Wall Street’s dramatic turnaround rally Wednesday demonstrates why investors need to remain invested even “when there’s despair,” CNBC’s Jim Cramer said. Stocks surged in afternoon trading after President Donald Trump announced a 90-day tariff pause on most U.S. trading partners, with the exception of China. It follows a brutal four-day stretch for stocks in the wake of Trump’s steeper-than-expected tariff announcement on the evening of April 2. The S & P 500 entered Wednesday on the brink of bear market territory, defined as closing down 20% or more from a recent high. “If you want to help people make money, tell them to stay in the game when there’s total despair,” Cramer said on “Power Lunch.” “Tell them not to quit. Tell them not to short. Tell them to get off leverage. Let it play out,” added Cramer, who runs the CNBC Investing Club’s portfolio of 30 stocks and provides education on investing. “If you are a bull, this was a good day,” he added. Cramer’s comments Wednesday echo what he has been telling investors through the market’s punishing stretch in recent days. He repeatedly said that despite the growing fears of a tariff-driven recession, investors needed to stay patient because this is a sell-off “manufactured” by the White House. That made it a much different situation than the great financial crisis, he argued. “Don’t sell, just hold,” Cramer said on April 3 , the first day of the tariff-fueled market slide. On Sunday night, as U.S. stock futures cratered, Cramer again urged investors to keep a level head. “I’m not going to panic. I’m not going to say, ‘Get out now.’ I think you have to stay the course here.” Cramer used similar language as he digested the surge Wednesday afternoon. “You don’t want to short a bad market with this president, and you don’t want to get out. You just stay the course. That’s the right thing to do,” Cramer said. In making his point, Jim also referred to a body of research on Wall Street that indicates that only a couple of handfuls of days make up the entire year of performance. He reiterated his advice that individual investors should not try to time the market because it’s too difficult to know when those cannot-miss days will occur.
