GoKawiilCNBC's Jim Cramer said market pullbacks driven by geopolitical shocks shouldn't push investors to the sidelines, arguing that the bigger opportunity is in owning companies powering the economy's next phase of growth.
"What you really would need to own are the companies that actually dominate the new economy," Cramer said Monday on "Mad Money," pointing to data center and artificial intelligence-linked names that have driven much of the market's gains this year.
Cramer's comments come after the Dow Jones Industrial Average fell more than 1% and oil prices and Treasury yields spiked Monday on rekindling tensions in the Middle East.
Cramer has long warned that geopolitical risk matters most to investors through its impact on oil and interest rates, which can ripple across the market. Still, he said investors shouldn't pull money out of stocks despite this latest flare-up, pointing to a deeper structural shift in the U.S. economy that continues to support growth.
"This economy is a computer-driven economy," Cramer said. "We run on compute."
This transformation, Cramer said, has helped insulate key parts of the market — particularly technology, cloud, and data center-related companies — from concerns about a war-related drag on economic growth. Demand for computing power, AI infrastructure, and digital services continues to expand, even as oil prices rise and borrowing costs remain elevated.
He pointed to Amazon as an example of a company built to withstand pressure due to its massive logistics network, growing cloud business, and connections to the AI boom. Cramer added that its durability also comes from a core strategy of keeping prices low, positioning it as a lower-cost option when consumers pull back. Amazon is a holding in the Charitable Trust, the portfolio run by CNBC's Investing Club. It's still up about 17% this year.
"Higher interest rates can fell many a company. But if you want to guess who'll be the last man standing, you could do a lot worse than betting on Amazon," he said.
Cramer said market slumps tied to macro shocks may create short-term pain, but the long-term trend remains intact. "We are just getting more and more computer-oriented," he said. The computer-driven economy "doesn't care much about oil or interest rates," he said. "The drive of computers is going in one direction, higher, and it's taking a huge number of stocks with it."