On a less-than-perfect day for the stock market, CNBC's Jim Cramer was heartened to see a good quarterly report come from an under-the-radar player in tech: HP Inc.
Along with Hewlett Packard Enterprise, HP Inc was the product of the 2015 breakup of Hewlett-Packard. The former, HPE, handles enterprise-facing matters; the latter, HP Inc, is the personal computer and printing business.
"It's been a tough slog for HPE since the breakup, but now both parts of the old Hewlett-Packard seem to finally be firing on all cylinders," the "Mad Money" host said.
With the personal computer business seeing a revival and 3D printing emerging as a leading solution for large-scale manufacturers, HP Inc has now reported five quarters in a row of double-digit revenue growth.
Its counterpart, HPE, hasn't been too shabby, either, Cramer noted: the company recently delivered a massive earnings beat, bullish guidance and a 50 percent dividend boost, sending shares of HPE up 15 percent over the last three trading sessions.
"When it comes to technology, hardware is back in style," Cramer said. "The tech that's on your desk at work and in your briefcase, devices that look and act nothing like you ever even imagined a few years ago, and the internet of things are where the action is, which is why HP Inc and HPE continued to climb today in spite of a very ugly tape."
Brewing bidding war
Cramer knew exactly what was coming when media colossus Comcast made a rival offer to Twenty-First Century Fox's bid for international broadcasting group Sky.
Fox's bid for the rest of Sky (in which Fox currently has a 39 percent stake) was part of a larger deal with the Walt Disney Company. In December, Disney agreed to buy a slew of Fox's assets including a stake in Sky.
Comcast, the parent company of NBC and Universal Studios, said its offer for Sky comes out to roughly 12.50 pounds a share, significantly higher than Fox's proposed 10.75 pounds a share.
Cramer argued that Comcast's $31 billion bid complicated the predetermined deal between Disney and Fox, upping the ante and potentially forcing Disney's hand to pay more for Sky.
"There are many permutations to these machinations, too many to mention here, but both Disney and Comcast want this asset so I bet a bidding war does ensue," he said Tuesday.
Crisis of complacency
While Cramer is content to blame the market's recent sell-off on high-risk products that traders used to bet against volatility, he knows there could be more to the story.
That's why the "Mad Money" host recruited technician Carley Garner, the co-founder of DeCarley Trading and the author of Higher Probability Commodity Trading, to get to the bottom of the drastic correction.
"In Garner's view, there's a whole lot of blame to go around. It's not just the fault of foolish speculators who made big, leveraged bets that the market would stay calm, then were forced to sell common stocks and stock futures to meet their brokers' margin calls," Cramer said.
"Garner thinks the market was already broken in early January," he continued. "She believes the bulls were victims of their own complacency."
Miracle worker at Macy's
As the buzz around department store giant Macy's comeback grows louder after earnings, Cramer backtracked to what spurred the retailer's turnaround in the first place.
"To put it simply, the new CEO, Jeff Gennette, who took over less than a year ago, is apparently a bit of a miracle worker," Cramer said. "He's made the stores look better, he's emphasized fashion, he's reinvented their loyalty program."
Cramer credited Gennette for molding Macy's model to fit customers' specific needs. Regular spenders felt slighted, so Macy's gave them platinum-level Star Rewards. Consumers started flocking to off-price retailers, so Gennette bolstered Macy's own off-price brand of stores, Macy's Backstage.
The result has been an "all systems go" effect for Macy's, the "Mad Money" host said.
War over Wayfair
The history of online furniture retailer Wayfair on Wall Street has been a difficult one.
"For some reason, it seems to attract fanatics from both sides," Cramer said Tuesday. "You've got a rabid group of marauding bears who absolutely hate Wayfair with the fire of a thousand suns, and you've got a stampeding herd of equally committed bulls."
The bulls like Wayfair's fast revenue growth and customer retention. The bears, however, worry about Wayfair's lack of profitability — and after the company's latest quarter, Cramer may have joined that camp.
"My view? The stock never should've run so much going into the quarter, but now that it's come down, I am hesitant to recommend it," he said. "The problem? As of now, the bull thesis has one prop: revenue growth. If Wayfair ever misses on that top line, its stock will be absolutely obliterated."
But Cramer wouldn't recommend shorting Wayfair either, because any fundamental decline in the stock price could attract potential acquirers to take over the e-commerce giant.
"I always like to say to you that when stocks go down they get cheaper, but I need to add a caveat now: when stocks of companies with faltering fundamentals go down, joining the sellers may be the most intelligent thing to do," the "Mad Money" host said.
Lightning round: Pain in the pipelines
In Cramer's lightning round, he rattled off his take on some callers' favorite stocks:
SemGroup: "I am in a house of pain when it comes to anything related to this kind of network of pipeline groups and I'm not going to put you in there. Even though it yields 8 [percent], I cannot inflict pain on my friends."
Texas Instruments: "Look, Texas Instruments is very good. Now, people didn't really care for their last quarter. I think it's an internet of things play. Now, you've got to ride it out here, because I know people feel the chart is broken. I don't think so. It's a good company."
Disclosure: Comcast is the owner of NBCUniversal, parent company of CNBC and CNBC.com. Also, Cramer's charitable trust owns shares of Comcast.
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