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Cramer on BloggingStocks: Fed has grounds to cut to zero

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TheStreet.com's Jim Cramer says the Fed eases because of crisis and financial failure.

Look, it's bad out there, if you are in the wrong sectors.

It's pretty darned good out there if you are in the right ones.

Thursday, one of the right ones -- oil -- got rocked by Exxon (NYSE: XOM) (Cramer's Take), and many of the wrong ones got rocked by just about everything.

Thursday was a day right out of 1990, when Citigroup (NYSE: C) (Cramer's Take) and the other banks pulled the market down dramatically -- ex oils. I remember those days like now, and thought these days were the end of the world. And the world ended on quite a few days.

It is so hard to think that any of the market could go up when you have the financials crashing. But believe me, it can happen.


On days like Thursday, people always are skeptical of my bullish view, because 20% of the market is finance. I always come back with two things: one, that 20% is going to shrink considerably in this downturn, and two, the rest of the market ex-housing and retail is a big enough playground that you can make money. The fact that the Dow has so few financials -- AIG (NYSE: AIG) (Cramer's Take), JP Morgan (NYSE: JPM) (Cramer's Take) and Citigroup bodes well, too.

Unfortunately AIG is really tough because there is no transparency. And Citigroup is dead until Chuck Prince is fired.

Citigroup needs to be dismantled. The acquisitions ruined the balance sheet and provided no growth. I am really angry at Bob Rubin because I know he held the key to Prince's removal and he refused to turn it. I said Prince would be out 10 days ago and it hasn't happened, but my sources as well as the sources of Doug Kass say it happens this weekend.

We are in a period where there can be no defense for any financials and what has held them up is the dividend prop. Thursday, that prop got taken away by the Citigroup call, and it will be called into question again soon as Washington Mutual's (NYSE: WM) (Cramer's Take) dividend approaches red flag levels.

I guess what I am saying is that there will be more days like this.

When they happen, you will question why you should ever own stocks. I am retorting that you need to own the right stocks and none of the right stocks are financials. Some of the decline Thursday had to do with the ridiculous way the media played the "no need to ease any more "story. That's ridiculous, because it, once again, buys into the notion that the reason why any central banker might stop easing is that the economy will rebound.

The economy's fine, domestic awful, export good. The reason why they ease is because of crisis and financial failure.

And I am telling you they have enough reasons on their hands right now to take rates to zero.

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Jim Cramer is a director and co-founder of TheStreet.com. He contributes daily market commentary for TheStreet.com's sites and serves as an adviser to the company's CEO. At the time of publication, Cramer was long Citigroup.

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DJIA-17.2410,433.71
NASDAQ-6.832,169.18
S&P 500-0.591,105.65

Last updated: November 25, 2009: 02:44 AM

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