Cramer's CME & DJIA, full speed ahead

On tonight's Mad Money on CNBC, Jim Cramer talked up his DJIA target of 14,582 at year-end and DJIA components (Cramer did this in batches before with individual targets: A-B group, then some middle names, and another group). He also said he's backing the Chicago Mercantile Exchange, or the CME Group, Inc. (NYSE:CME). He thinks this will benefit hugely from the increased volume and the increased volatility in futures. This is one he thinks that can raise fees because they are so large in market share now that the CME/CBOT merger went through. He even said this may be a secular growth story and even thinks the stock is cheap. The company now has accelerating revenue growth for growth managers, and he thinks estimates could be too low.

Let's hope THIS exchange pick from Cramer does better than his pick of the shares in the New York Stock Exchange, or the NYSE Euronext (NYSE: NYX), which was Cramer's #1 Growth Pick for 2007. This quarter did actually look OK for the NYSE, but at under $75.00 shares are still way off of yearly highs of $112.00. CME has a lot of integration work remaining for the CME/CBOT merger, but after having personally officed in the CBOT Building and spending a lot of time over at the CME Building (and maybe even a few happy hours at each, allegedly) these did create the monster exchange. The combined entity will also force other exchange mergers even if for no other reason than survival or relevance.