CNBC’s Jim Cramer said Monday his negativity toward oil stocks is not about environmentalism but economics.
“I am not here, though, to take political stands. My job is to help you try to make money,” the “Mad Money” host said.
“And the honest truth is I don’t think I can help you make money in the oil and gas stocks anymore,” he added.
Cramer’s comments followed proclamations the former hedge-fund manager made Friday, when he compared fossil fuel stocks to tobacco companies.
“I’m done with fossil fuels ... they’re just done,” he said then. “You’re seeing divestiture by a lot of different funds. It’s going to be a parade. It’s going to be a parade that says, ‘Look, these are tobacco and we’re not going to own them.’”
Cramer said Monday he has taken heat for his stance in recent days, but he was not backing down from it.
Fossil fuel stocks, he said, “feel like a slowly melting ice cube, a wasting asset that will have down revenues unless the price of crude jumps and stays higher.”
“But after recent events, I don’t know what’s going to make that happen,” Cramer said, referencing the lack of sustained oil hikes following major events in the Middle East, including a September attack on Saudi Arabian oil facilities and an Iranian rocket attack against military bases in Iraq in January.
And oil fell to its lowest level in more than a year Monday as fears mount about the coronavirus. OPEC is reportedly considering a cut in production to dampen the loss of demand brought about by the illness.
Cramer said he knows his decision to not recommend oil stocks is in contrast to advice he used to give. But that’s because state of play is dramatically different, he explained.
“I love the environment, but that never stopped me from recommending the oil stocks for my entire career,” he said.
That was fine advice when Wall Street did not prioritize issues of sustainability and carbon emission reduction, Cramer said.
“Right now tons of money managers care about [those issues],” Cramer said, with BlackRock Chairman and CEO Larry Fink leading the way.
Fink, whose firm has more than $7 trillion in assets under management, recently warned that climate change will soon cause a “significant reallocation of capital.”
“This is not about what I think. It’s not about my opinions — you have to check your own opinions at the door,” Cramer said. “But when a critical mass of money managers [is] behaving this way, you have to care because their buying and selling is what drives stock prices.”
For evidence, Cramer said to look at the divergent movements of Tesla and Exxon Mobil on Monday.
Shares of the electric-vehicle maker rose nearly 20% during the session, notching an intraday high of $786.14. Tesla closed at $780 and is up almost 150% in the last year.
Cramer has called Tesla the “ultimate Larry Fink stock.”
Exxon, by contrast, closed at $60.73, its lowest level in about a decade. Shares of the Irving, Texas-based oil company are down about 20% in the last year.
“And the reason I think they’re on the wrong side of history has nothing to do with politics and everything to do with the fact that Tesla was up huge today and Exxon’s stock was down after Goldman Sachs, of all places, downgraded the stock from hold to sell,” Cramer said.
Stocks | January 28