Europe Is Starting to Eye U.S. Gems

There's always been a groupthink in Europe about currencies. The companies that want to buy American companies have, at times, seemed to care more about the currency, or at least not buying a company in a country whose currency is in decline, than they care about the actual target.

That's what it looks like now that a large German company and now a large Italian company have decided to start splurging. It is no coincidence that Deutsche Tel (DT - commentary - Cramer's Take) and Finmeccanica are exploring Sprint (S - commentary - Cramer's Take) and DRS (DRS - commentary - Cramer's Take). These companies are selling for something like 40% off for those bearing euros, and neither potential acquirer has debt problems or subprime issues, so the deals don't have big borrowing problems.

That's what I am thinking about when I see the better-than-expected figures today from Unilever (UL - commentary - Cramer's Take) and the other day from Nestle. These companies are part of that same groupthink. They are looking, no doubt, at a Heinz (HNZ - commentary - Cramer's Take) and thinking, "Wait, that's about a $10 billion company that's a global leader."

Or how about Allergan (AGN - commentary - Cramer's Take)? That was a $20 billion company that is down to $16 billion in dollars and about $12 billion as a translation to euros.

These are just too cheap for these companies to ignore, and much more of a healthy franchise than Sprint and a more important franchise than DRS.

We are all possessed right now with the "imminent" catastrophe of someone -- Citi (C - commentary - Cramer's Take), Cerberus, ResMed (RMD - commentary - Cramer's Take)? Somebody.

And those worries have continued to put a lid on many of our valuations. That, plus the subtle part of the slowdown -- botox use not accelerating that fast and breast augmentation slowing down in the U.S., as Allergan said to me last night on "Mad Money" -- makes people too nervous about some solid, non-financial situations.

Yesterday was really ugly. But this market doesn't have much of a memory. Go back over the franchises with great brands that have been crushed both here in stock and there in currency.

These are no longer going to be needles in a haystack.

Random musings: Like Quanta (PWR - commentary - Cramer's Take), a sleeper that I liked for utilities, Willbros (WG - commentary - Cramer's Take) -- a company that I was harping on as way too cheap and brought the CEO on "Mad Money" to bolster my case -- finally delivered the blowout I was looking for. I can understand anyone's desire to take profits on PWR or WG if you bought them at my direction, but these are really just "first good quarter" stocks, and I believe there is more ahead.

At the time of publication, Cramer had no positions in the stocks mentioned.

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