CNBC’s Jim Cramer on Tuesday broke down some of the best-performing stocks in the Nasdaq 100 in 2021, offering his thoughts on how investors should approach them in the new year.
“Many of these Nasdaq winners have fallen out of favor and become incredibly dangerous, but the more tangible ones … can work here,” the “Mad Money”‘ host said.
Lucid Group
“As much as I love the story, I hate the timing, especially with another lockup expiration … coming later this month,” he said. “The last one crushed the stock.”
Marvell Technology
Cramer jumped to the fifth-best performer, Marvell Technology, because he discussed numbers 2-4 — Moderna, Fortinet and Nvidia, respectively — on Monday’s episode of “Mad Money” as part of a segment on the top S&P 500 stocks.
For Marvell, Cramer noted he’s long been a fan of the semiconductor company, which has undergone a reinvention under the leadership of President and CEO Matt Murphy. “I think it can keep working in 2022 because this is a real company with real products and real profits. Notice, it was barely off today even as the rest of tech melted down,” Cramer said.
Applied Materials
Technicians work on machinery at the Applied Materials facility in Santa Clara, California.
David Paul Morris | Bloomberg | Getty Images
Cramer said he believes investors should look to own Applied Materials, shares of which rose 82% in 2021, or one of its fellow semiconductor equipment makers such as KLA Corp. and ASML. KLA was the ninth-best performer in the Nasdaq 100, while ASML was No. 11.
Cramer cited the long-term demand trends, as semiconductors become integral to a growing number of products from cell phones to automobiles. “Think of them as the limited arms dealers in the semiconductor cold war. I’d buy them on any dip, however shallow,” he said.
Datadog
Cramer said even though Datadog is considered a best-of-breed company in the world of cloud-based data analytics and monitoring, he believes investors are better suited in a different part of the stock market right now.
“This thing lost 8% of its value yesterday for no particular reason and then tumbled another 3.7% today. … It’s not the kind of stock you can afford to own when rates are on the rise,” Cramer said.
Intuit
Alphabet
Sundar Pichai, chief executive officer at Google LLC, speaks during the Google Cloud Next ’19 event in San Francisco, California, U.S., on Tuesday, April 9, 2019. The conference brings together industry experts to discuss the future of cloud computing.
Michael Short | Bloomberg | Getty Images
Atlassian
Cramer said he’s a fan of Atlassian, which makes tools for software developers, as a company.
“I like the product, seems indispensable to many,” Cramer said. “But this is one that’s just totally out of style, so if you want to stick with it, you need to get used to pain.”
Zscaler
Similarly to Atlassian, Cramer said he likes Zscaler as a company but believes the cybersecurity stock, which rose 61% in 2021, is tough to own at this current moment.
AMD
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Disclosure: Cramer’s charitable trust owns shares of Nvidia, Marvell Technology, AMD and Alphabet.
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