Jim Cramer on Alaska Air Group (ALK): "Well-Run, But Airlines? Wrong to Own Right Now!"

We recently published a list of 8 Stocks on Jim Cramer’s Radar Recently. In this article, we are going to take a look at where Alaska Air Group, Inc. (NYSE:ALK), stands against other stocks on Jim Cramer’s radar recently.

On Tuesday’s episode of Mad Money, Jim Cramer discussed how stock ownership is viewed in the United States.

“Alright, look, lately, we can’t go a day without hearing some widespread misperceptions about stock ownership. I gotta tell you, I think it’s infuriating. Here we are celebrating the 20th anniversary of Mad Money, dedicated to the proposition that you can potentially make lots of money by picking individual stocks, yet I keep hearing that most Americans don’t care about the stock market, and this direction means nothing.”

READ ALSO: Jim Cramer Listed 20 Best Performing Stocks of the Last 20 Years and Jim Cramer Recently Discussed These 9 Stocks.

Cramer pushed back against the notion that only the wealthy care about or benefit from the stock market. He argued that the perception is not only wrong but dismissive of the millions of everyday people with financial stakes in the market. Moving on to stock ownership, he mentioned that, “It’s the whole reason anyone watches the darn show, and it generally matters, not just to the rich, but to tens of millions of regular people, home gamers, and never let any politician tell you otherwise.” He added:

“More than 60% of Americans have some exposure to the market, either directly or indirectly. 70 million people have active 401Ks. Millions more have retired with them. 60 million people have IRAs. Only 156 million people voted in November. I mean, we’re talking half the electorate here.”

Cramer insisted that shareholders form a significant constituency in this country and deserve to be recognized as such. He mentioned that “It’s not just arrogant, rich people who own stocks.” He also criticized wealthy individuals who publicly warn others about the risks of stock investing while still taking advantage of its tax benefits themselves. He added:

“Now look, stocks are ridiculously tax advantaged, more than just rich people want that. In a world where probably no more than 10% of this country can retire on their paycheck savings, stocks represent a different kind of social security, a one-sided pack where people try to save and the government dismisses them.”

Our Methodology

For this article, we compiled a list of 8 stocks that were discussed by Jim Cramer during the episode of Mad Money aired on April 29. We listed the stocks in ascending order of their hedge fund sentiment as of the fourth quarter of 2024, which was taken from Insider Monkey’s database of over 1,000 hedge funds.

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).

Alaska Air Group, Inc. (NYSE:ALK) 

Number of Hedge Fund Holders: 45

Answering a caller’s inquiry about Alaska Air Group, Inc. (NYSE:ALK), Cramer commented:

“Well, look, first of all, it’s really well run, so don’t take this the wrong way, but the airlines are wrong to own right here because people think we’re going into a travel recession. I think you’d still go lower.”

Alaska Air Group (NYSE:ALK) offers airline services using Boeing jet aircraft for passenger and cargo transportation. Its subsidiaries include Alaska Airlines, Hawaiian Holdings, Inc., Horizon Air, and McGee Air Services. Diamond Hill Capital stated the following regarding Alaska Air Group, Inc. (NYSE:ALK) in its Q4 2024 investor letter:

“Other top contributors in Q4 included Alaska Air Group, Inc. (NYSE:ALK), Webster Financial and Liberty Media-Formula One. Shares of regional airline Alaska Air rose in the quarter as management provided more details about the company’s recent acquisition of Hawaiian Airlines, which investors received positively.”

Overall, ALK ranks 6th on our list of stocks on Jim Cramer’s radar recently. While we acknowledge the potential of ALK as an investment, our conviction lies in the belief that 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 ALK 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.