Mad Money

Cramer Remix: How to know when Chipotle's back

Cramer Remix: How to know when Chipotle’s back
VIDEO1:1101:11
Cramer Remix: How to know when Chipotle’s back

While health scares are known to eviscerate a restaurant's same-store sales, Jim Cramer notes that the stock always tends to rebound a year to a year and half later, as it did for Taco Bell and Jack in the Box.

With this in mind he circled back to the future of Chipotle, which was hit with a series of health scares approximately one year ago. If it follows the same pattern as Taco Bell and Jack in the Box, he expects Chipotle to find its footing within the next two to eight months.

To gain further insight on the charts for Chipotle, Cramer turned to Robert Moreno, a chartist and colleague of Cramer's at RealMoney.com, and publisher of RightViewTrading.com. Moreno's view was that the action in Chipotle could be setting the stock up for a big move higher.

"While I believe Chipotle has bottomed, I think it still needs to mark more time before we can be sure that the turn is for real," Cramer said.


Tim Cook, CEO, Apple
David Paul Morris | Bloomberg | Getty Images

One of Cramer's Twitter followers asked him on Monday night if he is turning on Apple, and he took it personally. Just because the charts for the stock look gloomy, that doesn't mean he is ready to trade it.

Cramer acknowledged that yes, Apple's stock does look like it's rolling over and $14.5 billion would be a big overhang. Additionally, the iPhone 7 launch does sound uninspiring to him. And in his experience, when a chart exhibits a pattern as horrendous as the one for Apple's stock, it's hardly ever wrong.

There are still many things that could happen for Apple, though. It could take up Cramer's suggestion and buy Sirius XM and bolster its service stream, or the iPhone could prove better than expected. There could be news that breaks that no one has even thought of yet.

"In the end, telling you to sell off the chart would be telling you to do exactly what I have spent ages begging you not to do. It would be telling you to trade it," Cramer said.

Looking at the current environment, Cramer also sees too much of everything. Too many companies try to compete against one another, and consolidation will come for the retail, food, technology and pharmaceutical cohorts.

"We have too much of pretty much everything in this market. We need more last-man-standing situations and fewer dogfights if we want stock prices to go higher," Cramer said.

The need for mergers has become a major prop to the market, Cramer said, and that's why stocks sank when Mondelez walked away from its bid for Hershey.

Oil workers on a drilling platform.
Tyler Stableford | Getty Images

Oil and gas stocks have made a strong resurgence this year, but it was the savvy moves of the exploration and production companies that are the true shining stars for Cramer.

The energy sector has now become the best performing group in the , which is astounding considering that the price of crude has stalled in the mid-$40s and natural gas remains stuck below $3 per million British thermal units.

Exploration and production companies made the prudent decision to control their own destinies, and have made acquisitions to buy high-quality acreage at low prices.

"These opportunistic oil and gas producers seem to have discovered the secret formula for generating much higher stock prices in this environment," he said.

In particular, Cramer examined the moves of PDC Energy, SM Energy and Pioneer Natural Resources, which have all taken advantage of the energy volatility to scoop up profitable acreage.

At a time when the U.S. is concerned between the relationship between police and communities, products from companies like Taser International have become a mainstay for law enforcement.

Taser is the maker of non-lethal stun-guns and body cameras. Its stock has soared more than 70 percent year-to-date, and the company has also embraced other technologies to help law enforcement, such as audio recorders and evidence management software, to compile data needed by police and prosecutors.

In an interview with Cramer, Taser's CEO Rick Smith explained the significant growth in non-lethal weapons and need for transparency in the current law enforcement environment.

"When we first started doing body cameras 7 or 8 years ago, a lot of people said 'this is 'Big Brother,' people would never wear cameras. Now I can tell you, every police chief you talk to says it's not a matter of if, but when … That's part of what is driving the growth in the business," Smith said.


In the Lightning Round, Cramer gave his take on a few caller-favorite stocks:

PayPal: "My charitable trust ... has been a seller at higher levels. We think it's a good situation, but it has stalled here because the last quarter was just OK. So, I am not going to pound the table and tell you to buy it."

Clayton Williams Energy: "It's a very hot stock, but it just went up $3 again. I think at this point we are just chasing it. We've got to stay away. It's too high."