Jim Cramer says Apple down 30% from its record is not a buy yet — blame Peter Navarro

Published Mon, Apr 7 20251:42 PM EDT

The architect of President Donald Trump 's sweeping global tariffs "has it in" for Apple , Jim Cramer said Monday, making the beaten-down stock not a buy yet. "Apple is now at a very reasonable multiple," Jim said during Monday's Morning Meeting for Investing Club members — but only if tariffs don't break the company. Jim pointed out that White House trade advisor Peter Navarro does not think Apple's manufacturing moves from China to Vietnam in recent years are enough. Navarro views Vietnam as a proxy for China. In Monday's interview on CNBC's "Squawk Box," Navarro said Vietnam's zero percent offer to the Trump administration is not enough, arguing it is the "nontariff cheating that matters," which includes Chinese products routed through Vietnam, intellectual property theft and a value-added tax. Apple stock is down more than 30% from its Dec. 26 record-high close of $259. By traditional means of valuing stocks, Jim said Apple's forward price-to-earnings ratio of around 23 times, according to FactSet, is on the cheap side compared with its five-year average multiple of 30 times. However, as we outlined in a commentary earlier Monday, P/Es are hard to trust in such a fluid market environment. The other wildcard for Apple is what Europe will do in the form of retaliatory measures for what Trump announced last Wednesday evening that crushed the stock market on Thursday and Friday. Monday's market has been volatile as European Union leaders called for calm. European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen said the EU bloc is willing to negotiate with Trump but is prepared to retaliate. These comments came days after China announced 34% retaliatory tariffs on U.S. imports. Trump upped the ante Monday, saying China would face 50% duties if they were to retaliate. The president's 10% nearly across-the-board tariffs on imports into the U.S. took effect on Saturday. The country-specific tariffs, which are much more than the "reciprocal" levies that Trump threatened ahead of time, are set to go into effect on Wednesday. AAPL 1Y mountain Apple 1 year Apple is still a great company. Jim said other companies like Club industrials Honeywell and Eaton are doing everything right, but they're down big, too. Even Club holding Nvidia , which was exempt from last week's tariffs announcement, has been getting crushed, though it's up modestly Monday. "I want to do something if we go down another 10% from here [in the market]," Jim said, reasoning that there is still too much uncertainty, and he doesn't want to run about of cash before things shake out. The Club, however, did make a small buy in Eaton last week. Jim said he's been in the investing game for six bear markets. "I am not going to use the 2007 playbook and not going to use the 2000 playbook," he said , referring to the financial crisis downturn and dot-com bubble bursting. He said he prefers to use the 1987 crash and the Covid-era plunge in 2020 as analogs. That's because those bear markets had relatively short recovery times back to new highs. (Jim Cramer's Charitable Trust is long AAPL, HON, ETN, NVDA. See here for a full list of the stocks.) As a subscriber to the CNBC Investing Club with Jim Cramer, you will receive a trade alert before Jim makes a trade. Jim waits 45 minutes after sending a trade alert before buying or selling a stock in his charitable trust's portfolio. If Jim has talked about a stock on CNBC TV, he waits 72 hours after issuing the trade alert before executing the trade. THE ABOVE INVESTING CLUB INFORMATION IS SUBJECT TO OUR TERMS AND CONDITIONS AND PRIVACY POLICY , TOGETHER WITH OUR DISCLAIMER . NO FIDUCIARY OBLIGATION OR DUTY EXISTS, OR IS CREATED, BY VIRTUE OF YOUR RECEIPT OF ANY INFORMATION PROVIDED IN CONNECTION WITH THE INVESTING CLUB. NO SPECIFIC OUTCOME OR PROFIT IS GUARANTEED.

The Apple Fifth Avenue store in New York, US, on Monday, Feb. 24, 2025.

Michael Nagle | Bloomberg | Getty Images

The architect of President Donald Trump's sweeping global tariffs "has it in" for Apple, Jim Cramer said Monday, making the beaten-down stock not a buy yet.