CNBC’s Jim Cramer on Monday delivered a broader cautionary message to investors tempted to chase stocks moving on Venezuela’s sudden political upheaval, arguing that markets routinely overestimate how quickly geopolitical shocks translate into sustainable corporate earnings.

Cramer’s remarks came amid a powerful rally on Wall Street that appeared to shrug off the dramatic news out of Latin America. The Dow Jones Industrial Average surged 594.79 points, or 1.23%, to close at a fresh all-time high, reinforcing his view that U.S. equities remain driven more by earnings, liquidity, and valuation than by short-lived political narratives.

At the heart of Cramer’s argument is a distinction he says investors repeatedly blur: the difference between trading volatility and building long-term wealth.
“Along with an index fund, I want you to own individual stocks — not trade them,” Cramer said. “Let the power of compounding do its work.”

He warned that geopolitical events often create sharp, emotional market reactions that look compelling in the moment but rarely offer durable investment edges. Venezuela, he said, is a textbook case.

While President Donald Trump’s move to oust the country’s leadership has fueled speculation about oil supply, energy infrastructure, and U.S. corporate access to the world’s largest proven crude reserves, Cramer argued that markets have already priced in much of the optimism.

Energy stocks such as Chevron, refiners including Valero, and oil-services firms like Halliburton jumped on the assumption that Venezuela could quickly re-emerge as a major oil supplier aligned with U.S. interests. Cramer pushed back on that narrative, noting that Venezuela’s oil industry has been hollowed out by decades of underinvestment, sanctions, technical decay, and brain drain.

Rebuilding production capacity, he said, would require years of work, billions of dollars in capital, and a stable political framework that does not yet exist. Even under the most favorable assumptions, meaningful cash flow for U.S. companies would likely arrive far later than current share price moves imply.

“People always underestimate how long it takes for political change to show up in corporate profits,” Cramer said, adding that investors often mistake a compelling story for an investable timeline.

He also cautioned that commodity markets tend to front-run geopolitical developments aggressively. Oil prices, he noted, often react immediately to supply narratives, leaving little margin for latecomers once the story is widely understood. In that context, chasing energy stocks after a geopolitical rally can expose investors to sharp reversals if expectations cool or timelines stretch.

Rather than trading headlines, Cramer urged investors to concentrate on businesses with clear earnings visibility and valuations that provide downside protection. He framed this as especially important in a market trading near record highs, where selectivity matters more than broad speculation.

Within financials, Cramer highlighted Goldman Sachs as a potential beneficiary of a recovery in deal-making, capital markets activity, and equity issuance, particularly if market confidence continues to improve. He said Goldman’s earnings power is closely tied to financial activity rather than political events, making it a cleaner long-term bet.

He also pointed to Citigroup, which he believes can continue exceeding earnings expectations as management pares back complexity, exits non-core businesses, and improves returns on capital. Capital One was another standout for Cramer, whom he described as one of the cheapest large U.S. banks following its acquisition of Discover — a deal he said the market has not fully digested in terms of long-term earnings potential.

Stepping back, Cramer framed the Venezuela episode as a reminder that markets are littered with examples where investors chased geopolitical excitement only to be disappointed by the slow grind of reality. From regime changes to wars and sanctions, he said, the economic payoff almost always arrives later and more unevenly than traders expect.

His broader advice was simple but pointed: investors should resist the urge to react to every breaking headline and instead anchor portfolios around high-quality companies with durable cash flows, reasonable valuations, and management teams executing against clear strategies.

“Trading feels productive,” Cramer implied, “but ownership is what actually builds wealth.”

In a market still hitting record highs and navigating global political uncertainty, Cramer’s warning was less about Venezuela specifically and more about discipline — a call for investors to tune out the noise and focus on fundamentals that compound over time.

Foxconn, the world’s largest contract electronics manufacturer and a critical partner to Nvidia, has capped 2025 with a sharp surge in revenues, underscoring how the global race to build artificial intelligence infrastructure is reshaping the tech manufacturing industry.

The Taiwanese group, formally known as Hon Hai Precision Industry, reported fourth-quarter revenues of 2.6 trillion Taiwan dollars ($83 billion), a 22% jump year-on-year, comfortably beating market expectations of about NT$2.4 trillion, according to LSEG data. The strong performance was driven largely by its components and cloud-related businesses, which have become increasingly central to the company’s growth story as AI spending accelerates.

Foxconn sits at the heart of the global technology supply chain. It assembles Apple’s iPhone, produces a wide range of consumer electronics, and, crucially, manufactures the servers that house high-performance chips inside data centers. That positioning has turned it into a major beneficiary of the unprecedented capital expenditure wave sweeping through Big Tech as companies race to secure computing power for generative AI models.

In a statement, Foxconn said revenue in the final quarter of 2025 delivered “strong growth both quarter-on-quarter and year-on-year,” exceeding its own expectations and creating a high comparison base heading into early 2026. The company also flagged that earnings are likely to land near the upper end of its five-year historical range, even as it enters what is traditionally the off-season for information and communications technology products.

The numbers reflect a deeper structural shift. Demand for AI servers and so-called “AI racks” — densely packed systems designed to support Nvidia’s most advanced chips — has become a key earnings driver. These systems are far more complex and higher-margin than conventional servers, giving Foxconn exposure not just to volume growth but also to richer revenue per unit.

Investors have taken notice. Foxconn’s share price rose about 25% in 2025, building on a 76% rally the previous year, as markets increasingly priced the company less as a cyclical electronics assembler and more as a critical enabler of the AI economy.

That re-rating has been reinforced by a series of strategic moves. In November, Foxconn signed a partnership with OpenAI to collaborate on the design of next-generation AI infrastructure hardware, a deal that signals its ambition to move upstream from pure manufacturing into co-development of advanced systems. In May, it announced a separate partnership with Nvidia and the Taiwanese government to help provide infrastructure for a major AI factory in Taiwan, aligning the company closely with national efforts to anchor AI supply chains domestically.

Foxconn has also been expanding its footprint in data-center construction and power infrastructure, areas that have become increasingly important as AI workloads drive up energy consumption. In July, it said it was taking a stake in TECO Electric & Machinery Co, a move seen as strengthening its capabilities across the broader AI infrastructure stack, from servers to power and cooling systems.

While consumer electronics demand remains uneven, particularly as smartphone and PC markets mature, Foxconn’s exposure to cloud and AI investment is helping to offset those pressures. The company acknowledged that the first quarter of the year typically marks a seasonal slowdown for ICT products, but said the continued rise in AI rack shipments should provide a strong counterbalance.

The results also highlight the knock-on effects of Nvidia’s dominance in AI chips. As one of Nvidia’s key manufacturing partners, Foxconn stands to benefit directly as hyperscalers and governments pour billions into data centers built around Nvidia’s hardware. That has turned Foxconn into a bellwether not just for electronics manufacturing, but for the pace and durability of global AI investment.

Looking ahead, analysts say the main question is not whether AI demand will persist, but how concentrated it remains among a handful of suppliers. Foxconn appears, for now, firmly embedded in that ecosystem, leveraging scale, engineering depth, and strategic partnerships to capture a growing share of the AI infrastructure boom.

In that sense, the company’s blockbuster fourth quarter is less about a single strong period and more about a longer-term reset of its business.

Venezuela’s crude oil output is expected to rise gradually following the U.S. strike and the capture of President Nicolas Maduro, a development that analysts say could alter the long-term global oil supply picture even as short-term market impacts remain limited.

American forces seized Maduro in Caracas over the weekend, marking a decisive escalation in Washington’s long-running confrontation with the South American oil producer. President Donald Trump said the United States would take control of Venezuela, while making clear that the U.S. embargo on Venezuelan oil would remain fully in force. That dual signal, political upheaval without immediate sanctions relief, has left energy markets weighing future potential against near-term constraints.

Despite the dramatic geopolitical turn, oil prices have so far shown little reaction. Analysts say this reflects a widely held view that Venezuela’s oil comeback, if it happens, will be measured in years rather than months, and will require political clarity, regulatory stability, and massive capital investment.

Venezuela’s importance to oil markets lies in its reserves rather than its current output. The OPEC member holds about 17% of global proven oil reserves, roughly 303 billion barrels, according to the London-based Energy Institute, placing it ahead of OPEC leader Saudi Arabia. Yet its production capacity has been severely degraded over decades by underinvestment, operational failures, corruption, and sanctions.

In the 1970s, Venezuela produced as much as 3.5 million barrels per day, accounting for more than 7% of global supply at the time. Output fell steadily in the years that followed, dropping below 2 million barrels per day during the 2010s. Last year, production averaged around 1.1 million barrels per day — barely 1% of global output — underscoring how far the industry has declined from its peak.

Analysts say a political transition could arrest that decline and unlock gradual gains. JPMorgan analysts led by Natasha Kaneva said Venezuela could lift production to 1.3–1.4 million barrels per day within two years and potentially reach 2.5 million barrels per day over the next decade, from about 800,000 barrels per day currently. They added that these dynamics are not reflected in the back end of the oil futures curve, suggesting markets are underpricing the longer-term supply implications of a Venezuelan recovery.

Still, expectations remain tempered. Goldman Sachs analysts, led by Daan Struyven, cautioned that any recovery would likely be slow and uneven, requiring extensive rehabilitation of oil fields, pipelines, upgraders, and export terminals. Years of neglect have left much of Venezuela’s infrastructure in poor condition, while technical expertise has thinned following the exodus of skilled workers.

Goldman estimated that if Venezuela were able to raise production to around 2 million barrels per day, the added supply could shave about $4 per barrel off oil prices by 2030. That potential downside illustrates why Venezuela looms large in long-term market models, even if its immediate influence is muted.

In the short run, analysts say the key variable remains U.S. sanctions policy. Goldman said Venezuela’s production outlook this year depends heavily on how Washington recalibrates sanctions following the political transition. While the embargo remains in place, it limits access to financing, technology, and export markets, constraining how quickly production can respond.

“We see ambiguous but modest risks to oil prices in the short run from Venezuela depending on how U.S. sanctions policy evolves,” the Goldman analysts said, noting that uncertainty around licensing and enforcement will shape investment decisions.

That cautious view is reflected in price forecasts. Goldman left its 2026 outlook unchanged, projecting Brent crude to average $56 a barrel and U.S. West Texas Intermediate at $52. The bank also expects Venezuela’s oil production to remain flat at around 900,000 barrels per day in 2026, signaling limited near-term upside despite the political shock.

Beyond prices, analysts note that Venezuela’s reintegration into global oil markets would carry broader geopolitical and industry implications. A sustained recovery could complicate OPEC’s supply management efforts, particularly if Venezuelan barrels return at scale over the next decade. It could also reshape trade flows, especially in heavy crude markets, where Venezuelan grades compete with supplies from Canada and the Middle East.

For now, markets appear to view Venezuela less as an immediate disruptor and more as a long-dated wildcard. The country’s vast reserves represent a latent source of supply that could weigh on prices over time, but translating geology into barrels will require stability, capital, and policy clarity that remain uncertain.

As a result, the Venezuelan shock has become a story of deferred impact, dramatic in political terms, but incremental in market effect, with oil traders largely content to price the country’s potential into the distant future rather than the present.