Investing

Jim Cramer's Concerns on Thursday's Pullback: COVID-19, Cybersecurity and China

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The S&P 500, Dow Jones industrials and Nasdaq all tumbled on Thursday, after touching record highs on Wednesday. While some skittish investors may be worried and some weak hands may have sold, it is important to remember that a pullback is natural when markets are near record highs. A low interest rate environment in the near term could foster more growth in the technology sector, but we have to move past Thursday first. All this makes for a stock picker’s market, and who better to pick these stocks than CNBC’s Jim Cramer.

Cramer has been a force in the market for years, dishing out advice and analysis to savvy investors. He makes no bones about how he encounters the market with well-founded technical and fundamental analysis at a level to which many a trader and investor aspire.

It is no secret that Cramer has not just been a fount of breaking news surrounding everyone’s favorite stocks and companies, but he also actively engages and encourages more people to get their money to work for them via smart investing. With the recent surge in meme stocks and interest in cryptocurrencies, Cramer has shifted and grown with the times. He even has investment strategies on the cutting edge.

Cramer has maintained a popular show on CNBC for years now. Many people watch “Mad Money” to make sense of the daily market moves. He also runs the popular finance website TheStreet.com. Furthermore, you can see him make cameos on other shows over the course of the trading day on CNBC. When not on the air, you can find him on Twitter, dishing out even more knowledge.

24/7 Wall St. has compiled and distilled some of Cramer’s top picks and analysis here.

Cramer’s Mad Money sermon started with COVID-19. The market action on Thursday seemed to be predicated on the new delta variant of the coronavirus, but don’t fear, says Cramer, as the United States has one of the most robust vaccination programs in the world. However, there is still some concern about how the current administration is handling this overall.

For a quick note, on Thursday there were over 17,000 new cases of COVID-19 reported in the United States, and only about 250 deaths from the disease were reported. This is a far cry from the heart of the pandemic, but still worthy of some concern.

Cramer also said that investors aren’t only worried about COVID-19. There is also how politicians are handling everything from big tech to trade, and even railroads. Investors aren’t just worried about domestic issues too, but also the cloud of China looming over initial public offerings, and blocking mergers is a very real threat to destroying wealth.

Last thing Cramer touched on was cybersecurity and the recent ransomware attacks have investors concerned over infrastructure and how U.S. elected officials will handle this going forward.

For the Lightning Round, Cramer led off with Anavex Life Sciences Corp. (NASDAQ: AVXL): “I’m intrigued because the Biogen data doesn’t look that good. I think you stick with it. It’s real spec, though, but I think you stick with it.”

GS Acquisition Holdings Corp. (NYSE: GSAH) was a special purpose acquisition company that Jimmy Chill highlighted this round: “That’s a very important SPAC that I don’t know enough about. … I’ve got to do more work on that particular SPAC because I do hear good things.”

Nio Inc. (NYSE: NIO) is a company that many have been burned on before, and Cramer let them have it: “We’re done with Chinese IPOs. I want to sell Nio. … I want to sell half of it tomorrow, and I hope it goes up. I love your interest, but I am very worried about China.”

Upstart Holdings Inc. (NASDAQ: UPST) was the last stock of the group: “I don’t understand the short position in Upstart. Why don’t the meme people, the Apesters, whatever the heck they call themselves, go after that company because it is really good. Artificial intelligence lending. Would you please go after something good?”

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