American Express Company (AXP): Jim Cramer Says Consumers Are 'On Fire' - "This Is Tremendous Execution"

We recently published a list of How Did Jim Cramer’s 12 Bold Predictions Play Out?. In this article, we are going to take a look at where American Express Company (NYSE:AXP) stands against other stocks that Jim Cramer recently discussed.

During the most recent episode of Mad Money, Jim Cramer revisited the recent turbulence in artificial intelligence stocks, three months after the emergence of DeepSeek, a Chinese AI firm that initially rattled markets. He noted that despite the broad pullback in the sector, many of the fears triggered by DeepSeek’s debut have not materialized, which has led to a reconsideration of the panic that followed.

“Three months ago, January 23rd is a day that will live in artificial intelligence infamy. That’s when we learned that a Chinese firm called DeepSeek had figured out a way to train high quality generative AI models using far less hardware. They claim their hardware costs were around $6 million versus $80 to $100 million for their enormous American competitors.”

READ ALSO: Did Jim Cramer Nail All These 9 Stock Predictions? and What Happened After Jim Cramer Talked About These 13 Stocks.

The announcement sent shockwaves through the market. Cramer recalled how NVIDIA saw its stock fall sharply over just two trading sessions. The market reaction spread quickly beyond and hit other companies tied to data center infrastructure, which eventually pulled down the broader Nasdaq. However, Cramer noted that the company then revealed plans to build $500 billion worth of AI infrastructure in the United States over the next four years.

Cramer noted that initially, it seemed to signal a renewed sense of stability. But soon after, the administration imposed a ban on selling AI chips to China, which forced the GPU kingpin to write down $5.5 billion tied to that entire initiative. Even so, Cramer emphasized that the company’s core business remained strong.

“We understand that they’re basically sold out for the year, even as they can only sell their best stuff in the United States and the 18 friendly countries.”

Cramer attributed the export restrictions to a policy from former President Biden, one that President Trump has not reversed. Despite the geopolitical constraints, Cramer stressed that demand for the company’s technology is still overwhelming. He argued that the stock never should have experienced such a steep drop in the first place. He added:

“Even with the trade war, the AI infrastructure theme seems totally back on track. In fact, it never left the track to begin with.”

Our Methodology

For this article, we compiled a list of 12 stocks that were discussed by Jim Cramer during the episode of Mad Money on April 30, 2024. We then calculated their performance from April 30^th, 2024, market close to April 29^th, 2025, market close. We have also included the hedge fund sentiment for the stocks, which we sourced from Insider Monkey’s Q4 2024 database of over 900 hedge funds. The stocks are listed in the order that Cramer mentioned them.

Please note that this article mentions Jim Cramer’s previous opinions and may not account for any changes to his opinions regarding the stocks that are mentioned. It is primarily an examination of how his previously provided opinions have panned out.

Why are we interested in the stocks that hedge funds pile into? The reason is simple: our research has shown that we can outperform the market by imitating the top stock picks of the best hedge funds. Our quarterly newsletter’s strategy selects 14 small-cap and large-cap stocks every quarter and has returned 373.4% since May 2014, beating its benchmark by 218 percentage points (see more details here).

American Express Company (NYSE:AXP)

Number of Hedge Fund Holders: 71

American Express Company (NYSE:AXP), the global payments and credit card giant, was the focus of a segment based on its investor day and a subsequent interview with Stephen Squeri, the company’s CEO. Cramer praised the company’s exceptional performance at the time, saying:

“A week and a half ago American Express reported a breathtakingly great quarter and since then, the stock’s rallied about 8%. Credit quality is strong, people are spending big, especially on travel, and the company keeps hitting its ambitious long-term growth targets. Very impressive. […]

[Talking directly to the company’s CEO] Sometimes I think, geez, either the consumer is so hot that the Fed should worry about it or it’s just you’ve got whatever dollar amount that people spend is yours! […]

A lot of people feel well, wait a second, it’s 10% growth, how will it continue? I look at what you could do in international growth, which people don’t realize you still don’t have the penetration you could get. […]

Well I tell everything is working. I mean, this is full speed ahead. That last quarter was great; actually, ever since you took over it’s just a new company and congratulations to you and to the people who work for you.”

The company’s shares have done well since, climbing by 11.76% over the past year.

The host of Mad Money gave his thoughts on the stock again on the 17^th of April and had this to say:

“[On AXP’s positive tone about the consumer] Better than that. Uh, I am talking about numbers which by the way include, and we’ve got first twelve days of this month. Steve Squeri going over things, you’re talking about, restaurant spending up 8%, lodging up 6%, goods up 7%, card membership, obviously more and more tremendous numbers have increased. 3.4 million. David, this is as good a quarter if you had to say anything, you would say that the consumer is on fire actually. Really spending a lot. Now I think to keep with leitmotif of novels, uh, Fitzgerald did say in the short story The Rich Boy, the rich are different from you and me. Of course, Hemingway then came back and said yeah they have more money. But this is a Gen X, Gen Z, Millennial explosion. People love the card. I am, I got, the only thing that was not so good was the airlines, it’s not that they matter. Because I gotta tell you, people are feeling good according to this. I mean President Trump could say you know what hey I told you, look how good everybody’s feeling. So I mean stock was up six at one point. . .but I will just say that Steve Squeri is one hell of an executive, and these are really great numbers. And a lot of this is just tremendous execution on the part of this company.”

“Well I mean we do have a, year-over-year we do have a leap day. But I think what’s most important is that people thought that things were going to be flat. Or maybe that people would be discouraged. But the revenues were up really, up nice, up nine. Look I look at this thing and I just say, sure, it’s possible to have done better. Remember, getting a leap year. But this is really a darn good number. And look this is one of the things viewed structurally a big change. You know the younger people just love this. They want it so bad, they want the gold card, they want the platinum card. And I salute younger people for doing something that took me about ten years to get.”

Overall, AXP ranks 8th on our list of stocks that Jim Cramer recently discussed. While we acknowledge the potential of AXP as an investment, our conviction lies in the belief that some AI stocks hold greater promise for delivering higher returns and doing so within a shorter time frame. There is an AI stock that went up since the beginning of 2025, while popular AI stocks lost around 25%. If you are looking for an AI stock that is more promising than AXP but that trades at less than 5 times its earnings, check out our report about this cheapest AI stock.

READ NEXT: 20 Best AI Stocks To Buy Now and 30 Best Stocks to Buy Now According to Billionaires.

Disclosure: None. This article is originally published at Insider Monkey.