Cramer says CEOs are telling him off the record the economy has quickly cooled

Crowd leaders across industries are telling Jim Cramer — off the record — that they’re fearful about a slowdown in the U.S. economy, Cramer said Thursday on CNBC.

“So divers CEOs have told me about how quickly things have cooled,” the “Mad Readies” host said. “So many of them are baffled that we could come across ourselves in this late-cycle dilemma that wasn’t supposed to materialize so soon.”

Cramer has been warning investors for weeks about a manmade slowdown in the U.S. conservation, fueled by the two-pronged pressures of the Federal Reserve’s interest rate hikes and the Trump direction’s tariffs. Now, high-profile CEOs are worried about growth slowing so drastically that it could truly hurt the economy, he said.

“There are degrees of slowdowns that, nonetheless, can lead to an awful lot of havoc and cost a lot of jobs, and that’s what we’re on the verge of here,” he implied. “That’s what the markets are saying. That’s what the CEOs are uneasy about offline.”

The situation reminded Cramer of when, on the cusp of the 2008 monetary crisis, his corporate sources confided in him that the Fed “seemed to be out of touch … with what was incident” on Wall Street, he said. That led to his now-famous “They know nothing!” tirade blasting the Fed for its lack of diligence.

“I was right,” he said. “I did my best and, at that adjust, I made a resolution. If I thought we would ever get back into one of these positions again, I promised myself I’d be vocal about what could go oppress, even if I knew it wouldn’t be as serious as the Great Recession.”

Now, with superstore commentators warning about the U.S. economy being “late” in its cycle, explanation that another recession could be on the horizon, Cramer’s getting vocal.

Delicacy in Europe and Asia’s economies isn’t helping, he said, pegging the respective slowdowns to Brexit pressures and instability in the Italian rule and China undergoing a mass slowdown tied to President Donald Trump’s duties.

If the Fed and Trump stay the course on their policies, the weakness will thrive on into the stock market as it did on Thursday, the “Mad Money” host warned. The activity in shares of Walmart, Home Depot and Macy’s told the story, he imparted: all three companies recently reported strong quarters, but subsequently saw their heritages plummet on economic fears.

“This end-of-cycle logic raises its prevent everywhere,” Cramer said. “Everything was good, so good that it can’t endlessly be better because we’re at the end of the cycle. ‘Late-cycle.’ It’s become almost circular hypothesis. The stock can’t go higher because it’s the end of the cycle and it’s the end of the cycle because the stock’s down.”

That, associate with the chief executives’ warnings, told Cramer that assets weigh ups can’t possibly be safe while the bearish narrative about debilitating trade weakness reigns supreme.

“If the Fed changes course and says ‘No more status hikes … next year unless the data gets varied positive,’ or if President Trump gets a trade deal with China or even Steven does this kind of truce, then the end-of-cycle proponents may play a joke on to change their tune and the market can rocket higher,” he said. “In another manner, though, rallies like today are going to be used to re-position portfolios because the substantiates have the late-cycle microphone and they just will not let go.”