CNBC's Jim Cramer preached a straightforward message on Monday: Keep it simple, stupid.
Cramer urged investors to bide their time and wait for a swoon in a company's price before buying. He touted "Magnificent Seven" tech stocks — Amazon, Apple, Alphabet, Meta, Tesla, Nvidia and Microsoft — as well as other prominent Nasdaq-listed companies like Salesforce and Adobe.
He also pointed to stocks he thinks are promising but haven't seen huge gains this year, like drugmaker Eli Lilly, which is known for weight loss and diabetes medicine Mounjaro, and infrastructure giant Caterpillar. Cramer also highlighted beverage and food giant PepsiCo, along with travel and leisure front-runners, Boeing and American Express.
"I think this is a matter of keeping it simple, stupid," Cramer said. "With these rules in mind, understand that all of the winners I've just mentioned are off limits until you get a market-wide swoon or, at the very least, one of them reports a good quarter and the stock sells off anyway because, for some reason, Wall Street gets it wrong, like Tesla, like Netflix," Cramer said, referring to stock drops that followed their most recent earnings reports. Both companies have serious, long-term potential, he said.
Cramer underscored the idea that investors must be patient and ask themselves what exactly they're swinging at before they go to bat. He also said investors must determine whether their preferred stock is overbought, and, if so, "forget about it." But if a company is not overbought, Cramer urged investors to wait for a swoon after a company's earnings report, or a market-wide dip.
"Very few concepts are as difficult to accept as the one that says, 'you missed it,'" Cramer said. "We never want to believe we missed anything. Unless you're willing to settle for these sectors that have very little gain so far — the market's have-nots, so to speak — you must accept that the buying opportunity is long over."
Cramer said he knows waiting is hard, but it's his bottom line.
"You got to wait," he said. "And if these don't ever come in? Then, that's all she wrote."
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Disclaimer The CNBC Investing Club Charitable Trust holds shares of Amazon, Apple, Alphabet, Meta, Nvidia, Microsoft, Salesforce, Caterpillar and Eli Lilly.
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