Jim Cramer panicked when he read the news on Monday morning and saw it was filled with scary reports of earnings.
The fright began when he read The Wall Street Journal's cover story entitled 'Corporate Profits set to Shrink for Fourth Consecutive Quarter' that detailed collapsing oil prices, a weak merger market and saturated phone market. The story made him feel like everything was terrible.
In reality, earnings season is not that bad, Cramer said. It started with several top and bottom line beats from companies like PepsiCo and Alcoa.
"If that is as bad as it gets, then the Journal is going to have to rethink its premature obituary for earnings season … I think it's fair to ask, what is there to be gloomy about?" the "Mad Money" host asked.
The only real downers so far have been Netflix and Hasbro. Netflix was hurt once again from slower subscriber growth.
"We all seem to want to focus on Netflix. I'm saying take a break from that," Cramer said.
Shares of Hasbro fell more than 6 percent on Monday following concerns that the company had lost its "Jurassic Park" license, but CEO Brian Goldner said 2017 could be a better year.
"We are very excited about the lineup for 2017. It's as strong, and probably stronger than 2016," Goldner said.
Hasbro reported a 2-cent earnings beat from a 39-cent expectation from Wall Street analysts and higher than expected sales that were up 10 percent year over year. However, its category aimed at boys grew by just 4 percent, down from double-digits last year.
"We had some headwinds from 'Jurassic Park,' but again a great quarter in categories and we grew in every geography around the world," Goldner said.
Most of the retail group has struggled to keep up with a changing U.S. consumer these days, but Cramer has cracked the code for success.
"You have to understand, this country has changed. Americans want off-price retailers to give them high quality branded apparel at everyday low prices," Cramer said.
Until recently, the financial technology group was one of the hottest ones out there, especially ones focused on small business online lenders.
The group was hit hard following the Lending Club situation, and since then various online lenders have cut loan organization targets for 2016 with concerns for the global economy and fear of potential regulatory overhaul.
Yet, despite the slump, companies are still trying to get in on the action, with American Express launching a platform for online lending. Cramer decided to take a closer look at the biggest competitors: Square, PayPal, OnDeck and American Express to find out which one is worth owning.
"I think OnDeck, the only pure play, is way too risky here, and American Express has too much working against it at the moment … I'm a big fan of PayPal, but with Square, I think you wait on the sidelines until they get a full-time CEO," Cramer said.
Cramer also likes to take the time to go off the tape to highlight privately-held companies disrupting the industry they are in.
Mic is an online media company that is tailored to a millennial audience. It was created in 2011 by former Goldman Sachs banker Chris Altchek and his partner Jake Horowitz. The company now has 10 divisions and a monthly audience of more than 30 million people, of which almost 75 percent are under 35.
On Monday, the company launched a new division called Money.Mic that is dedicated to helping millennials understand the financial industry. Cramer spoke with Altchek, who stated that despite being the most diverse, educated and engaged generation ever, only 23 percent of this group understand basic financial topics.
"We've got an incredible opportunity and responsibility to help this generation understand what is happening in the financial world, what's happening in the technology world and how they can put those things together to live a better life," Altchek said.
In the Lightning Round, Cramer gave his take on a few caller favorite stocks:
Stamps.com: "My whole group, we took a look at this thing. This is the biggest battleground. We cannot figure out why it went up or why it went down. It defies current wisdom."
Danaher Corp: "You've got to hold on to Danaher. That is just a terrific life sciences company. These guys are so smart. They don't seek publicity but I'm going to give it to them. These guys are among the best business people in America."