TheStreet.com's Jim Cramer says if you're short, you don't want the bill passed. Let's look at that perspective. First, let's make an important point: Nothing from Congress is going to make this market go up. We need the market go up because it is cheap and it attracts buyers, and because there are companies out there that are worth more than they are trading at -- perhaps as private companies, perhaps as investments right now, if anyone had cash and confidence.
Right now it seems there is neither. All we have are the futures, on stocks and on oil, and they bounce around and we do what they tell us at the start. Then the hedge funds come in and start selling because of their broken models and their redemptions. Then the short-sellers come in and figure out ways to knock down things. Then the rumors start about another bank failure and then we go down.
I want to break that spiral because I own stocks. If I am short stocks, I love the spiral.
Now, the bill in Congress does not break the spiral by any means. What breaks the spiral is a sense that the system is not falling apart, which it most certainly is.
Anything that could help break that spiral is encouraging. Consider that we had the equivalent of Pearl Harbor -- the collapse of so many banks -- and now we need an effective response, which must be massive and persuasive.
Or, as some seem to think is right, we can do nothing and let it all happen.
I want to be very clear: If I were short the market, I would want no intervention and I would want this bill killed. I think I would make a lot of money short.
But intervention as part of a major attempt to save the system? Count me in, if I am long.
Right now almost every bank that is not dead is loaded to the gills with impossible-to-mark and -price mortgages. Again, if I were short I would like to keep it that way. As long as there is no possible marking, the current system is going to rely on the last price, and right now the last price for a lot of this stuff is a lot closer to zero than par. Given that's the case, we can only guesstimate and we will guesstimate something that is probably below where these mortgages will be if we can play them out and work them out.
Again, if I am short, I want marked-to-market because that will wipe out most banks. If I wanted most banks to go under, I would stick with marked-to-market for certain.
What can replace marked-to-market? We could get an organization that could buy mortgages, sit on them and hold them and work them out, but no bank can afford to do that. With no such organization, I would like to be short the market and the banks because the banks would all go under eventually -- there are that many mortgages out there that could be valued at close to zero if house price depreciation continues unabated -- and the market would go down because there would be a lack of credit and no expansion and gigantic layoffs.
But with the organization that could purchase mortgages at a reasonable price and work them out instead of foreclosing (which is what the banks have to do to get them off their books, thus creating further price depreciation), there is a chance for gradual house price stabilization that would reveal many of these mortgages as worth something, not nothing, which is pretty much to what marked-to-market is giving us.
With the organization, there is a fighting chance to take the systemic risk off the table.
Given that the two worst lenders, Washington Mutual and Wachovia (NYSE: WB) (Cramer's Take), are out of here -- worst because they sold billions of dollars in no-money-down option ARMs, which are now going to start foreclosing at record rates -- we could be on the verge of something positive: stronger banks that own these that can sit on them until something is created to sell them to.
If nothing is created, then I want to short these banks, because the stuff can't be valued and therefore will be valued incredibly low, perhaps even lower than the incredibly low prices that Citigroup (NYSE: C) (Cramer's Take) and JPMorgan (NYSE: JPM) (Cramer's Take) valued them at.
However, with that organization, these banks could strengthen. So could Wells Fargo (NYSE: WFC) (Cramer's Take) and U.S. Bancorp (NYSE: USB) (Cramer's Take) and Bank of America (NYSE: BAC) (Cramer's Take), which also have the same problem for their loans.
We don't want to go back to the black holes, of course, especially because they have almost all been filled. (Fannie (NYSE: FNM) (Cramer's Take) and Freddie (NYSE: FRE) (Cramer's Take) seized. WM, seized. Ford (NYSE: F) (Cramer's Take) and GM (NYSE: GM) (Cramer's Take) bailed out yesterday. AIG (NYSE: AIG) (Cramer's Take) seized. Lehman shut. Citigroup saved for now by the FDIC's approval and therefore is too big to fail. You have to admit, that was an amazing list of ne'er-do-wells.)
So, that's what the plan is about and it is why it is important if you are long or you are short.
Now let's back up and out. This plan has nothing to do with the price of steel, so you can short all of those that you want. While the infrastructure stocks have become ridiculously cheap, they are owned by hedge funds and there is a worldwide slowdown, so one can pretty much shoot them to death on the short side. The bill won't help sagging mineral or oil prices, so those are good shorts, especially because they, like the steel stocks, are owned by hedge funds who sold a lot last week but will have to sell again when the performance figures come out, the money is pulled, the collateral can't be delivered to the brokers and the credit lines are pulled.
In fact, anything industrial can be shorted at will if you want to, and then knocked down if you want to. The companies are pretty much helpless and the earnings will be awful. Same with tech, the difference being that the analysts are endlessly willing to recommend them.
That leaves the depression stocks, foods and drugs, and they can be shorted on strength. So, it is a great short-selling litany no matter what.
However, the bill does address the fundamental problems of house price depression and credit creation and so therefore, again, unless you are short, that's a good thing.
I mention all of this because when I write positively about the bill I am mistakenly seen as someone who thinks the bill is a cure-all.
I think the bill just forestalls the Great Depression Two, which is a terrific shorting opportunity.
Without even more tools, lower rates -- which may not help much but which don't help if you are short -- better FDIC protection and a change in the fortunes of our trading-partner nations, which seem to have vanished, I will recommend shorting on strength until prices get so absurd that shorting becomes tough, and I believe we are almost there for some stocks.
So, now you have my perspective. I hope by reversing things and explaining what you want if you are short, it helps to understand the context of my as-usual misinterpreted words. And are there better plans than the bill? Of course. If you are short, you want them back on the table so the bill is delayed.
So, twist away at the words, but the bottom line is if you are short and you want to stay short, the passage of the bill might be a short-term bummer for you because it goes toward eliminating the systemic risk that has made this market the short-sellers' paradise even with the SEC's silly short ban, which might come off tomorrow. It could, because Chris Cox is a great friend of the shorts and has done their bidding until the moment where he switched because Goldman (NYSE: GS) (Cramer's Take) and Morgan Stanley (NYSE: MS) (Cramer's Take) were going to go out of business and John McCain called for his firing -- he is nothing if not a political hack willing to bend when the big boys come a-calling.
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RELATED LINKS:
Leaders Rally Anew for Rescue Plan
Senate to Vote on Revised Rescue Plan
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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 Goldman Sachs, Morgan Stanley and JPMorgan.











Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)
10-01-2008 @ 10:24AM
Graham said...
Since you seem to have blocked my address from posting to your blog, I'll just use a different one. I don't care if you don't want to hear what I have to say, I won't be silenced.
If you say that this will only slow down the inevitable, why are you demanding that people who haven't gambled in a game where the rules are, there are no rules, pay for it?
Your addiction to this bizarre form of gambling is bad. Your demanding that those of us who don't play pay for it is really over the top.
10-01-2008 @ 10:32AM
beachpaul said...
I own stock in a publicly traded bank. We have five branches. My shares are in one certificate in my personal possession. You can't short our bank stock because the overwhelming majority of shareholders have done the same. In the past month the stock has not moved a cent. It will not move next month. Mr. Cramer, people want their country back. If that means a recession, depression, whatever you want to call it, so be it. To think of placing social security into a 401k account..Mr. Cramer, you and your ilk, please pick up your chips from the table and leave the establishment before someone really gets hurt.
10-01-2008 @ 5:55PM
chicbee said...
I am a steady viewer of your show, and I thank you for all the help you have provided me and others like me. You have made a big positive difference.
I respectfully disagree with one point. You say, as does everyone else, "Right now almost every bank that is not dead is loaded to the gills with impossible-to-mark and -price mortgages." If you mean there is no way to estimate the value of the mortgages themselves I disagree. I believe there are ways to estimate the value of the mortgages, and provide ranges of uncertainty, going into the future. I have a number of ways to estimate the likely value of these mortgages under different scenarios. We can assign reasonable probabilities or weights to the scenarios. That will help to establish a range of house prices. We can include beat and worst case scenarios. I would be happy to share these models with you since I have benefited from your efforts and I am grateful to you.
If, you meant it is impossible to value the CDOs or other worthless AAA certified paper wrappers, that are only good for wrapping three day old fish, I agree, and Treasury should be prohibited from touching those. Actually, Lone Star Funds paid 5.5 cents on the dollar to purchase certain of Merrill's CDOs from 2005 and earlier. That is a real market price. It may be too high. But that is for CDOs not mortgages. The Bressel plan is to cap The Treasury's bid for physical possession of foreclosed (or near foreclosure) mortgages only, no CDOs, at 5.5 cents on the dollar. Others in the region who know a property's real value will certainly step in. If not, the taxpayers will make a killing. Worst case is - if all appliances wiring and plumbing have been stripped, Treasury can have firms with experience in managing distressed property buy the property for a wash (worst case,) or even donate it to cities, towns, and counties as park land. By the way, I should mention I have decades of experience in engineering estimation, and decades of experience purchasing property renovating and selling real estate. I did have a real estate license.
To see how I approach estimating simple things, you might find a posting of mine from January 14, 2008 to be of some interest. I was attempting to bound the risk in Citibank shares at that time, since everyone, and I mean - everyone on the internet at that time - was saying it was impossible to estimate.
http://seekingalpha.com/article/60093-estimating-the-risk-in-citigroup-stock-and-bonds
Concerning their losses, which at the time Citi said were approximately $3 billion, then $8 billion, and then $11 billion, (which all sounded ludicrous give the tickler rate mortgages,) I wrote "I would be cautious and say the number is likely to lie somewhere between $50 billion and $500 billion per large bank like Citi." The most recent estimate that recall was by Meredith Whitney who recommended Citi raise an additional $160 Billion. I think that is probably low still, but that's another topic.
I would be very cautious about including Citi as a Cramerica Fortress Bank.
I love you, admire you, and respect you, and I am indebted to you. Keep up the good work. No one can be right all the time, so keep smiling. Booyah, and Happy, Healthy, Productive, and Safe New Year to you and yours.
10-02-2008 @ 1:30PM
Beltway Greg said...
Gloom and doom gloom and doom. Relax, unless you've done something really goofy everything will work out. If it doesn't I get dibs on the spot on the sidewalk in front of the 5th Ave. Apple store. Of course, I may be selling Apples, the kind you eat, but at least I'll get some fresh air. We'll, sadly, survive, actually we really have no alternative. So suck em up boys and don't get into fights if you're afraid to get a bloody nose on occasion.
Beltway Greg