Some companies are so big that they stop behaving like ordinary stocks. That’s the case Jim Cramer made on October 28, telling “Mad Money” viewers that a small club of tech giants has grown so powerful its reach now extends far beyond share prices.
He picked a telling night to say it.
Oil prices were climbing on renewed worries about the conflict with Iran, Fed Chair Kevin Warsh warned that inflation was still elevated, and two of the biggest names in tech reported results that sent their shares in opposite directions.
Cramer’s argument is that these companies can ride out rough seas better than most. He just isn’t claiming they’re unsinkable.
Cramer’s ‘nation states’ and their aircraft carriers
Cramer listed 10 companies that fit his description: Alphabet (GOOGL), Amazon (AMZN), Apple (AAPL), Meta Platforms (META), Microsoft (MSFT), Nvidia (NVDA), Tesla (TSLA), SpaceX, Anthropic and OpenAI.
He likened them to “nation states,” pointing to their dominant market positions, their ability to churn out big profits and their willingness to pour money into new technology.
“Their heft is so extraordinary that ‘Mad Money’ cannot go without covering them,” he said.
Also read: What Jim Cramer is watching as Anthropic heads to Nasdaq
The list stretches beyond the usual Magnificent Seven. Two of its members, Anthropic and OpenAI, still aren’t publicly traded, though that’s starting to change. Anthropic filed to go public on October 26 and plans to list on the Nasdaq under the ticker ANT.
Their weight in the market is hard to overstate. The Magnificent Seven alone made up about 33.7% of the S&P 500 earlier this year, up from 12.5% a decade ago, TheStreet reported. When those stocks move, the whole index tends to follow.
Still, Cramer was careful not to call them bulletproof. He compared the group to aircraft carriers, which handle storms better than smaller boats but can still be pushed around by strong economic currents. Cramer’s Charitable Trust, the portfolio run by CNBC’s Investing Club, owns shares of six of the companies on his list.
Microsoft makes Cramer’s case
Microsoft gave him his best example. The software giant reported revenue of $92.3 billion for its fiscal first quarter, up 19% from a year earlier, with its Azure cloud business growing 48%. Net income jumped 32% to $36.6 billion.
Investors liked what they saw. Shares climbed about 4% after hours as earnings and revenue topped estimates, and capital spending, including finance leases, came in at $45.2 billion, below what analysts had expected.
For the first time, Microsoft put a dollar figure on Azure, at approximately $33.2 billion for the quarter. It also guided for Azure growth of 49% to 50% next quarter, ahead of forecasts, and said Copilot users rose 50% from the prior quarter.
“We still have demand that exceeds supply,” CFO Amy Hood said,
Azure’s growth sped up from 42% in the prior quarter, and Cramer called Microsoft “the winner from tonight’s two big Magnificent 7 reports,” while warning that the conference call and guidance could still shift investors’ view, as reported by CNBC.
He added that the stock was “justifying its monster move off the bottom back at the end of June.”
That rebound came after a rough stretch. Microsoft was down more than 20% for the year heading into its July earnings report, then jumped about 9% once results came out, according to TheStreet. Wells Fargo’s Michael Turrin argued at the time that the company was “better positioned at the software layer than it’s getting credit for.”
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Alphabet shows even giants can stumble
Alphabet told a very different story. The Google parent’s revenue of $127.6 billion fell short of the $128.2 billion analysts expected, and free cash flow came in at negative $9.1 billion, its second straight quarter in the red. Shares fell more than 9% in after-hours trading.
The bright spot was cloud.
Google Cloud revenue more than doubled to $30.7 billion, beating estimates, while search revenue rose 12% but missed forecasts, according to Reuters. Adjusted earnings of $2.67 a share also landed well below expectations.
Alphabet kept its 2026 capital spending forecast at $195 billion to $205 billion, and expects to spend more than $300 billion in fiscal 2027.
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Search is the part that worries investors most. Sundar Pichai said AI investments helped drive the highest search query growth rate in five years, but search revenue still missed forecasts, raising fresh questions about whether AI is eating into Google’s core ad business.
Cramer didn’t sugarcoat it. “Alphabet’s going to catch a downgrade or two, search could really be hurting,” he said, even as he insisted, “We saw nothing that shocked us. Nothing that enraged us.” His bigger point was that you ignore these stocks “at your own peril.”
The currents that could still rock the boats
The economic backdrop is far from calm.
The Fed held rates at 3.75% to 4% on October 28 in a split decision, with Cleveland Fed President Beth Hammack and Governor Lisa Cook both preferring another hike.
Consumer prices rose 3.7% in September, keeping pressure on policymakers. Warsh had already said inflation was too high, with many price categories rising faster than 3%, as reported by TheStreet.
Energy adds another layer of risk. Oil climbed in late October as fears grew that the war with Iran could resume after the midterm elections. The S&P 500 fell 1.2% on October 22, with communication services and tech stocks hit hardest.
Even so, Cramer sees the biggest companies holding their course. “I listened, and I didn’t hear anything that could derail the biggest companies,” he said after Warsh spoke. For investors, his message is that these giants deserve attention, but even aircraft carriers can take on water.
Related: Jim Cramer raises a red flag to stock market investors
