CNBC’s Jim Cramer said Thursday earnings season has revealed investing themes he thinks will produce the market’s best buying opportunities.
“I love themes. They help you craft a portfolio of stocks with the wind at their backs, not in their faces — the kind of stocks that you can confidently buy more of when they go down,” the “Mad Money” host said.
For investors trying to decide what stocks to buy, Cramer said a good place to start is by focusing on broader market themes to narrow the field. He said the latest earnings season has reinforced five themes that he thinks can help investors identify attractive stocks.
The first theme, Cramer said, is a surprisingly resilient consumer. Despite widespread concerns about inflation and slowing spending, he said earnings from banks, travel companies and retailers tell a different story.
“We’ve been told over and over that the consumer’s totally stretched,” he said. “The companies are saying otherwise.”
Cramer said investors looking to capitalize on that theme should consider companies tied to consumer spending, including Capital One and American Express, as well as retailers Ralph Lauren and Williams-Sonoma, which he said continue to benefit from healthy discretionary demand. Cramer’s Charitable Trust, the portfolio run by CNBC’s Investing Club, owns shares of Capital One.
Artificial intelligence infrastructure remains another powerful theme, but Cramer said investors should focus on companies supplying semiconductor equipment, rather than those scrambling to buy memory.
“There is a shortage of every kind of memory in the universe of the data center,” he said, highlighting Lam Research, KLA Corp and Applied Materials as his preferred way to capitalize on that demand.
Cybersecurity also continues to stand out, Cramer said. Earlier this year, some investors questioned whether artificial intelligence would reduce the need for dedicated security software, but he said rising cyber threats have reinforced the importance of companies such as CrowdStrike and Palo Alto Networks. Cramer’s Charitable Trust owns shares of CrowdStrike and Palo Alto.
Cramer also expects a pickup in mergers and acquisitions to become a tailwind for Wall Street. He thinks companies are moving quickly to pursue deals while the regulatory environment remains favorable, creating opportunities for investment banks including Goldman Sachs and Morgan Stanley. Cramer’s Charitable Trust owns shares of Goldman Sachs.
Finally, he said healthcare has become an attractive destination for investors looking to diversify beyond technology without giving up exposure to innovation. Cramer highlighted Eli Lilly and Johnson & Johnson, which Cramer’s Charitable Trust owns, as companies benefiting from that trend.
While no investing theme is guaranteed to outperform, Cramer said identifying durable trends gives investors greater conviction to hold — and even add to — positions during inevitable pullbacks.
“I just think this quarter’s information is fresh enough that you can pick a travel stock, a semiconductor capital equipment maker, a cybersecurity company, something that works in the M&A world, or medtech and you’ll greatly increase your chances of making money for the rest of 2026,” he said.
