IBM, BA, GE: Jim Cramer's Views

Cramer shares his views on Microsoft's killer quarter and its meaning. IBM, Boeing and General Electric are among the stocks discussed.
By Jim Cramer ,

Jim Cramer shares his views every day on RealMoney.Click here for a real-time look at his insights and musings.

Cramer: Microsoft's Killer Quarter, and What It Means for Global Economies

Posted at 6:46 a.m. EDT on Wednesday, July 20, 2016

Can 90 days be that important? In the case of Microsoft (MSFT) - Get Report , it sure can. In the time since it last reported, Microsoft boosted its cloud business dramatically, gave a terrific showing in intelligent machine learning, saw some huge growth in small and medium-size business partnerships, picked up share in the search space and saw a surge in Xbox users. Perhaps most importantly, and no doubt to be overshadowed by its cloud offering Azure's 100% growth, was a pickup in personal computer sales.

"Our PC market was a little better than we thought," CFO Amy Hood, who I thought was way too downbeat on last quarter's conference call, told us. "And particularly in developed markets, it was better than we thought."

I am highlighting the turn in 90 days, because if you recall, Microsoft disappointed last quarter in a host of areas. In fact, pretty much every area I just went over.

We saw a remarkable turnaround this quarter.

Azure is turning into a real cloud competitor, as Satya Nadella weans his company away from traditional personal computers. In many ways, he is now making the change faster than Oracle (ORC) - Get Report or IBM (IBM) - Get Report . That's what happens when you have 100% growth in Azure, your cloud business. That growth enabled the cloud business to improve to a run rate of $12 billion -- and pretty much assures that Microsoft can hit its goal of $20 billion in cloud business by 2020, once thought impossible without the purchase of Salesforce.com (CRM) - Get Report .

What can I say? Azure is the credible alternative to Amazon Web Services, especially for big companies -- including many industrials. You heard names like Boeing (BA) - Get Report and Action Alerts PLUSholding GE (GE) - Get Report on this call.

I also liked that Bing is now 22% of the search market, and that Xbox now has 49 million users, up 33% on the previous year.

Yet, I found the PC growth most enlightening, because that speaks to better Surface sales -- as well as a potentially positive readthrough for Intel (INTC) - Get Reporttonight. It also verifies the strength that Seagate Technology (STX) - Get Report said it saw earlier this month.

I know, I know, it is a cloud story. But I think that you can make a case that Microsoft's call is the first definitive confirmation that things have become better in the world. I don't think PC sales could have been better than expected without an economic tailwind.

Throughout this earnings period, we have heard endless hand-wringing about anemic revenue growth worldwide. Yet I am hard pressed to find where it is anemic. If anything, it is accelerating.

Here are my two takeaways. First, Microsoft managed to make a dramatic turn toward the better in 90 days. A lot of that was execution. But I think that my second takeaway should stand out every bit as much: This demonstrates the improvement in economies worldwide.

At the time of publication, Action Alerts PLUS, which Cramer co-manages as a charitable trust, was long GE.

Cramer: Defying Reasons for a Downdraft Yet Again

Posted at 3:02 p.m. EDT on Tuesday, July 19, 2016

There are a ton of reasons why we should go down Tuesday.

First, there's the reports that the big HMO deals -- the Humana (HUM) - Get Report -Aetna (AET) and Cigna (CI) - Get Report -Anthem (ANTM) - Get Report mergers -- are about to get blocked by the Justice Department. I have seen these kinds of blow-ups bring down whole markets; instead, this one isn't even blinking.

Second, while I said that I thought this quarter would see the end of the tight linkage among the dollar, oil and the S&P 500, oil has failed to rally during this entire advance and is at its low and the dollar is not cooperating, either. Yet the oil stocks are almost diffident. They don't seem to react to anything. Some were up today when oil started its descent.

Third, forget politics. I don't know about you, but I felt very fearful after watching last night's show. Fear is usually not the salve, the balm of higher prices.

Fourth, everyone has been worried about casual dining for weeks now, but a Pokéman giveaway in Japan has driven up McDonald's (MCD) - Get Report sales to the point that it's impacting the stock itself, which has been in a real slumber. No more.

Fifth, Spirit Air (SAVE) - Get Report truly blew up Monday night but it had almost zero impact on the entire group. Delta (DAL) - Get Report is actually up!

These are all surprising, yet nobody seems to even notice them.

Just a different kind of market, for certain.

At the time of publication, Jim Cramer's charitable trust Action Alerts PLUS held no positions in stocks mentioned.

Action Alerts PLUS, which Cramer co-manages as a charitable trust, was long GE

.

Loading ...