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Cramer on BloggingStocks: Lots of stocks still haven't fallen enough

TheStreet.com's Jim Cramer says the sellers are in control, and without dividend protection, we have no floor.

The bad stuff is in the market. It just has to get more in. That's all. That's the conclusion you have to reach when you see companies like Terex (NYSE: TEX) (Cramer's Take), which is valued at only a billion and a half dollars, or Joy Global (NASDAQ: JOYG) (Cramer's Take) at $2 billion and change or McDermott (NYSE: MDR) (Cramer's Take) at $3 billion.

In other words, forget about the stock prices. They are almost all absurd unless we are headed into a recession of such magnitude that companies start showing severe losses in the first quarter. Think about the market cap size. If Terex, which is actually a pretty good machinery company, can sell at a billion and a half dollars -- about the price that some acquisitive company might have paid for a division of Terex a year ago -- why can't it sell at $1 billion? How about $800 million? What's to stop it? The sellers at this point obviously don't even care about it, not one bit. They just want money. The buyers have had their heads twisted off and don't want anything more to do with it. No one wants to recommend it because the estimates are too high. And without a dividend, it has no protection; besides, people might perceive that the dividend can't be paid -- a la Freeport (NYSE: FCX) (Cramer's Take) -- and sell it anyway.

Continue reading Cramer on BloggingStocks: Lots of stocks still haven't fallen enough

Cramer on BloggingStocks: Fluor shows the power of execution

TheStreet.com's Jim Cramer says this report highlighted where the success lies in this market: energy and petroleum.

Fluor's (NYSE: FLR) (Cramer's Take) a monster. It shows you that what has hurt the other companies, particularly Chicago Bridge & Iron (NYSE: CBI) (Cramer's Take), is pure execution.

This gigantic beat also serves to remind us of the big dichotomy. You are either in the energy and petroleum products game or you are in a lot of games that don't work.

It's not easy for these companies, some of which have lived off the duress of state and local governments, including Shaw (NYSE: SGR) (Cramer's Take) and to a certain extent Aecom (NYSE: ACM) (Cramer's Take) and URS (NYSE: URS) (Cramer's Take), to become oil-and-gas plays.

The only ones that have transcended it beside Fluor are Foster Wheeler (NASDAQ: FWLT) (Cramer's Take) and Jacobs Engineering (NYSE: JEC) (Cramer's Take), and the only reason you would really know that is longevity. I remember in the early 1980s when FLR and then FWC would compete directly for all of the huge projects after the second oil shock.

Continue reading Cramer on BloggingStocks: Fluor shows the power of execution

Analyst upgrades: FLR, FWRD and MDR

MOST NOTEWORTHY: Fluor, Forward Air and McDermott were today's noteworthy upgrades:
  • Citigroup upgraded shares of Fluor (NYSE: FLR) to Buy from Hold to reflect the company's strong performance and backlog in Q4 and raised their target to $190.50 from $158.
  • Baird upgraded Forward Air (NASDAQ: FWRD) to Outperform from Neutral citing near-term growth initiatives that are gaining traction.
  • Citigroup also upgraded shares of McDermott (NYSE: MDR) to Buy from Hold to reflect the company's strong Q4 performance and rising commodity prices.
OTHER UPGRADES:

Cramer on BloggingStocks: We can't have major lenders fail

Jim Cramer on BloggingStocksTheStreet.com's Jim Cramer says without more cuts, more bleak days and a reversion to 1990 are ahead.

Yeah, you don't need me to know it is bad. Cisco (NASDAQ: CSCO) (Cramer's Take) said the wrong thing about financial services Wednesday night, certainly off message for Mr. Chambers. It would be one thing if the stock hadn't run, it has. Now it must go lower, even though it really wasn't that bad. It had been gunned, though, and everyone I know is hiding in tech.

I didn't like the revenue number from McDermott (NYSE: MDR) (Cramer's Take), and that's going to hurt the infra group. Someone's going to say that MDR could be the beginning of the end of the Shaw (NYSE: SGR)/Foster-Wheeler (NASDAQ: FWLT) move.

But in the end, it is the same thing it always is: mortgages. AIG (NYSE AIG) (Cramer's Take), after the bell Wednesday, is a black hole. Who the heck knows what they really have? Maybe they will even tell us.

Morgan Stanley (NYSE: MS) (Cramer's Take) wasn't any worse than the papers hinted, but they said it would get worse. Thanks!

Continue reading Cramer on BloggingStocks: We can't have major lenders fail

Cramer on BloggingStocks: Infrastructure stocks grab market's sweet spot

Jim Cramer says these four infrastructure stocks can keep running thanks to their market caps.

What is the real lure of infrastructure? How can an Aecom (NYSE: ACM) (Cramer's Take) or a KBR (NYSE: KBR) (Cramer's Take) or a Foster-Wheeler (NASDAQ: FWLT) (Cramer's Take) or a McDermott (NYSE: MDR) (Cramer's Take) keep going higher and higher and higher?

The secret is market cap. These are all the functional equivalent of small- or mid-cap stocks. Most of their capitalizations are in the $5 billion to $10 billion range and that's just not enough size to make a difference to the average hedge fund or mutual fund manager unless he or she takes a monster positioning the name.

Consider the case of personal fave Foster Wheeler. Despite being up 247% year-over-year and 143% this year alone, this stock still is not a $10 billion stock. (Need I remind you that most stocks that are large cap are over $100 billion?)

Yet the orders keep coming in to the company, and the business of building plants, once horribly cyclical, has turned secular because of the worldwide power shortage.

That theme, the best theme over the next few years, can best be played by the infra group. But the infra group all together doesn't amount to anywhere near $100 billion.

That means the move is still on; it means that it may be barely done.

It means they all can still go higher and remain the best place to be once the market inevitably sells off again.

RELATED LINKS:
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 had no positions in stocks mentioned.

Analyst initiations: AMD, DGX, NWA and ODFL

MOST NOTEWORTHY: Old Dominion Freight (ODFL), Jamba (JMBA), AMD (AMD), Orbitz Worldwide (OWW) and Quest Diagnostics (DGX) were today's notable initiations:
  • Baird is positive on Old Dominion's (NASDAQ: ODFL) growth opportunities, valuation, 2008 improving truck fundamentals, and a potentially seasonally stronger Q4, starting shares with an Overweight rating and $36 target.
  • Merriman initiated Jamba (NASDAQ: JMBA) with a Buy rating, as the company aggressively expands its store base beyond California.
  • BMO Capital believes AMD (NYSE: AMD) may lose the Intel platform integrated graphics market, and sizeable Intel platform discrete graphics market share. The firm initiated AMD shares with an Underperform rating and $10 target.
  • Soleil has concerns regarding Orbitz Worldwide's (NYSE: OWW) decelerating growth and poorer business mix vs. competitors and started shares with a Hold rating and $13 target.
  • Credit Suisse initiated Quest Diagnostics (NYSE: DGX) with a Neutral rating and $61 target, citing the recent UnitedHealth (UNH) contract loss, slowing growth, and valuation for its Neutral rating...
OTHER INITIATIONS:
  • JMP Securities started ShoreTel (NASDAQ: SHOR) with a Market Outperform rating.
  • Credit Suisse initiated LabCorp (NYSE: LH) with an Outperform rating.
Analyst summaries provided by TheFlyOnTheWall.com (subscription required).

Symbol Lookup
IndexesChangePrice
DJIA-159.9910,304.41
NASDAQ-37.752,138.30
S&P 500-19.821,090.81

Last updated: November 27, 2009: 10:04 AM

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