Jim Cramer’s 5 AI Stocks to Buy Before the Global Economy Resets

There was a moment on the April 14 episode of Mad Money that didn’t get nearly enough attention. Larry Fink, the BlackRock CEO who manages more money than most countries will ever see, sat across from Jim Cramer and said something that should have stopped every investor in their tracks. Oil, Fink suggested, could fall to $40 a barrel within a year if the situation in Iran resolves favorably.

With Brent crude sitting at $94.41 per barrel at the time, that’s not a dip. That’s a collapse. Roughly 58%. And the market, busy watching trade war headlines scroll across every screen, barely flinched. Cramer flinched. That’s worth noting.

The Mad Money host has spent decades watching how macro shifts travel through specific industries before the broader market catches on. Fuel is one of those invisible inputs that most retail investors ignore until it’s already moved. Airlines, logistics giants, delivery networks — these are businesses where the cost of moving things through the air determines whether a quarter is brilliant or dismal.

When Fink painted his $40 scenario, Cramer immediately understood what it meant for a particular set of names. American Airlines, Delta, United, FedEx, Amazon — these five companies carry fuel as one of their heaviest operating costs, and if oil halves, their entire financial story changes almost overnight.

American Airlines is the most intriguing and, frankly, the most nerve-wracking of the group. Total debt stands at $36.5 billion with negative stockholders’ equity of negative $3.73 billion. Some investors are turned off by those figures. But that leverage, brutal as it sounds in a high-fuel environment, becomes a lever pulling in the opposite direction when costs fall. In Q4 2025, the airline posted record revenue of $14 billion and still missed earnings estimates by 54%, reporting adjusted earnings per share of just $0.16 against a consensus of $0.35.

Surging operating costs were the culprit. In Q2 2025, when fuel dropped 15% year-over-year, American earned $0.95 per share. That contrast is striking, almost jarring. Management has guided for full-year 2026 adjusted earnings of $1.70 to $2.70 assuming normalized fuel prices. A Fink-style collapse would make that guidance look like sandbagging.

Delta Air Lines tells a slightly different story, and arguably a more reassuring one. It is, by most measures, the best-run airline operating in America right now. In Q1 2026, Delta grew adjusted earnings per share by 44% year-over-year to $0.64, even as fuel expenses climbed 8% and management called it the defining headwind of the quarter. CEO Ed Bastian has been measured but direct, expressing confidence that a difficult fuel environment ultimately reinforces Delta’s competitive position.

Delta also owns Monroe Energy, a refinery that adds operational flexibility most airlines don’t have. The pre-fuel-spike guidance called for full-year adjusted earnings of $6.50 to $7.50 with free cash flow between $3 and $4 billion. The stock is rated as a buy or strong buy by 25 analysts. There’s a sense that Delta would be the most efficient converter of a fuel decline into shareholder value.

United Airlines is in a position of true financial strength when it enters this discussion. Fiscal 2025 delivered record revenue of $59.07 billion, record adjusted net income of $3.49 billion, and free cash flow of $2.71 billion. That business isn’t stumbling along. It’s a company that has managed its cost structure aggressively and is now planning to absorb more than 100 narrowbody aircraft deliveries in 2026, alongside approximately 20 Boeing 787 widebodies.

Cheaper fuel would transform those delivery economics considerably. The stock has fallen 15% year-to-date, trading at $97.20 against an analyst consensus target of $130.17. Twenty-four analysts hold buy-equivalent ratings. The setup feels almost too clean, which is probably why the market hasn’t fully priced it in yet.

FedEx operates one of the largest commercial air fleets on earth, which makes it quietly one of the most fuel-sensitive businesses in the country. The most recent quarter showed adjusted earnings per share of $5.25, beating estimates by roughly 27%, with revenue of $24 billion growing 8% year-over-year. Management raised full-year guidance, but buried in that guidance language was an explicit caveat — the numbers assume current fuel prices with no additional adverse economic developments.

That kind of language from a CFO is essentially a warning that the upside isn’t built in yet. If oil retreats meaningfully, FedEx’s cost structure improves and guidance becomes conservative almost automatically. A distinct catalyst that is wholly unrelated to the oil thesis is added by the impending FedEx Freight spin-off, which is scheduled for June 1, 2026.

Amazon sits fifth on this list not because the dollar impact of fuel relief is small — it isn’t — but because fuel represents a smaller slice of an enormous cost base. The company’s Amazon Air fleet, its last-mile delivery infrastructure serving close to 100 million customers, and its sprawling third-party logistics network all run on fuel. Every layer is filled with less expensive oil. Revenue for FY2025 was $716.92 billion, and operating income was close to $80 billion.

The stock has a buy rating from 49 analysts and a sell rating. AWS and advertising carry the headline earnings narrative now, but fuel relief across the North America segment — which generated $127.08 billion in revenue in just the final quarter of 2025 — is not a trivial number.

It’s worth acknowledging what Cramer himself said on the show: his charitable trust is currently selling into the overbought rally, not adding new positions. It is not contradictory. It’s an observation about timing. The Iran situation is binary and unpredictable, and no one — not Fink, not Cramer, not anyone — can say exactly when or whether that resolution arrives.

But it’s also true that oil traded at $55.44 as recently as December 16, 2025, just four months before this conversation took place. The precedent exists. The mechanism is clear. There are five stocks that are right in the way of that possible change. Whether the reset arrives next month or next year, it’s hard not to notice that the setup is already in place.