Blog

As the bull market turns three-years-old, CNBC’s Jim Cramer said on Friday that he expects companies to post “better than expected” earnings to continue the market’s rally.

“The bears will hold their nose, hide their eyes and disengage their brains once again as next week progresses, because it should be another good one for earnings,” Cramer said. “And earnings, not anything else, are what really drive stocks lower. Or in this case, higher.”

Cramer shared his “gameplan” looking ahead to next week’s earnings. The week will start out by seeing what steel producer Cleveland Cliffs has to say about the “real” economy’s health on Monday. Following the close will be Zions Bancorporation, a regional bank that disclosed bad loans on Wednesday. Cramer says he is interested in how the bank got defrauded and whether it’s seeing broader signs of weaknesses.

But for most of the other companies reporting, Cramer is optimistic.

On Tuesday, Cramer is expecting positive numbers from both GE Aerospace, an aircraft engine supplier, and Coca-Cola, which is the “most consistent of the packaged goods stocks.” Sleeper Dow stock 3M will also report strong earnings, Cramer predicted, while healthcare company Danaher is expected to break its multi-year dry spell with a strong quarter.

Cramer said that Capital One may follow American Express’ successful quarter especially after completing its acquisition of Discover earlier this year.

On Wednesday, Data center builder Vertiv will likely deliver “excellent” earnings, Cramer said, and GE Vernova, which manufactures many of the turbines that power those centers, may have a multi-year run. Cramer said IBM will prove bears wrong about its growth rate, with CEO Arvind Krishna running “the best quantum computing campaign on Earth.”

Blackstone‘s own data center business will also contribute a “particularly strong quarter” on Thursday, according to Cramer. Miner Freeport-McMoRan could also see another rally despite a deadly mudflow incident in Indonesia in September.

As Wall Street turns more bullish on T-Mobile after record iPhone sales, Cramer is expecting stocks for the network operator and Apple, which reports at the end of the month, to run.

Finally, Procter & Gamble, which has been in a “real house of pain,” has finally bottomed, Cramer said. The company will report earnings on Friday.