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Barron's slams Jim Cramer again

Back in August of 2007, Barron's Bill Alpert slammed Jim Cramer's stock-picking abilities in a cover story (subscription required). At the time, Alpert reported that "Over the past two years, viewers holding Cramer's stocks would be up 12% while the Dow rose 22% and the S&P 500 16%, according to a record of 1,300 of the CNBC star's Buy recommendations compiled by YourMoneyWatch.com, a Website run by a retired stock analyst and loyal Cramer-watcher."

Now Alpert is back for more. In the latest issue of Barron's, he writes (subscription required) that "Cramer's recommendations underperform the market by most measures. From May to December of last year, for example, the market lost about 30%. Heeding Cramer's Buys and Sells would have added another five percentage points to that loss, according to our latest tally."

Continue reading Barron's slams Jim Cramer again

Cramer on BloggingStocks: The good news from emergency gas taxes

With gasoline prices plummeting, I see that every major state has enacted some form of an emergency gas tax to help fill the diminishing coffers and patch up gaping holes in budgets. It may be one of those rare bits of good news stemming from the radical deflation of commodities. I am surprised that California doesn't have one, and I figure that New Jersey, one of the states with horrible finances (perhaps among the worst, although not rivaling California or Michigan), will put one in place shortly.

I think we continually underestimate the impact of still lower gasoline prices on a host of industries. Ford (NYSE: F) (Cramer's Take) could get a windfall because it still has a big line of heavy duty gas guzzlers that are immensely popular. General Motors (NYSE: GM) (Cramer's Take) is a hard call because of its ownership structure, although I am sure it will pop with the GMAC deal. I'd sell it.

If United Parcel Service (NYSE:UPS) (Cramer's Take) had any traffic, it has a huge fuel surcharge that it can slowly diminish to help the margins. YRC Worldwide (NASDAQ: YRCW) (Cramer's Take) had a great one, but I think that company is now a goner. Obviously, I have already discussed the retail benefit, but it looks like that didn't matter much.

Continue reading Cramer on BloggingStocks: The good news from emergency gas taxes

Cramer on BloggingStocks: Hedges in the Sand

TheStreet.com's Jim Cramer says that it should have been obvious to many more hedge fund managers that things were going totally awry.

Something better go up besides job losses and Treasuries. The central theme of everything post the Lehman Brothers imbroglio is that everything goes down: corporate and municipal debt, M&A, stocks, commodities (particularly oil and copper), industrial production, retail sales, car sales, home sales, you name it.

In that world, no one can make money, except people who are short everything, and, judging from most hedge fund returns, that ain't working either. I mean, where is it written that hedge funds should be taking losses in this environment and gating themselves? I would suspect that cautious or negative hedge funds should be up huge in this environment. That's what they are paid to do.

If they aren't up huge, maybe the managers should come up with another calling.

I look at this because when I examine the newspapers and web sites this morning, I realize that there are instruments to short pretty much everything that's out there, from bank debt and commercial mortgages to residential mortgages and commodities. Yet, day after day, I read about these hedge funds that have to gate people, and I wonder why they all had such a long-side bias.

Continue reading Cramer on BloggingStocks: Hedges in the Sand

Cramer on BloggingStocks: You're nothing if you're not a bank


TheStreet.com's Jim Cramer says that CIT's approval as a bank holding company means anyone with a lending business can make it.

CIT Group (NYSE:CIT) made it to the finish line. They became a bank. After a sickening and seemingly endless slide for this lender, to $4 from $30, the whole way down with nothing but rosy projections, the company made it to bank holding company status and now it will be able to survive. Who knows, the company might even thrive, which makes that last stock offering seem pretty delectable.

The issue for me now is you are nothing if you are not a bank. You can see the ramifications of making this reckless lender -- it can say otherwise, but aren't we tired of all the say "otherwises" at this point; it's just better to admit it -- a bank. It means that anyone, no matter how profligate, no matter how wasted, can make it, if it has some sort of lending business.

I ask, why? What is the government's interest in saving Citigroup (NYSE: C)? Why bother? Should we look for other companies that lend and give them protection?

How about Las Vegas Sands (NYSE: LVS) )? When you go there you can borrow money. Prime candidate for it, I believe.

I know I was thrilled when all of those life insurers got around the law by buying little banks. That was good judgment in action.

The real worry, of course, is that without bank status, like the status of the utilities, how can you finance your way through this period? Can we make troubled retailers banks? If someone has a retail charge card, like Macy's (NYSE: M) ), isn't that the same as American Express (NYSE:AXP). Tons of retailers have charge cards and they are all candidates for bank status as they get in trouble. Neiman Marcus should have bank status.

Continue reading Cramer on BloggingStocks: You're nothing if you're not a bank

Cramer on BloggingStocks: takeovers will resume as long as banks are serious about lending


How will we know when things have thawed? Everyone's looking at LIBOR and I can't blame them as that indicator of lending from one bank to another bank is crucial for the way the system is supposed to work. It's a good thermometer for certain, but I don't want it to overstay its welcome, because there are other "true" indicators out there besides just LIBOR.

I am looking at something else: takeovers. On Monday, we saw Waste Management (NYSE:WMI) pull its bid for Republic Services (NYSE:RSG) , a smart idea as WMI had dropped so precipitously despite reporting better-than-expected earnings that one had to question if it was worth doing it. More important, though, getting the money was proving to be possible, but difficult. This situation also prevailed in Altria's (NYSE: MO) buy of UST (NYSE: UST) where Goldman Sachs said, "Don't bother, wait," even though the integration of the two is crucial for Altria's growth.

Now I expect deals to be done if the banks are for real about lending.

Further, the endless margin selling has created tremendous bargains for well-capitalized companies to buy other companies that have brimming order books but are being kept down because of hedge fund redemptions. How can some company not want to buy a Trinity (NYSE:TRN), for example, which has been virtually cut in half even though both presidential candidates are pro-wind? Or how about a Foster Wheeler (NASDAQ: FWLT) or a Joy Global (NASDAQ:JOYG) or a Terex (NYSE: TEX) betting that if there is credit there will eventually be a revival?

Continue reading Cramer on BloggingStocks: takeovers will resume as long as banks are serious about lending

Looking at Cramer's favorite green stocks (WFR, CPST, PBW)

On last night's MAD MONEY on CNBC, Jim Cramer made a review of "alternative energy stocks" he recommended earlier this year since his coverage of the green-tech picks back in April based upon a Massachusetts court ruling that was going to be a homerun for the sector. He gave a pretty large list that was in reality just a review of many stocks that benefit either directly or indirectly from "greener" movements. Here is the "full list" of his eight stocks he reviewed tonight, and there are several more from call-ins.

His Top Pick in the group is MEMC Electronic Materials, Inc. (NYSE: WFR) as it has an arms merchant business model for the solar market. It makes wafers for solar panels and is too good to pass up. He said it's cheap and he thinks out of all green stocks that this one is still bargain.

You might want to know that MEMC already has a $16 billion market cap, but the forward growth rates in this part of its business are hard to argue against. This movement in "green" strategy has just recently helped the stock get back above levels seen in the late 1990's. Keep in mind that this one also produces wafers for the global semiconductor industry, so it isn't a pure-play in the sector. This one closed up big with the sector today at $74.74, but shares traded up 3% in after-hours after-hours trading to what will be a new high.

A couple of 24/7 Wall St. comments in the alternative energy area:
Jon Ogg produces the Special Situation Investing Newsletter; he does not own individual stocks he covers.

Pay attention to Jim Cramer when he talks about small-caps

Two UC Santa Barbara Grad students analyzed Jim Cramer's picks on his show Mad Money and reached an unsurprising conclusion. From the Economics Blog on Portfolio.com: "Mid- and large-cap post-pick excess returns are generally of the correct sign, though the magnitude of these returns is relatively small. Where Cramer displays the most ability is with small-cap stocks, in both his caller and non-caller picks"

This is consistent with the overall trend of money managers being most able to create alpha when investing in small-caps. Given Cramer's limited time for researching any one stock, and the vast quantity of research already done on almost every large-cap, how can anyone expect him to identify ideas that aren't already conventional wisdom and priced into the stock? Markets are just too efficient at that level for superficial analysis to yield much in the way of results.

But in small-caps, research is much more likely to yield an edge.

Perhaps most interesting, the students found that Cramer's picks generated the most excess returns when he made small-cap sell calls.

So perhaps the strategy for people looking to profit from watching Mad Money is to short small-caps where Cramer's pounding the "Don't buy it!" button.

Cramer gets defensive with Reynolds American (RAI), Altria (MO)

.Tonight on CNBC's MAD MONEY, Jim Cramer tauted Reynolds American (NYSE:RAI) as a high dividend stock with a safe yield that out pays US treasury yields. Even with the 5.5% yield he thinks this dividend is not at risk like some other high yield stocks. He sounded like he even likes it better than Altria (NYSE:MO) as the smokeless tobacco is doing well.

I have noted before about defensive stocks being the way to go and those companies' products are the ones you eat, drink, smoke, and use for critical personal hygiene (toilet paper, tooth paste, deodorant... you get the idea). We noted the sector back on our own list we titled "Defensive Stocks For A Crummy Market" recently, although we had others. Defensive investing is what investors will flock to when they have to own stocks but want to be a bit more conservative than chasing the "New Four Horsemen of Tech" or want to go for less aggressive picks than say his TOP NINE STOCKS for 2007.

Jon Ogg is a partner at 24/7 Wall St. and publisher of Special Situation Investing Newsletter. He does not own securities in the companies he covers.

Cramer goes for a new technology pick

Tonight on CNBC's MAD MONEY, Jim Cramer said that tech is currently not in the "you gotta sell" boat during a crummy market. He said these are awash in cash and buying back stock left and right, Also, they have no mortgage and CDO exposure. He thinks that Intel Corp. (NASDAQ: INTC) is the one to own now with August usually the bottom of the chip cycle and heading into the fourth quarter. The stock is down over $2.00 from recent highs, is cheaper than and killing Advanced Micro Devices (NYSE: AMD), and sells at 21-times next year's earnings with a 12% growth rate that is accelerating. He thinks you should buy it this month.

I could argue this either way, but frankly I am not ready to kill the whole market. In a boxing match between Paul Otellini and Hector Ruiz, I'd bet on Otellini any day. If you believe that the PC-cycle is real then this one will work. Frankly, it is still the safer bet in chip and processor land. It is holding up pretty well for a crummy market and I think AMD has gotten itself into a borrowing pickle that it won't get out of until it can change its entire business model. Intel shares fell 3% with the broad market today to $23.92 and shares are up 0.2% after the Cramer tout here. Oddly enough, Jim Cramer didn't once mention any of his "New Four Horsemen of Tech" in this. This is one of the "Old Horsemen," but old horses know the tricks that young studs haven't learned yet.

Jon Ogg can be reached at jonogg@247wallst.com; he does not own securities in the companies he covers.

Jim Cramer's meltdown was juvenile

Jim Cramer made a complete fool of himself on television yesterday. Erin Burnett of CNBC was trying to have a civil and informative conversation with him when he lost it. She wanted to discuss the already fragile credit markets when Cramer let loose a tirade that Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke was playing "academic games."

Wake up Cramer. The Federal Reserve rarely reacts to a couple of lousy weeks of trading in the markets. The Fed reacts to economic conditions and not volatile market conditions. Cramer shilled for some of his Wall Street buddies that are facing tough times. " I speak to them all day" he said. No kidding Jim. I am sure Fed boss Bernanke speaks to a few people too.
I speak to portfolio managers and trading desks all over the world on a daily basis. Yes, those that trade fixed-income paper may have a really crummy year and -- as is the Wall Street way -- jobs may be lost. We don't hear Cramer screaming and yelling when Wall Street is hiring en masse, just when it lays off people. Traders know how the game works: feast or famine. Traders prefer this, as the feast is quite often seven-figure bonuses. The famines can last a year and then they land with another firm as the feast is perceived to be arriving.

Cramer has passion, but in this case it was misguided. He allowed the rants of his trading-desk buddies to get to him. Cramer hurt his supposed objectivity, especially when he threw out the term "Armageddon." The word Armageddon was the trading-desk world mantra this past Thursday and Friday.

Georges Yared is the CIO of Yared Investment Research.

Is lululemon (LULU) really the next Under Armour (UA)?

Does lululemon Athletica Inc. (NASDAQ: LULU) really feel like Under Armour Inc. (NYSE: UA)? The long and short of it is "NO, it doesn't." But there are many merits ahead, and the underlying "sport" of yoga has actually continued to grow in appeal to the masses. Yoga, it seems, isn't just for hippies anymore.

On Friday evening's MAD MONEY on CNBC, Jim Cramer noted that Lululemon has many of the same characteristics of Under Armour. In his defense, this was more figurative than literal and he said there is not a hurry to buy it because it has run a lot already. The company has many store openings and even more coming in 2008, and Cramer is looking at it for accelerated revenue and accelerated earnings growth.

LULU is an odd call because there are actually very few reliable statistics on just how many people practice yoga. Many still believe that it's a bit strange or "out there," compared to other forms of exercise or stress-relief. When you look at the lululemon.com website you will understand why. If you have ever taken a yoga class, you will know why the stereotypes can instantly be debunked. LULU is going to be interesting to watch, mainly because of its stellar IPO performance. Cramer recently called Under Armour "The Next Nike!" but that won't be the case for LULU. Still, there is a growth story here, and one that investors are looking at. How it will do and if it manages its own growth is where the jury is still out.

Jim Cramer foams at the mouth

Jim Cramer, the overly enthusiastic host of "Mad Money," became apoplectic just prior to the market's collapse on Friday afternoon on his CNBC "Stop Trading" spot. Cramer's ranting focused on the need for the Fed to drop rates to save humanity. It came across more that the Fed needed to drop rates to save Jim Cramer's portfolio.

The reality of the situation is if the Fed had to desperately lower rates, gold would be crashing, as was the case in the late 1990s. It is interesting looking back to what everyone was calling the Goldilock's economy then, and seeing that gold was saying otherwise. Gold proved to be correct. Remember that in 1998, oil sold for only $10 a barrel.

Today, the opposite is true: gold has formed a plateau in the $600 price range and oil demand remains strong, with its price approaching $80 per barrel.

All told, despite Cramer's ranting, liquidity is getting a little tighter and the Fed should begin dropping rates in October. I wouldn't worry too much, the sky is not falling despite what Cramer may say.

Looking at Chipotle's value along with Cramer

On tonight's MAD MONEY on CNBC, Jim Cramer said the best company he has in the food space is Chipotle Mexican Grill Inc. (NYSE: CMG). He says this is a regional to national story that beat estimates and raised guidance last night. Cramer noted that the stock hasn't even seen upgrades after a 12% gain today on the better performance and Cramer said he thinks Chipotle will go up Thursday again. He interviewed Chipotle's CFO on the show.

Cramer asked about food costs being up..... costs are higher and theirs grew 100 basis points, but they have food integrity and solid contracts. The rest of the P&L statement is very efficient and they can offset some of that. Cramer's concern is on the slowness of the original buildout and then changing to rapid growth..... CFO said they are growing based on real estate availability and the quality of managers they can get. Managers are coming from inside now and they can do better now than earlier. How do they incentivize managers? Elite managers are bonused on sales growth above expectations above plan plus they get $10K per group leader that gets turned into a manager. As far as feeling like a chain....CFO said he doesn't want it to feel like a chain and they want to personalize the experience.

Chipotle is on a tear, that's a fact. Shares climbed nearly another 2% to yet another high, above $100.00 after Cramer talked this up after-hours. My only concern here is that at $3.25 billion in market cap with 640 restaurants and 110 to 120 restaurants scheduled to open in 2007, the value here is pretty high. If the company beats 2007 estimates by 20% it trades at 50-times earnings. On a per store value assuming these all come online that generates a $4,276,315.78 value per store after the store openings, and as of today's 640 restaurants in operation assuming no add-ons you would have a franchise value per store of $5,078,125.00 per store. The good news for growth and speculative investors is that in all fairness, these cautionary metrics I calculated won't come into play for some time and there is an unbelievable amount of growth this chain can generate now that it is out on its own.

Jon Ogg can be reached at jonogg@247wallst.com; he does not own securities in the companies he covers.

Sunday Funnies: Motley Fools vs. TheStreet.com

Many of you, like me, are probably reading the Motley Fools or TheStreet.com's Internet investment pages from time to time when you are not totally engulfed in Bloggingstocks.com's deeply informative blogs.

Just about everything you read these days is way over hyped including our own pages. During the Internet bubble days when everyone talked about eyeballs you almost expected to see promotional posters of a giant eyeball cloaked in the red, white, and blue, top hat and all, staring you down, over the direct plea caption "We want you!"

TheStreet.com heralded by none other than James 'Mad Money' Cramer has survived the dot-bomb era of recent past to become one of the good stock reads on the Web. Recently though I have noticed it has become less interesting, and made more difficult to read.

I must assume that in an effort to increase revenue from advertising because of its poor subscription base TheStreet.com has stretched one page stories to four and five pages. You must click on never ending 'continued' prompts at the bottom of the page. This has allowed it to increase the number of advertisements by up to 500%. It has become so obnoxious that I refrain from the torment and simply go elsewhere on many occasions.

Continue reading Sunday Funnies: Motley Fools vs. TheStreet.com

Another Cramer pick in Europe: Siemens AG

On tonight's MAD MONEY on CNBC, Jim Cramer continued his stock pick series for "Investing in Europe" with Germany's Siemens AG (NYSE:SI/ADR). He likes the conglomerate that participates in 9 sectors and considers it Europe's version of General Electric (NYSE:GE). The breadth of its businesses also lets it win projects that other companies cannot handle.

Here is the problem with this call: Siemens is a great company but its valuations look higher than most of the other large conglomerates. Its market cap is $131 billion on a currency adjusted basis. Part of its100% rise in ADR's is because of the weak dollar, but even in Euros this stock is up more than 60% over the last year. Keep in mind that these are all ADR's, and even active ADR's tend to trade fewer shares in the US than their US-based competitors.

Philips Electronics (NYSE:PHG) was his top EU pick on Monday, and that is another conglomerate.

His pick from Tuesday was Switzerland's ABB Ltd. (NYSE:ABB), a key infrastructure play.

Jon Ogg can be reached at jonogg@247wallst.com; he does not own securities in the companies he covers.

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Last updated: November 08, 2009: 10:06 PM

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