Key points
- Six of Cramer's last eight tech calls beat the Nasdaq 100. Astera Labs (ALAB) ran 30.7%.
- He called ALAB the day it bottomed at $249.74. It's $326.34 now.
- Fade all 65 of his tech calls and you're still up 4.6%. Almost half of that is Intel (INTC).
I like Jim Cramer. I also run an Inverse Cramer tracker that exists to log how wrong he is. I've never found a reason those two things can't both be true.
He's been on fire in tech, and I know that's going to annoy some of you.
We priced his last eight technology calls at 2:30 p.m. Eastern on Monday. Six of them beat the Nasdaq 100. The average one is 3.9 points ahead of the index, and it hasn't even been a week.
| His call, July 27 to 31 | Stock since | vs Nasdaq |
|---|---|---|
| Astera Labs (ALAB), buy | +30.7% | +24.8 pts |
| Coherent (COHR), buy | +16.8% | +14.3 pts |
| Microsoft (MSFT), buy | +8.7% | +6.3 pts |
| Arista Networks (ANET), buy | +8.6% | +4.9 pts |
| Nvidia (NVDA), buy | +5.9% | +3.2 pts |
| Bending Spoons (BSP), buy | +4.2% | +1.8 pts |
| Intel (INTC), buy | -6.0% | -7.8 pts |
| Rigetti (RGTI), avoid | +22.4% | -16.6 pts |
Look at Astera Labs (ALAB) first. The stock had closed lower three sessions running. Somebody asked him about it on July 29 and he said this: "Nothing changed. It is just a matter of sentiment. Buy, buy, buy."
It closed at $249.74 that day. It traded as low as $244.61. That was the bottom. It's $326.34 now.
He nailed the day.
Coherent (COHR) is the other big one. He called it "the right level to buy" on July 30 at $249.06. It's $290.86 now, up 16.8%.
The rest are smaller and they all worked. Microsoft (MSFT) is up 8.7% since he backed it. Arista Networks (ANET) is up 8.6% and Nvidia (NVDA) is up 5.9%.
He whiffed on Rigetti (RGTI). He said he didn't care for it on July 29 with the stock at $13.22. It's $16.18 now. Listening to him on that one cost you 16.6 points against the index.
So does fading him still work?
It does, and I want to be straight about how much. We've logged 65 tech calls since June 3. Betting against every one of them returned 4.6%. His calls went his way 28 times out of 65. We wrote on July 21 that his tech calls were lagging the rest of his book, and at the time that was fair.
Eight of those 65 calls are Intel. Just Intel, over and over.
He turned bullish on Intel (INTC) on June 8 at $110.27. Then he said it again at $121.10. Then $139.63, $122.20, $107.76, $102.99, $100.23 and $90.20. The average entry across the eight is $111.80. Intel sat at $90.95 on Monday afternoon. Seven of the eight are underwater.
Those eight calls carry close to half the entire edge.
Pull Intel out and the other 57 tech calls return 2.8% to a fader. His hit rate on them is 27 out of 57. That's a coin flip. His 105 non-tech calls returned 0.7% and finished dead even with the index.
So the honest version is that the Inverse Cramer trade in tech has mostly been one Intel trade. We've all been telling a bigger story than the data actually supports, and I include this site in that.
It's not like Intel's slide is a mystery either. The company posted an $11 billion loss on July 23 while revenue grew 25%. The stock went from $100.36 to $81.88 in the four sessions after that.
Two calls I threw out
Our tracker logs the price at the moment a call goes in. That's usually the close on the day he said it. It breaks when he posts after the bell on news that already moved the stock.
Apple (AAPL) is the obvious one. Apple reported after the close on July 30. Revenue was $109.4 billion, up 16%. September quarter guidance came in light at 9% to 11% growth, and the stock dropped about 6% after hours, per MacDailyNews. Cramer posted that Apple "has run too much to charge higher" at 10:32 that night.
Our tracker booked it at the July 30 close of $333.43. Apple opened the next morning at $304.81. Nobody could've gotten that price. I threw the call out.
The July 31 Intel post is the softer version. He posted at 3:55 in the morning. The tracker used that day's close of $90.20, which made him look 0.8% right. Intel opened at $96.72 and sank all day. Price it at the open and he's down 6%. I counted it as a miss.
Neither fix changes the week. He's still 6 for 8. But that 3.9 point average leans hard on Astera Labs. Pull that one call and the other seven average 0.9 points.
Astera Labs, Arista and Advanced Micro Devices (AMD) all report after the close on August 4. Rigetti goes on August 6. We're going to find out fast whether this run was real or whether he just caught a good week.
This is general market commentary and opinion, not investment advice. Markets can go down as well as up, and you can lose money. Always do your own research and consider speaking with a licensed financial professional before making any investment decision.
