Don't be a "knucklehead market-ordering buyer" who purchases Uber shares at any price when they go public Friday, Jim Cramer says. In fact, he recommends that those who got pre-IPO shares sell them as soon as the stock opens for trading. "I suggest if you get stock [pre-IPO], the best time to sell ... is that opening price," Cramer said Thursday in an exclusive video-conference call with members of his Action Alerts PLUS club for investors. "Of course it can go higher, but then you will be devoid of the retail market buying that might have brought it up high to begin with." Although lead underwriter Morgan Stanley priced the IPO at $45 a share on Thursday evening, Cramer said the Uber stock could jump higher when trading begins Friday under the ticker symbol "UBER." But he said that Morgan Stanley has an ace in the hole -- a bunch of extra shares at its disposal that the firm can dump on the open market if Uber's first trading day gets out of control. "My behind-the-scene talks indicate that Morgan Stanley is going to try to halt the buying at the $80 level by offering company stock there," Cramer said. "That could sate even the knucklehead market ordering buyers. I am begging you not to be one." He said that because after Uber starts trading, "you will most likely see lots of selling by accounts that aren't as restricted as management or Morgan Stanley might like. For instance, there are many convertible securities and they will be ripe for the selling against. ... These could be what I call 'mean' sellers -- meaning they don't have any price [where] they won't sell because they are up so much." Check Out All of Cramer's VIP Conference Call Click here for a free 14-day trial of Jim's Action Alerts PLUS club for investors and get instant access to a complete replay of his entire video-conference call, including Jim's "5 Rules for Trimming Your Winning Stock Positions." Club membership includes exclusive access to a private video conference each month with Jim, during which he also gives his latest views on the market and answers e-mailed questions from members. Membership also includes lot of other exclusive benefits, including: A complete rundown of all of stocks that Jim himself holds in a trust that he runs for charity; E-mail alerts that give you a chance to buy or sell any stock before Jim makes the trade for the trust; Custom research throughout every trading day from Jim and his team of stock-market analysts. You get to see in real time what they're watching each market day as they make investment decisions. Click here to sign up for Action Alerts PLUS and watch a full replay of the video-conference call today!<doc-sep>The bull will soon be ready to keep running now that the two-days of market sell-off is behind Wall Street, CNBC's Jim Cramer said. "To borrow a line from stock sage Johnny Nash: I can think clearly now the sell-off's almost gone. I can see all obstacles in my way — the Uber deal and the trade talks," the "Mad Money" host said. "And without those dark clouds, we could be in for a bright, bright sunny bullish day." After three days of volatility, and Tuesday's 473-point drop on the Dow Jones Industrial Average, Cramer said investors can soon start to plot new entry points to buy some stocks. Wednesday's session started strong before the Dow finished up just about 2 points, while the declined 0.16% and the Nasdaq Composite lost 0.26%. The next two days could prove to be tough as Uber is set to go public and President Donald Trump plans to hike tariffs on Chinese imports on Friday. Cramer has been worried about how both of these events could impact the market in the short term. "Come next Tuesday, I think it will be behind us and as long as you've raised some cash — as I have advised — you can take advantage of any weakness to do some buying going forward," he said. "I think you need to be prepared to take your cash that you have raised, that's on the sidelines, and start putting it to work in the stocks of high quality companies if they come raining down on you." After two days of stock selling, Trump signaled on Wednesday that China wanted to continue negotiating a trade agreement. Cramer had previously predicted that a Trump tweet asserting that trade talks were still on would help mitigate market wide selling. China said it would retaliate if taxes on exports to the United States are raised. If Trump follows through with his threat to increase existing tariffs from 10% to 25% on billions of dollars worth of Chinese goods, it could trigger more selling, Cramer said. That would push Trump to react again, the host said. "President Trump watches the archaic Dow Jones Industrial Average like a hawk. It's his equivalent of the Nielsen ratings," he said. "If the president witnesses a major decline in the Dow, I think he'll change his policy to get stocks rallying again." In terms of the Uber deal, the host said money managers have sold off tech names to raise capital for the highly-anticipated IPO Friday. Morgan Stanley, the ride share company's underwriter, is making moves to keep the deal under control at the open, Cramer said. "We're not worried about where the Uber IPO prices, we're worried about where the stock opens after that," he said. "The stock needs to start trading at low enough levels that the big accounts feel comfortable buying more. I think Morgan Stanley will do everything in its power to hold the opening price below $80, where these hedge funds and mutual funds will do more buying." Even if the Uber IPO gets botched and the world's largest economies do not come to a trade truce on Friday, the market will remain in decent shape at the end of the week, Cramer said. "Don't forget, we've got low long-term interest rates, we've got better-than-expected earnings, a compliant Federal Reserve and a fabulous economy," he said. "The fundamentals are strong, and they'll still be strong even if the trade war escalation does more damage than I'm expecting it to."<doc-sep>Chevron Walks Away From Andadarko Chevron (CVX) - Get Report said it won't increase its $50 billion takeover bid for independent drilling group Anadarko Petroleum (APC) - Get Report , and will instead take the $1 billion break-up fee. Uber's Pricing Uber (UBER) - Get Report is finally going public on Friday. Uber's debut is one of the tech sector's most highly anticipated, with its offering expected to raise as much as $9 billion and result in a potential valuation of $84 billion at the midpoint of its proposed target range of $44 to $50 a share. Uber shares are expected to be priced Thursday evening with the stock to begin trading Friday on the New York Stock Exchange. Etsy's Earnings Real Money Stock of the Day Etsy (ETSY) - Get Report posted earnings Wednesday after the bell. Etsy said diluted earnings for the three months ending in March came in at 24 cents per share, up more than twice the level of last year and bang in-line with the Street consensus forecast. Group sales, however, missed analysts' forecasts of $1.7 billion, even as they rose 40% to $169.339 million, pressuring shares in pre-market trading. Gross merchandise sales on the platform, the company said, rose 18.9% and passed the $1 billion mark for the first time. Read what Cramer had to say about Etsy this morning here. Disney's Earnings Disney (DIS) - Get Report also posted earnings after the bell Wednesday. Adjusted earnings in the quarter were $1.61 a share, beating forecasts by 2 cents. Revenue of $14.92 billion beat analysts' estimates of $14.54 billion. Disney said revenue from its parks, experiences and consumer products business rose 4.5% to $6.17 billion, beating estimates of $6 billion. Movie-studio revenue in the quarter was $2.13 billion. How to Navigate Market Volatility With the markets going haywire, there's no better time to kick off Jim Cramer's next ActionAlertsPlus.com investing club call. Jim will walk you through everything from portfolio management to the new names that have found their way into the portfolio. Here's how you can watch.<doc-sep>Investors are hoping to avoid a repeat performance of Lyft's decline since its IPO, but market turmoil plus scrutiny of Uber's top line metrics could lead to some volatility. Uber's IPO is almost upon us -- and it could be a wild ride. Amid broader turmoil in the markets, Uber is expected to list its shares on Friday in what will be the largest IPO since Alibaba (BABA) - Get Report debuted in 2014. And investors are eager to see how Uber's stock holds up in the weeks and months ahead. Uber set an initial price range $44 to $50 per share in its IPO, and reportedly plans to price shares at the middle or low end of that range, which would value Uber somewhere between $80.53 and $84 billion. There are plenty of predictions about where Uber goes from here. Inevitably, Lyft makes for the best immediate comparison -- and its stock has sunk almost 27% since it went public at $72 per share on Mar. 29, partly on skepticism around its profitability and more recently, a first quarter loss that was wider-than-expected. Mitchell Green, a partner at Lead Edge Capital and an early Uber investor, said that Uber will "price it to make it work," potentially avoiding the hangover we've seen in Lyft shares after an initial spike on its first day of trading. Fellow tech unicorns Zoom (ZM) - Get Report and Pinterest (PINS) - Get Report have fared better since their IPOs, with shares up 18% and 17%, respectively, from their initial offering prices. Uber and Lyft are different animals, however -- and the coming quarters will help to shed light on which ridehailing model, and unprofitable ones at that, the public investors favor. Wedbush analyst Dan Ives likened Uber to Amazon in a recent note, arguing that it can transform its core ridehailing business into a "broader consumer engine with Uber Eats, Uber Freight, and autonomous initiatives "just scratching the surface" of the full monetization potential of this platform over the next decade." Ives set a 12-month price target of $65 per share, a healthy premium over its initial range. Lead Edge Capital's Green noted that "the pricing range doesn't matter; what I care about is where the stock price is 6 or 12 months from now," Green added. "These guys are pros; they know how to deal with investors, and I think you'll see [Uber CEO Dara Khosrowshahi] execute." Others are taking a more cautious look at the the blockbuster IPO -- and how Uber's stock will do in the near term. So what might investors expect after the initial "pop" of 20% or more that is typical in many IPOs? In an analysis of Uber's S-1 filing, EquityZen pointed out Uber's flattening revenue combined with downward pressure on its "take rates" -- what it makes per ride -- boils down to a multi-front pricing war it's fighting in numerous markets around the world. Unlike its U.S. rival Lyft, Uber competes fiercely in a multitude of global markets, facing Didi Chuxing, Grab, Yandex.taxi and others that could put further pressure on Uber's top line metrics. "We believe Uber's stock is in for a bumpy ride, and IPO investors may not be too pleased with their returns in the near-term," Equity Zen's report said.<doc-sep>
CNBC's Jim Cramer on Tuesday said he would not buy shares of Uber when it lists for the first time on the New York Stock Exchange Friday. "As much as I hate to be a negative Nancy ... I would pass on Uber, unless you can get a piece of the actual IPO and then immediately ring the register at the opening," the "Mad Money" host said. "Other than that, though, when you look at the fundamentals, which no one is doing … there's just not much here worth getting excited about." Uber's proposed price range of $44 to $50 per share is a reasonable valuation, but it won't be cheap, Cramer said. The stock would trade at a premium as high as 6-times the company's 2019 sales, he said. "There's a universe where that is cheap beyond, not for a company with 20% revenue growth, though," Cramer said. "Although, it's a heck of a lot less pricey than what we've seen [from other IPOs], and it's cheap, downright cheap, versus IPO-darling Beyond Meat." There is cause for concern about Uber following Lyft's debut to public markets, he said. Still, Uber offers more options than Lyft, including food delivery and logistics segments, and has a much larger reach in 700 metropolitan areas on six continents, he added. While Uber is a larger business with more to offer than its chief rival, growth is slowing, sales are dropping, and the company is still far from turning a profit, Cramer said. "Uber has spent years taking over the ride-sharing business, either via acquisitions or through aggressive internal expansion," he said. "They're the undisputed king of this business, and in many ways, I think Uber is the future of transportation." But Uber's potential to shape the future doesn't mean its an automatic good stock to invest in, Cramer said. Gross bookings increased 45% to $49.8 billion in 2018, and revenue increased 42% to $11.3 billion — but Uber still lost $3 billion for the year, he said. That number is down from a $4 billion loss in 2017, but it's still a problem, he added. Net revenue growth on its core platform, which includes ride-sharing and Uber Eats, decreased from 125% in 2017 to 39% in 2018. The company forecast growth for the segment of about 10% for the first quarter of 2019, Cramer said. "That's a hideous slowdown," he said. As far as profitability, Uber's margins are headed in the wrong direction, Cramer said. The company posted a first-quarter EBITDA margin — a measure of a company's overall financial performance — of negative 31%. That marks a double-digit drop from the year before, when EBITDA margin rang in at negative 10.8%, he highlighted. The contribution margin on the core platform, representing sales revenue minus variable costs, was 18% a year ago, but the company is estimating a negative margin of between 4% and 7% for the first quarter, Cramer said. "This number hasn't been negative since 2016," he said. "I am worried that Uber was dealing with a very competitive environment in the first quarter … which led to lots of discounts, the last thing you want to hear about with any IPO, let alone any stock." While many investors are worried about the trade war between the United States and China, Cramer said he is more worried about the excitement surrounding Uber's debut on the public market. It could become the third-largest technology IPO in history behind Alibaba and Facebook, he said. The deal could raise as much as $10 billion for the platform. "I've been concerned that investors will sell all sorts of tech stocks so they can raise capital to participate in this exciting Uber deal," he said. "I fear what might happen if irrationally exuberant investors swoop in and bid the stock up like crazy at the opening using market orders, not limited orders ... only for the darned thing to sell off dramatically as people who got in on the actual deal start ringing the register in droves."