, but PayPal's got suitors. Stripe is interested. Apparently, that was old news. stripe of dinner hanging around. But I think at 10 times earnings with the possibility of a suitor and maybe new management kind of to turn things around, I think it's got a good riskreward. Not a great one. Not a great one, but a good one. I do prefer the other credit card companies. Uh, and I'm not as big a fan of buy now pay later with with uh PayPal. I like the buy now pay later option of fur. The charts interpreted by Bob Lang suggest that the credit card stocks can keep running. I'm hoping for kind of a little pullback getting better price much more made money including my exclusive with wow 3M then what will it take for the market to appreciate the software stocks again if they can I'm taking a look at the beaten down cohort to figure out what's going on and of course all your calls rapid fire tonight's edition of the lightning round so stay with Kramer look at the stock of 3M Run. Ever since Bill Brown took over as CEO just over two years ago, this industrial titan has been undergoing a remarkable turnaround and it's really starting to pay off for shareholders. This morning, 3M reported a magnificent quarter. A handy top and bottom line beat with organic revenue growth north of 5%. Stunning. Even better, management raised their fullear forecast, which is why the stock shot up over 7%. I actually thought it should have been higher. Earlier today, for the first time since he took over the company, we had the chance to speak with Bill Brown, the chairman and CEO of 3M for an interview. Check it out. >> Mr. Brown, welcome to Man Money. >> Hey Jim, great to be on the show. Thank you so much for having me. >> Well, I have to tell I usually don't start like this, but I'm so proud of you. I think that you told me this company could be saved and grow again. I remember when you took the job. You've always kept me up. Tell me about your commitment to excellence and innovation and returning 3M to the company we remember it as. So, so Jim, thanks for having me on the show today and I'm really proud of the team. They executed exceptionally well here in the quarter. We had a very strong uh second quarter results. Organic growth was at 5.4% which is the best it's been in more than 5 years. Margins came up by 40 basis points. Earnings per share was up 11%. cash generation was was really strong 107% of net income which is a reflection of the quality of the underlying earnings and on the back of the first half performance we raise guidance for the year as well by 25 to 30 cents on the top and bottom line on earnings per share with organic revenue now more than 3.5% and free cash generation of 4.7 to 4.9 billion that's more than 100% conversion so we're on a great trajectory a great roll back to innovation. We're back to business building. We're executing better. Our margins are up 500 basis points over the last 3 years and we're starting to step up more in organic growth. It's becoming sustainable and durable and I'm really proud of the team's execution. Well, I'm glad you started with with with organic growth because there was a time when I would interview the CEO of 3M and they would talk about the percentage of revenue gain that was from new products and then that stopped being talked about and some legal issues that I didn't hear talked about on the call, thank Kevin, started to dominate the discussion. Are we back to where we can say, you know what, in our pipeline we see maybe 25% new growth coming out. So look, we we bottomed out at about 125 products launched in 2023. You know, years ago, Jim, we would launch 700 or 800 products or even more and it came down quite precipitously. Our new product vitality index, which is a measure of the freshness of the portfolio, dropped to 11% last year. It's up into the mid- teens this year. It's going to be at 20% next year. And we'll be back to where we should be, which is north of 25% over time. And it's through this innovation machine. We're launching more products. This year we'll launch more than 350 new products into the marketplace which is triple the level we were at three years ago. And we're on this accelerating journey. You know again business business building is back at 3M. I'm really encouraged by what the team is doing. We are known our legacy is material science. We use material science to solve some of the toughest challenges in the world across our industrial portfolio but also in our consumer goods sector as well. So we're leveraging material science 5,000 engineers and scientists doing work every single day and we're back to creating new products to the world. >> Well, the old 3M always had it always went to their absolute best annual and then when it was put online they would have it would look at it was the the periodic table and you would click on each one and you would see all the new products that you had created. I now feel like you can go back to that particularly because I'm seeing what you're doing in the data center as a very good place to start with the Microsoft deal. So it's that we're really proud of that deal. The company has a lot of deep expertise in optical connection technologies. This goes back many many years and we've been working over the last couple of years on a new optical fiber connection technology expanded beam optics. We have a 100 patents in the space, another 50 patents pending and we're very optimistic of growth in that sector mainly because we're seeing copper tren data transmission in that in data centers shifting over to optical transition. That's what's happening over time. So we're building a business here. I'm really excited that Microsoft after several years of testing has certified us as a provider for them to their Azure data centers. We're working to scale up that technology both internally as well as with externally with contract manufacturers and Jim another key piece of this is building out the ecosystem of partners. Hyperscalers require supplier supply assurance and what we're doing is working with about 44 or 45 other suppliers in the in the ecosystem to enable people to manufacture this product for us as well while we'll do the same thing internally. That's what's going to help us grow that data center business which today is relatively small but growing very quickly. >> Well, that's something you taught me. I mean, we talk about on the conference call these places people don't realize they're dirty and dirty shuts them down and if you shut them down that's billions of dollars that can be lost. Yours cleans up a clean room. >> Yeah. So, so it's they're they're dirty. You get vibration. what you use expands the beam and then reconnects the beam back when it comes back together in another piece of fiber through that any dust that might be in that fiber link that that light path you know is is not distracted the photons aren't distracted by that so it's going to be clean it's going to be resilient it's durable you know and it saves 85% of the installation time by by hyperscalers and to your Time is money for hyperscalers. We've proven out that it's 85% lower time to install. >> Well, I I'm glad you me what I'm trying to get across to people is is that if it works for one, it's going to work for all. And you're just at the beginning and that's how you have such a good road map. I also think that you're involved in an industry that I love, which is industrial safety because no one's ever going to come out and say, you know what, this year I think we need less safety. So, so Jim, we have a big position in industrial safety across high protection, hearing protection, fall protection, um, SCBA, so so for firefighters, self-contained breathing apparatus. It's a great business for us. It's growing. It was high single digits in the quarter. We're putting a lot of effort into that, a lot of innovation dollars, and we see our ability to grow in that sector very, very substantially over time. So, we're really encouraged by our position in the safety sector. No, one of these I don't want anyone to think I haven't thought about it. There's PAS, these are so-called forever chemicals. There's a combat arms decision, but I think you and your predecessor have worked mightily to make it so that should no longer be the focus of people who are thinking about investing in the stock of 3M. >> So, so Mike set a good foundation on on exiting PAS. We decided to exit PAS manufacturing a number of years ago. That is now out of our portfolio as of the end of last year. We continue to to work to discontinue use of PAS from other suppliers in our individual products. We've we've invested over a billion dollars into state-of-the-art water treatment systems at a number of our chemical facilities, you know, and we are embarking. We took a 12.5 billion dollar charge several years ago to pay for a lot of US public water suppliers. There's other things ahead of us, but what I'm focused on, Jim, is getting people back to executing, developing great products at great quality on time for our customers, and 60,000 employees of of 3M are doing exactly that. >> Well, I want to leave with that notion. I'm going to hold up a board game. It's called stocks and bonds. My father worked proudly for 3M selling scotch tape, sashing, ribbon, and games. and he worked for many people and he told me there was only one company that treated him like an individual, not just some sort of cog. It's 3M and it sounds like that's exactly what you're doing now at this company. >> Thanks, Jim. I really appreciate that. Appreciate all your support on 3M. You know, we've been around for 124 years and the future looks very, very bright for the company. So, thank you. >> Absolutely. My dad said, "Don't forget it's Minnesota manufacturer." I said, "Dad, no, it's 3M." That's what they call it now. >> It's 3M. It's 3M. Bill Brown, chairman and CEO of the 3M company, which is not only back, but it's just going to get better and better and better. Bill, thanks for being on the show. >> Thank you, Jim. Nice to see you. >> Absolutely, man. Back at him. >> Coming up, he's the fastest mind on Wall Street, so we're putting him to the test with your help. Bring on the lightning round next. It is time. It's time for the light round by social play and then the lightning round is over. Are you ready? Ski D. Let's start with Chris in New York. Chris. >> Hi Jim. This is Chris from New York. Because my wife's intro, I got to meet you 20 years ago. Very good, sir. Very good. Um, was that nice? Oh, man. You were awesome, man. That was at Seinhardt's office. Michael. Michael Sinhard. Yeah, it was cool, man. Thank you, >> Michael. You might want to delete that. I don't know. It's up to you, man. Um, all the days, I guess. >> I love Latans. I love Latans. Go ahead. >> Yeah, my wife used to work there. Sorry, sir. So, um, uh, you make you've been a big impact in with Christopher and Sophia, our kids, and and since then, early investing was huge for us. Our stock is steel infrastructure. Our thesis is mega. >> Okay. Now, I'm glad you mentioned this one. This is the kind of thing I'm willing to blast. Okay. It's a high-risisk infrastructure company where I do feel that something good could happen. It's, you know, it's not going to be down 800. I mean, some of the Look, I think Nbius, congratulations to them. You want the next Nebius, though. How about that? Let's go to Charlie in Pennsylvania. Charlie, >> good evening, Jim. I I really appreciate your latest book and as with your prior works I will pass it down to my nephews. So he's shooting the clinic on they've been a tremendous help the last >> I want them to be just mad you know be happy you know it's like enough to be happy that's all I want you go ahead I'm sorry that's too philosophic for the show philosophic >> I'm thinking about uh taking a position in a super regional uh that's had a higher than expected earnings last week it has a low PE and a great dividend roughly 4% truest financial what do you >> well you know I I like truest I mean someone has some negative things to say about Key at 3.57 and the stock was only down 37 cents. I prefer Key to Truist. Don't forget Ohio great state to do business. I I I know this. Let's go to Alex in Nebraska. Alex, >> hey. Hey, Jim. Good afternoon. How you doing? >> I am doing well. How about you? >> Pretty good. Trying to beat this Nebraska heat. Thought I'd cooled down with a little bit of mad money this evening. >> I hear you. I hear you. Okay. Uh checking in with uh aerospace and defense stock Archer Aviation. >> Well, okay. Archer reminds me of that keel at the beginning. They're down so much. You can put a little look, you could have own a stock for $2. If it goes to zero, it's going to hurt. If you own Archer five and it goes to four, it's going to hurt. But I do think that it's like Keel, you can risk a little money. You're allowed to have a speculative stock in my portfolio. I always say that. Now, we're going to go to Will in my home state of Pennsylvania. Will Hey Jim, how you doing? This is Will from Philadelphia. >> Oh man. Hey, go birds. HEY, HOW ABOUT GO PHILS? OKAY, someone throw Trey a glove. He needs a glove out there. Go ahead. I'm sorry. >> And the flyers, too. Well, I guess you're over with, I guess, but uh yeah, you know, I tell you, I'm in the house of pain, man. I uh called you a few months back and you did a little story on it. I appreciate it. It was about um I'm I'm like I bought this stock at 94 and then 88 and now 70. What's happening with Ali? O L I man Ali's bar outlet. It's been missing the quarter, you know, and it's tough. And I went in Quaker Town. I don't know. I stopped going to it myself, but I'm a member of Ali's Army, but they haven't sent me anything lately. Uh look, it's TJX. They own that segment. You don't want to be in anything else. And even TJX is tough. Hey, by the way, I've got a really great Dollar Tree out in the Hamptons, but even that's not killing it. I don't know. Let's stick with TJX. And that, ladies and gentlemen, is conclusion of the lightning round. THE Lightning Round is sponsored by Charles Schwab. Coming up, don't touch that dial. Kramer has more on this market you won't want to miss. Next, >> Jim Kramer is the die hard of the dollars. >> Hey, Jimmy. Love the show. >> My 5-year-old grandson loves to watch your show. >> I have to thank you for making us money when it's there to be made. >> Our world is a better place with you in it. Can software be so horrendous that it's uninvestable? Wrong question. Instead, we should ask if software will ever come back now that it's down so much. Right now, we're witnessing a historic increase in the value of hardware coupled with a shattering decline in the value of software. At the top of the show, I talked about the incredible gains in tech, even as I acknowledge that it's time to trim back those positions into strength, at least get more diversified. But those gains are all on the hardware side. Software is just a nightmare. >> Consider these returns for some of the most sainted companies of the last decade. Salesforce and Adobe each off 35%. Workday down 34%. Service Now off 33%. I'm not even talking about Wix off 50% because Anthropics cla can apparently take share from Wix and sleep or in it which has plunged 56% because customers might switch to the bots to do their taxes. Even as I think that's a real stretch. the house of pain. >> The fact is that when Morgan simply downgrades Salesforce from an overweight to an equal weight or takes Adobe and workday from equal weight to underweight as happened this morning with an analyst change, it's no longer even a shock. Consider the Adobe downgrade. For the longest time, Adobe was a must own. You'd never think of selling it. This $227 stock was $638 two and a half years ago. Isn't that pretty much the exact opposite of what you're seeing in the hardware? It seems to me that Adobe has been under attack from Canva and Figma on the low end and Claude and Chat GBT on the higher end, although the cost of the latter two is unclear. As much as you may think that Adobe's decline is overdone, remember this, the Morgan Stanley Underweight Ready makes it pretty darn clear that it's hard to invest in a company that's now searching for both a CEO and a CFO. It's been a very long time since I can recall a company that was hunting for both positions. CEO Shant Shantanu Naray announced his retirement after the second quarter of news report March 12th. CFO departed June 15th. I think the board has an obligation to pick people for those positions. This is not a small cap company for heaven's sake. It's a major American business. I say come on. Are you serious people or not? I understand that there's been some turmoil at the top of Workday too, but what's happened is that the return of co-founder Neil Bushry to the CEO role. He built the company. Doesn't seem to matter though. There are few CEOs as able as Bill McDermott at Service Now and he's done his best to integrate AI into his operation, but it seems like nothing's ever enough. We'll know the story after tomorrow's close when Service Now reports, but the last quarter was an upside surprise and it meant very little. Maybe it's going to be meaningless. The toughest one for me, of course, is Salesforce. I have championed this story from 2008 all the way up and now a lot of way down. And the company seems perfectly positioned to use agent force, its AI and Gentics business to help its customers. I think it's doing a terrific job and I know CEO Mark Benoff will be able to tell an excellent tale of customer adoption. But he has to deal with some people thinking that there's going to be a slowdown at the rest of the company. Let me tell you about what I am most concerned about though. What happens is Service Now tells us a good story, but it's no longer good enough for buyers. What if Mark Benning says, "Look, we have we have customers who love this product and the stock market is not impressed. Salesforce is buying back $50 billion worth of stock. Service Now is a smaller buyback. The problem is there may not be enough to change the narrative that this is enterprise software in a market that only has eyes for enterprise hardware. In other words, these are good companies with good products, but they're not growing at their old growth rates. And to Wall Street, that's all that matters. I like to say there's always a bull market summary. I promise find just for you here, man. I'm Jim Kramer. See you tomorrow. All opinions expressed by Jim Kramer on this podcast are solely Kramer's opinions and do not reflect the opinions of CNBC or its parent company or affiliates and may have been previously disseminated by Kramer on television, radio, internet, or another medium. You should not treat any opinion expressed by Kramer as a specific inducement to make a particular investment or follow a particular strategy, but only as an expression of his opinion. Kramer's opinions are based upon information he considers reliable. But neither CNBC nor its affiliates or subsidiaries warrant its completeness or accuracy, and it should not be relied upon as such. To view the full MadMoney disclaimer, please visit cnbc.com/madmoney disclaimer.