RealMoney's Best Blogs

The holiday-shortened week started with a bang of mergers and acquisitions, hit a lull as traders exited early to start the Thanksgiving revels and wound down to the early close of Black Friday's session. A surprising whack to the greenback was to blame, if not a turkey hangover, for the softer trade. Shoppers surged into the malls as precious metals surged in the markets. And it's all left market participants wondering how long positive seasonality and buyouts can buoy the indices.

Once again, RealMoney's bloggers were all over the market action, and we'd like to share the best of their commentary this week with readers of the TheStreet.com. These posts best capture the intent of these blogs, which is to provide intelligent discussion on the issues each writer sees as most pressing that day.

Let's take a look at Jim Cramer on the latest surge in M&A, Rev Shark on giving thanks, Cody Willard on why he's uncomfortable being bullish right here, Steve Smith on options on takeover plays, Tony Crescenzi on bullish housing data, and The Street Research Team on what to do with retail stocks.

Click here for information on RealMoney.com, where you can see all the blogs -- and reader's comments -- in real time.

---

Cramer's Blog: Takeovers Can't Always Drive a Market

Originally published on 11/21/2006 at 8:41 a.m. EST

Takeovers can't necessarily drive a whole market when the takeovers are in the industries that we don't need to go higher: steel, minerals and real estate. These are the anti-sectors, the places we don't want to go higher. We know these sectors are the "pro-inflation sectors," classic hedges for when the economy's red-hot.