Wall Street received a boost from four unexpected stocks that managed to surprise on their earnings reports, CNBC's Jim Cramer said Wednesday.
"Today we had a whole parade of short squeezes in Skyworks Solutions, The New York Times, Capri Holdings (that's the old Michael Kors), and even Snap," the "Mad Money" host said. "Together they helped stabilize a market that seemed that it was really going to head pretty low."
Short sellers, who try to make a profit by betting that a stock's price will fall, have targeted each of these stocks, he said. Snap, the parent of the Snapchat social media platform, surely made it hard for those betting against it after shares closed 22 percent higher Wednesday. Short sellers scrambled to make up for the unexpected result, which caused it to surge higher because of a shortage in shares to meet demand.
Cramer had been critical of the stock since it went public in 2017 as the platform struggled to maintain its user base and saw two CFOs leave in a short period of time. But it showed some grit last quarter with $390 million in revenue and 186 million global daily users.
Cramer praised CEO Evan Spiegel "who seems to have matured beyond his years" as the company found "good growth and a nice stabilization in users."
Snap "still has a lot to prove, but I'm done criticizing them," he said.
Under the Capri Holdings umbrella, Cramer thinks the Michael Kors, Jimmy Choo, and Versace fashion labels could be the next "retail colossus" primed for a "multi-year runway." Shares of Capri Holdings climbed 11 percent Wednesday off of an upbeat earnings report and an improved revenue guidance.
"And today, [CEO John] Idol laid out a multi-year roadmap to turn these three brands into the envy of the industry" with multi-billion dollars of sales, Cramer said. "Now, I've studied these brands and to me, they've never looked stronger. I think the international opportunities are insanely positive."
Since launching his presidential campaign, President Donald Trump has claimed The New York Times was failing. But Cramer said the newspaper is anything but declining and it has strong numbers to prove it.
"Trump's been an incredible spurt [in] online subscriptions," he said. "Today, The Gray Lady produced a quarter that showed how this company has become the poster child for the subscription economy ... and it's stock volted 10 percent to $29.69 powered in part by another short squeeze."
For all of Apple's iPhone sales woes in recent months, a number of its suppliers have been targeted by short sellers. Those that went after Skyworks Solutions, who Cramer said has a "pristine balance sheet," ran into more trouble than the company was thought to be headed for.
The stock closed up 11 percent on Wednesday.
"I know it seems counterintuitive that we could be led by short squeezed stocks, but when you have four of them let's just say it makes a ton of sense as a prop on a day that we could have been down a great deal and perhaps we even should be," Cramer said.
WATCH: Cramer explains how a short squeeze on four stocks gave Wall Street a boost
Disclosure: Cramer's charitable trust owns shares of Apple.
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