ClaimsJim Cramer

“Oil's pushing down the S&P”

Jim Cramer, on X 30 March 2020 Post by @jimcramer on X, 2020-03-30 (X)

Factual Economics and markets

On 2020-03-30 falling oil prices were pushing down the S&P 500, with oil about to fall through $19 a barrel.

Mostly false False in substance, right in a detail.

Factual: Statements about the present or the past, checked against the record: did they hold up?

What would count as true or false

Core claim: at the time of the remark on 2020-03-30, falling oil prices were weighing on the S&P 500, with oil near $19 a barrel. True: on 2020-03-30 crude (WTI) was falling to around $19-20 a barrel, and the S&P 500 was trading lower at the time, with contemporaneous market reports linking the weakness to oil or energy stocks. Mostly true: as above, but a small detail is off, for example oil was at about $20 rather than about to break $19, or the S&P weakness was brief or intraday only. Mostly false: oil did fall toward about $19-20 that day, but the S&P 500 was not falling at the time, or was rising on the day, so oil was not pushing it down. False: oil was not falling toward that level that day and the S&P was not being pulled down by oil.

Set before the research began.

Evidence (4)

  1. E1 Dow Jones rallies 690 points despite oil prices sinking to 18-year low UPI · 30 March 2020

    “The Dow Jones Industrial Average closed up 690.7 points, or 3.19 percent, while the S&P 500 rose 3.35 percent and the Nasdaq Composite climbed 3.62 percent.”
  2. E2 Dow Jones rallies 690 points despite oil prices sinking to 18-year low UPI · 30 March 2020

    “The U.S. benchmark West Texas Intermediate fell below $20 per barrel, also dropping by more than 7 percent.”
  3. E3 Oil drops more than 6% to 18-year low as global demand ... CNBC · 30 March 2020 Own record

    “U.S. West Texas Intermediate crude dropped 7.3% to trade at $19.93 per barrel.”
  4. E4 Wall Street's rally rolls on, aided by health care stocks CBS News · 30 March 2020

    “The S&P 500 rose 3.4%, while the tech-heavy Nasdaq rose 3.6%.”

Reasoning

On 2020-03-30, WTI crude fell more than 7% to below $20 a barrel (E2), trading at $19.93 (E3). That matches the oil part of the claim. But independent reports show the S&P 500 rose about 3.35–3.4% that day (E1, E4), and UPI's headline says the Dow rallied despite oil's drop. The criteria rate a claim mostly false when oil fell toward $19–20 but the S&P was rising on the day, which is what the evidence shows.

Cite this claim

Jim Cramer, “On 2020-03-30 falling oil prices were pushing down the S&P 500, with oil about to fall through $19 a barrel.” (said 30 March 2020). Verdict: mostly false. Reliability API, claim c_e3f1b00038f8, method 0.1.0+c876030c, dataset release v1.1.2. https://epistacklabs.com/claims/c_e3f1b00038f8

This claim is in dataset release v1.1.2, with the same verdict.

Reply to this claim

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All of them

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