Jim Cramer Cheers Recovery After Jobs Report: ‘I Don’t Think the Stock Market is Lying’

CNBC host Jim Cramer praised Secretary of the Treasury Steve Mnuchin and Federal Reserve chair Jay Powell for preventing an economic depression amid the coronavirus pandemic, cheering the employment rates and adding that he doesn’t “think the stock market is lying.”

“We know the fed is incredibly easy so there have been very few failures despite the pandemic, Secretary Mnuchin has helped, with his program, five million different companies,” Cramer said. “So look, they threw a lot at the economy to make it work, so I think you can argue from that employment number, it is working. I don’t think the stock market is lying here.”

Cramer pointed out the speculation surrounding the economy, noting that several companies that were predicted to go out of businesses ended up making it amid the global pandemic. He added that Powell deserves praise for ensuring the credit market did not dislocate.

“There were some scary days in mid to late March, guys, that we well know about,” host David Faber added. “As we watched the president leave the podium after going through all those numbers. There were scary days there and it’s interesting, of course, Carl, I can’t remember the last time that the president had an angry tweet for Jay Powell, which prior to the pandemic, of course, and for years had been the case, certainly every so often talking about how rates were not low enough and yet, interestingly as Jim points out, he has helped a great deal here.”

The hosts noted the record unemployment rates throughout the pandemic, adding that the companies that failed, such as Hertz and J.C. Penny, were doing poorly before the pandemic hit the United States.

“They didn’t let any company fail that was doing well or if you go over what Secretary Mnuchin said, we’re going to have business interruption insurance provided by the government,” Cramer added. “How did the cruise lines survive? How did the airlines survive? The answer is Secretary Mnuchin, and the Federal Reserve decided they weren’t going to fail and they obviously should have failed given the run on them. You could argue the banks should have already, should have had their dividends cut, but there was so much money being pumped in that they saved.”

Cramer credited the Fed and the Treasury for saving the economy by simply deciding the U.S. would not enter a depression, pointing out that small and medium-sized businesses would still suffer due to social distancing, but ultimately noting that there could have been more failures throughout the pandemic.

“Well, look, this is the great irony, we’ve never had incomes go up during a period when there’s been such joblessness,” he said. “We should remember that there is — there’s stimulus all over the place. the economy is on steroids. Now, can you take the economy off steroids once it starts getting momentum? You have to follow the states, if you start seeing a lot of closures, I think it will dampen the momentum, but we’ve got it and we’ve got money in people’s pockets, look, we spend several trillion dollars to get it so we have that board being green.”

“You could argue that the several trillion dollars paid off or you could argue you have to start paying off the several trillion dollars,” he added. “There’s so many companies we would have thought went under that didn’t and they didn’t because Treasury Secretary and Chairman Powell said no, we’re not going to do what happened in 2008 we’re not going to be laissez-faire.”

Watch above, via CNBC.