Mandalay Beats Intel for Excitement

Turns out there are even more ways to win with Mandalay Resort Group (MBG - commentary - Cramer's Take) than even I thought. Last week I was bemoaning the fact that people are overly focused on stocks like Intel (INTC - commentary - Cramer's Take), which simply aren't slated to move a lot no matter what they do, when instead investors should focus on stocks like Mandalay, which have much more explosive earnings power.

Apparently, the earnings are so explosive that they have attracted more than just Wall Street. Now this hostile bid from MGM Mirage (MGG - commentary - Cramer's Take) for Mandalay has surfaced, and I think that it is going to take a much higher bid if it is to succeed.

The extraordinary thing about these last 72 hours of Mandalay is that this one was so gettable. Mandalay's a terrific resort, one that I have wanted to buy shares in ever since I stayed there last year. It has the key position on the strip, one that allows gigantic development on one of its sides. It's jam-packed and extremely profitable. While it is not that well-followed, the analysts who do follow it all love it.

I point all of this out simply to dwell on the relative ease of the one-two -- the earnings and the takeover -- vs., say, the incredibly tortured, overly thought-out process that is Intel or Texas Instruments (TXN - commentary - Cramer's Take).

In one of the myriad fabulous articles about Ronald Reagan, my favorite president after Lincoln, there's a note that says he preferred talking to and learning from doormen than intellectuals. The anecdote is fitting; the doormen at Mandalay told me that the place was making money hand-over-fist from the day it opened, but the hedge-fund intellectuals would rather blow off steam there than own it. They are too busy sussing out whether Intel's gross margins will be 62.1% or 61.2%.

I had hoped Mandalay would do nothing for a couple of days so that I could jump in. I am now too late, of course, but that just makes me want to work harder to get off the beaten tech path.

There are only so many weeks I can take of watching the paint peel on Microsoft (MSFT - commentary - Cramer's Take), EMC (EMC - commentary - Cramer's Take), Intel, Dell (DELL - commentary - Cramer's Take) or Cisco (CSCO - commentary - Cramer's Take).

The opportunity cost is simply too great to stay, even as everyone still proclaims tech as the only future worth owning.

Random musings: Like Action Alerts PLUS, Stocks Under $10 puts out a roundup over the weekend ranking the portfolio. I thought this weekend's roundup was excellent, and I think you should take a trial just to read it.

---

At the time of publication, Cramer was long EMC and Intel.

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. 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. Click here to buy Cramer's latest book, "You Got Screwed!" Click here to order Cramer's autobiography, "Confessions of a Street Addict."