CNBC’s Jim Cramer said Monday there’s no need to worry about a market crash like we saw in 2018, when stocks cratered to their worst Christmas month since 1931 before rebounding right after the holiday and heading into the new year.
In fact, the “Mad Money” host said he’s looking more closely at reasons for yet even more record highs, and that positive signs also are coming out of Europe in addition to the U.S.
“Nothing worries me in the sense of looking for a big sell-off in December. I’m looking for more reasons to higher, other than constant reiterations from analysts, which we keep getting,” he said. “November was supposed to be a bad month … and it wasn’t. It was a great month. I’m seeing green shoots and in Europe from auto sales. Auto sales are up.”
Auto sales in Europe were up 8.6% in October to their highest levels since 2009, though, global car sales are expected to fall in their worst year-over-year decline since 2008 amid the global financial crisis.
Cramer then touched on some companies he thinks can do well heading into the new year, including old stalwarts like GE.
“You take a stock like GE … it’s at 11 (dollars). They’ve got a health care conference, it’s investor day — (I see) a lot of good things, I see a lot of down-and-outers doing well, I see a lot of companies that are levered to the enterprise not doing well, particularly if you take a look at a Dell, that’s enterprise, Cisco is enterprise,” he explained.
“But the consumer, it’s Target is doing great, Walmart is doing great vs. Kohl’s doing terrible.”
December is traditionally one of the best months for trading on the so-called Santa Claus rally. However, 2018 was a different story altogether, which saw the S&P 500 dip 9%, bottoming out on Christmas Eve before an epic rally in the new year as stocks again closed at record highs 11 months later heading into Thanksgiving.
Shortly before the final bell on Monday, the S&P 500 is up 25% year to date, even with the seesawing, will they, won’t they come to a new trade agreement between the world’s two largest economies, the U.S. and China.