Jim Cramer's Portfolios of the Week

Jim Cramer is optimistic on the stock market for 2009. According to his analysis, the Dow Jones Industrial Average could produce a gain of 13.1% this year based on his predictions for the 30 components of the Dow. That's not exactly a huge gain, but it's also not something investors should sneeze at.

Cramer thinks 2009 will be a tough year to call because he believes it will be split into two halves: the pre-bottom in housing and the post-bottom. Cramer hopes that President-elect Barack Obama will do whatever it takes to stimulate the economy and avoid 10% unemployment for the American workforce. However, if the economy falters and unemployment breaches 10%, then Cramer's bullish view might not play out.

Bottom line: Pay attention to unemployment and housing in 2009 because it will most likely determine the direction of the U.S. stock market.

Recently, Cramer found some opportunities in infrastructure stocks that benefit from China's stimulus plan, big drillers that could be short sales and his top five Dow stocks for the new year. Here are some Cramer highlights from over the past week as aggregated from his "Mad Money" TV show, the "Stop Trading!" segment on CNBC and his RealMoney blog posts (these blog posts may require a RealMoney subscription).

To read more, visit Stockpickr.com.

(Editor's note: At the time of publication and/or original publication of his posts and shows, Cramer owned Johnson & Johnson for his Action Alerts PLUS charitable trust.)