Cramer's 'Mad Money' Recap: Love Qwest for Growth

05/18/06 - 07:36 PM EDT

TheStreet.com Staff

The Profits In Stores for Sears

Cramer said that there have been some bright spots in these recent dark days for the market, including the fact that Dell(DELL Quote) is switching to Advanced Micro Devices(AMD Quote) from Intel(INTC Quote) chips.

Both Dell and AMD shares moved higher in after-hours trading on the news.

Sears(SHLD Quote) is another bright spot for investors, he said, referring to a company that he owns for his Action Alerts PLUS charitable trust portfolio.

"Most retailers only care about abasing themselves before mighty Wall Street analysts," he said. They run their businesses sometimes into the ground just to keep a bunch of analysts smiling about their same-store sales numbers, the only metric Cramer said the Street cares about.

But Eddie Lampert, the chief executive of Sears, is doing "something totally revolutionary" because profits, not same-store sales, are his chief concern. Cramer said this means that Lampert will actually return capital to investors.

Even after today's unbelievable gain on a first-quarter profit beat, he said that it's one of the best stocks out there, and that it's not too late to get in. It's a $200 stock masquerading as a $150 stock, he said.

The same-store sales numbers actually shrank in the last quarter, but the earnings were healthy. Lampert believes that profits matter, and he turned out better expense controls and better margins, said Cramer.

While other stores give away merchandise to make their same-store sales numbers, throw away margins and run themselves into the ground, Sears saw margins go to 2.8% from less than 1% a year ago. And the Street was only looking for margins of 1.9%.

The company has bought back million of shares and could buy back lots more because it's sitting on billions in cash, Cramer said. This would boost earnings per share by decreasing the numbers of available shares.

Cramer also believes that the company can close a quarter of its stores and not miss them, and that it's sitting pretty as the largest provider of home services in the U.S.

Your Recent Quotes: Quote Up0 | Quote Down0
 
Dow S&P 500 NASDAQ
Oil*
64.07
8,311.35
896.64
1,785.30
10 Yr
3.51%
30.61
0.22
11.22
+0.37%
+0.02%
-0.62%
Data delayed 20 min
Get Jim Cramer's Free Newsletter

The Daily Booyah!
Get your daily dose of Cramer in your inbox.
Submit
We respect your privacy.

Premium Stock Ideas
Access Action Alerts Plus to find out Cramer's latest picks now!

Brokerage Partners