‘Forget FAANG’ and focus on value stocks in the current inflationary environment, Jim Cramer says

CNBC’s Jim Cramer on Monday advised investors to turn away Big Tech and other growth stocks that are likely to be hard hit as the Federal Reserve raises interest rates.

“For the moment, I do think we have to forget most of FAANG and focus on the money centers. The oils. Retailers with tremendous scale. Health insurers. Big pharma — and when I say big pharma, I mean only big pharma, absolutely not biotech, because they’re the losers in a high-inflation environment,” the “Mad Money” host said.

FAANG is Cramer’s acronym for Facebook-parent Meta, Amazon, Apple, Netflix and Google-parent Alphabet.

The tech-heavy Nasdaq Composite on Monday tumbled 2.18% while the Dow Jones Industrial Average slipped 1.19%. The S&P 500 declined 1.69%.

Cramer’s comments come after he said last week that investors should be conservative with FAANG stocks as the market pivots to an environment that doesn’t favor high-growth names.

He added that investors shouldn’t sell all of their tech growth names, even if the market isn’t favorable for the stocks in the near term. Investors with tech-laden portfolios will need to be strategic moving forward, he cautioned.

“Those with too much tech need a bounce to reposition. I think you’re going to get that. … You need to be positioned with no overweighting to anything, except maybe oil because of the industry’s newfound discipline on drilling,” he said.

Disclosure: Cramer’s Charitable Trust owns shares of Alphabet, Apple, Amazon and Meta.