Wrong! Purcell Tries Misdirection Play

Wait a second, Morgan Stanley (MWD - commentary - Cramer's Take). Weren't you telling us the other day that the credit-card company was great, and synergistic with retail? Wasn't that the ticket to the great middle class of stock buyers?

Yeah, I am talking about Discover, and how, until this weekend, the Phil Purcell advocates were telling us how much sense the strategy made. Now we learn that it's the perfect time to sell.

Of course, though, there are no buyers. So Morgan Stanley will have to spin it off. Alas, that's just what this market doesn't want: stock in a third-tier charge card.

Just when I was starting to feel some sympathy for the Purcell team -- I mean, after all, Dean Witter was the buyer and Morgan Stanley didn't need to sell -- we get this delicious misdirection play from Purcell & Co. He not only decides to shove off credit cards, he jams two relative unknowns on the board: Zoe Cruz and Stephen Crawford. He may be a crummy runner of a brokerage house, but he is terrific at infighting, better even than Eisner! He does just enough to sow confusion in the ranks of the disgruntled -- the Discover bone -- but at the same time solidifies his corporate base.

My kind of guy!

Of course, there's a problem here: If it works, the stock should get hammered. And I think it will work. Notice there was a moment when Morgan's stock ran on this Discover news, as if there were a real buyer and not just the usual spinoff nonsense. Then people realized, hello, there's no buyer, just enough to mess up the dissidents.

Well done, but don't forget to sell!

---

James J. 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. Outside contributing columnists for TheStreet.com and RealMoney.com, including Cramer, may, from time to time, write about stocks in which they have a position. In such cases, appropriate disclosure is made. To see his personal portfolio and find out what trades Cramer will make before he makes them, sign up for Action Alerts PLUS by clicking here. While he cannot provide personalized investment advice or recommendations, he invites you to send comments on his column to [e-mail]. Listen to Cramer's RealMoney Radio show on your computer; just click here. Watch Cramer on "Mad Money" at 6 p.m. ET weeknights on CNBC. Click here to order Cramer's latest book, "Real Money: Sane Investing in an Insane World," click here to get his second book, "You Got Screwed!" and click here to order Cramer's autobiography, "Confessions of a Street Addict."

TheStreet.com has a revenue-sharing relationship with Amazon.com under which it receives a portion of the revenue from Amazon purchases by customers directed there from TheStreet.com.