CNBC’s Jim Cramer said Thursday’s rally showed investors remain resilient and eager to buy stocks.
“This market has a huge appetite,” the “Mad Money” host said. “One that could shrug off a bear…and still be hungry for more.”
The Dow Jones Industrial Average rallied to a record high, up 874 points, or 1.7%. Meanwhile, the S&P 500 added 0.4% and the tech heavy Nasdaq Composite dipped 0.09%. The mixed performance came despite “two of the biggest obstacles” that, Cramer said, normally would have derailed the market.
One reason the market may have powered higher, according to Cramer, is that investors concluded the latest earnings disappointments were not nearly as severe as initially feared. He pointed to Broadcom’s history of issuing conservative forecasts before delivering stronger results later, while noting the stock had already rallied sharply heading into earnings. Cramer also suggested concerns about CrowdStrike may be overblown, arguing the cybersecurity company’s results and outlook were stronger than the market reaction implied.
“The disappointments really weren’t that disappointing,” he said.
Cramer also thinks the market’s reception to Quantinuum’s initial public offering is a sign of investor resilience. Quantinuum is the quantum computing company spun out of Honeywell, which is a holding in Cramer’s Charitable Trust, the portfolio run by the CNBC Investing Club. Demand for the deal was so strong that underwriters increased the size of the offering, and the stock still finished its first day of trading relatively flat.
“I was prepared to see a sloppy deal that would go up a couple of dollars and then roll over, bringing the whole market down with it,” Cramer said. “Didn’t happen.”
Instead, Cramer said the successful debut suggests investors remain eager to participate in new offerings despite concerns about a growing pipeline of deals.
“That is a huge load of worry taken off the table,” Cramer said.
He also pointed to the market’s reaction to renewed concerns surrounding private credit. News that Blackstone limited redemptions in a flagship private credit fund would typically have rattled investors and pressured financial stocks, he said. Instead, shares of Blackstone, KKR, and Ares all moved higher.
“The market just chose to overlook it,” Cramer said.
Beyond that, Cramer noted that leadership broadened beyond the AI and data center trades. Financial, healthcare, and transportation stocks all participated in the rally, a sign that investor enthusiasm is spreading beyond a handful of technology winners.
Taken together, Cramer said the session highlighted a market that remains willing to look past potential obstacles and continue buying stocks.
“At 4 a.m. this morning we seemed to be on track for one of the worst days of the year,” he said. “At 4 p.m. this afternoon we left thinking, what the heck, how did the bull run over the matador?”
