On last night’s Mad Money, Jim Cramer delivered one of his sharpest de-risking calls of the year, aimed squarely at investors who are borrowing money to ride the AI infrastructure trade. His words: “If you are borrowing money to buy something related to the data center, here’s what you’re going to do. Tomorrow morning, 9:30 AM, sell it. No matter what. You will not regret it.”
The nuance matters. Cramer’s warning targets leveraged holders specifically: those on margin, in leveraged ETFs, or stacked in short-dated call options. He wants them to take the leverage off before the opening bell.
Why Cramer Is Ringing the Bell Now
The backdrop this morning is the reason the call landed with force. The Nasdaq is down more than 1% in premarket trading, following the Korean KOSPI Composite crashing 10.8% overnight. Memory and storage names are leading the pullback, with the full breakdown outlined in our morning coverage of the memory massacre hitting Micron, SanDisk, and Seagate. Premarket figures are live and can shift before 9:30 AM ET.
Cramer’s warning also fits a pattern he has been building for weeks. He compared a recent large NVIDIA transaction to dot-com-era circular financing in our writeup of his “I saw the movie, I don’t want the sequel” segment. He found what he called a genuine AI storage beneficiary and then told viewers not to chase it. And he described a hot drone name as a meme stock that could “rip your lungs out”. The throughline is caution on froth and leverage even while acknowledging real end-demand.
Where the Leverage Is Sitting
NVIDIA (NASDAQ:NVDA | NVDA Price Prediction) still anchors the AI trade. The company posted Q1 FY27 revenue of $81.61B, up 85.2% year over year, with Data Center revenue of $75.25B and a Q2 guide of roughly $91.0B. Shares closed at $196.51 on July 27, down 4.99% on the day. Same-day and 2-day expiration call activity has been extreme, with the July 27 $202.50 call showing a volume-to-open-interest ratio of 322.27, a classic fingerprint of concentrated, short-dated leverage.
Micron Technology (NASDAQ:MU) has ripped, with shares up 215.6% year to date after posting Q3 FY26 revenue of $41.46B, up 345.7% YoY. Seagate Technology (NASDAQ:STX) is up 197.42% YTD, riding HAMR-based Mozaic demand. Both carry put/call ratios near 0.99 (MU) and 1.06 (STX), meaning hedging is already active.
Advanced Micro Devices (NASDAQ:AMD) trades at a P/E of 186 after Q1 revenue of $10.25B, up 37.9% YoY and a Meta partnership covering up to 6 GW of Instinct GPUs. Shares fell 5.17% on July 27 to $494.95. That multiple leaves little room for a growth wobble if leveraged holders start unwinding.
Super Micro Computer (NASDAQ:SMCI) remains the most exposed name in this basket. Q3 FY26 revenue of $10.24B missed consensus by 17.75%, the board is running an independent review tied to export-control matters, and total bank debt and convertibles sit at $8.8 billion. Retail leverage is visible in Reddit posts like “SMCI 100k in” circulating on wallstreetbets.
What to Watch Into the Open
The VIX closed at 18.58 on July 24, sitting in the normal range after spiking to 31.05 on March 27, 2026. That is the environment Cramer is flagging. Volatility is calm, positioning is stretched, and forced selling can accelerate quickly when margin desks make phone calls.
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