Cramer Remix: Here's what’s really killing retail

Jim Cramer knows that at first sight, Apple unveiling its new HomePod speaker and J.Crew CEO Mickey Drexler stepping down from his post do not seem to have many similarities at all.

"Now, what the heck, you're probably asking, does a high-end speaker system have to do with the resignation of a famous retail CEO? Simple, they help define what's working and what's not working in this crazy stock market," the "Mad Money" host contended.

Cramer began by saying that as a mall-based store, J.Crew struggled in the past few years like many of its counterparts despite Drexler's strong reputation in retail.

"In the age of Amazon, where driving to the mall is an anathema to many shoppers, Mickey couldn't distinguish his goods enough to entice people into a place where they didn't want to go to begin with. Much has been made of his fashion missteps. I think those are way off-base," Cramer said.

Now, mall-based retailers from Under Armour to Urban Outfitters are missing the mark because young shoppers go to the mall knowing exactly what they want instead of planning to browse and spend time there, a sign that brand loyalty is waning.

To address one retailer whose stock has struggled of late, down 11 percent for 2017, Cramer sat down with Tarang Amin, the chairman and CEO of e.l.f. Beauty.

"We believe that this is a long term growth play, and so for those who are fickle, maybe this isn't for you," the CEO told Cramer on Tuesday. "But for those who really believe in the underlying thesis here, which is we make extraordinary cosmetics, high-quality ones that are accessible to consumers, then this is a great one."

While Amin addressed the fact that e.l.f.'s shares declined shortly after the company's last earnings report, he insisted that the cosmetics brand's secular growth and strong partnerships will eventually help it triumph over its troubling stock action.

"We continue to have incredible growth at Wal-Mart, and then Ulta, they recently announced that they're going to be putting e.l.f into a subset of their stores as well," Amin said. "E.l.f. has been able to grow regardless of the economic cycle, regardless of what's going on in the broader category, and we'll continue to grow as we have."

On a day where oil hovered in a small range, struggling to lift above the $48 mark, Cramer wondered what could give crude the boost it needs.

"If oil can't mount a major advance on some insane Middle East friction, real tension among the Gulf States that export 30 percent of the world's crude oil to starved markets, what is it going to take for black gold to really roar higher?" the "Mad Money" host asked.

While the oil bulls may be questioning their logic, Cramer said the answer lies in a Schlumberger conference call from when it reported its first-quarter results in April: oil will rise when the deep-water oil wells start to run dry.

Then, with the major indices trading near all-time highs and investors looking ahead to next week's Federal Reserve meeting in which the central bank is expected to raise interest rates, Jim Cramer figured the bank stocks would be rallying.

"Yet the bank stocks are not on fire here. They're actually lagging the rest of the market," Cramer said.

To find out what is keeping the banks from climbing, Cramer took to the charts of technician Ed Ponsi, managing director of Barchetta Capital Management and Cramer's colleague at RealMoney.com.

Finally, Cramer spoke with Mark McLaughlin, the chairman and CEO of Palo Alto Networks, for a checkup on the rapidly developing cybersecurity space.

"What's really driving the need for security these days is increasing levels of automation and orchestration," McLaughlin explained on Tuesday. "So, particularly for smaller companies, they just don't have the resources to keep up with all the complexities of cybersecurity, so what we're trying to do and other folks are trying to do – we think we're leaders here – is create real platforms that have a lot of automation, a lot of orchestration, and a lot of leverage that drives simplicity because we're fighting a highly automated adversary so we need more automation."

McLaughlin said that Palo Alto is demonstrating leadership in the space by adding new customers to its ranks, with over 2,000 new additions during the company's third quarter.

"Most of them are coming from our competitors, whether it's Cisco, Checkpoint, Juniper, folks like that," he told Cramer. "We continue to take customers at a very high rate."

In Cramer's lightning round, he rattled off his take on some caller favorite stocks, including:

Shopify: "This thing's amazing. This is an online platform that is working. No one believes in Shopify except for me. I've been behind this thing for 30 [basis] points. I'm not quitting."

Energy Transfer Partners: "The guy who runs it, Kelcy Warren, he rolls the dice. He feels like he's in Wynn [or] Las Vegas Sands with this company. I say absolutely not. I don't want you to touch it. Never reach for yield. It ain't worth it."

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