At least they knocked them down to where the shorts have to get in on the deals to cover. That's what I am thinking about BB&T (NYSE: BBT) (Cramer's Take) and Ford (NYSE: F) (Cramer's Take).
Both deals were widely telegraphed, so the shorts were able to really do a number on them. But I think because they were widely telegraphed and they had time to tell the story, both BB&T and Ford have real buyers even on the huge size of these deals --- Ford, especially -- which could make the shorts have to do some scrambling initially.
Neither piece of merchandise is high-quality. I am scared of Ford because the government has given Chrysler and General Motors (NYSE: GM) (Cramer's Take) to the unions so they are going to get government help not to go out of business, which means Ford is going against subsidized players.
I am wary of BB&T because it has stumbled when it comes to lending.
But no matter. These deals are "in the hole," deals for which the sell side had an opportunity to assess where the real buyers lurk.
It is where they priced the deals.
I don't trust Ford because they didn't raise enough money to get out of the woods.
BB&T I trust. I think you can make $3 before you should move over to Wells Fargo (NYSE: WFC) (Cramer's Take).
Random musings: We have had to accelerate the petition to the Securities and Exchange Commission on reinstating the uptick rule, as I see that we need to make more of a splash in this comment period so we can convey the urgency rather than wait until the end.
Jim Cramer is co-founder and chairman 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 Wells Fargo.
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Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)
5-13-2009 @ 10:33AM
terry said...
they wont touch the up tick rule. Short of that they need to nail the naked shorts however
5-13-2009 @ 10:01AM
Dan Vasquez said...
Your wrong about FORD jim,they have done everything right so far(better than the other two) Ford may be the ONLY american car alive.
5-13-2009 @ 11:59AM
Iridium said...
- Ford doesn't have a truly compelling vehicle lineup until 2011 at least. Hyundai has a far better lineup of cars than Ford. Ford needs the all new Focus and Fiesta right now. They aren't coming until 2012. The Fusion needs to be replaced with a new platform, it's based on a platform designed in 1998. The new Taurus is too expensive to compete with the Accord and Camry.
- They have billions in legacy costs that must be addressed
- They are closing plants and firing workers left and right
- They still have a huge inventory of unsold trucks and SUVs sitting on dealer lots that needs to be addressed
- They are still bleeding money
- They have just rolled out the most expensive incentive plan in the history of the automobile industry. Thousands off sticker, 0% for 60-72 months, and they'll pay your payments up to one year if you lose your job.
- In order to raise money they just offered 300 million shares of common stock
This is not a healthy company. They will need federal money soon and in the face of competing with the government, they'll fail.
5-16-2009 @ 8:15PM
UAW LIVEON said...
After GM stays out of bankruptcy and back to number 1 Ford will be left in the dust as is was before this wall street failure. These people acting as though GM is no good have you all gone brain dead. They only lost he number 1 position for a couple of quarters and then the bank failures. Get real Cramer knows what he is talking about GM will blow Ford out of the market place.