Lehman Trades Like It's Still Going Under

Lehman (LEH - commentary - Cramer's Take). Lehman. Oh, and Lehman.

Sorry, that's all I am looking at. There's so much bad on my screen: everything from gold's rally to the ugliness in some winning stocks of late: Alcoa (AA - commentary - Cramer's Take) on a downgrade, IBM (IBM - commentary - Cramer's Take) and Hewlett-Packard (HPQ - commentary - Cramer's Take), as well as the SOX in general after that wake-up call from Texas Instruments (TXN - commentary - Cramer's Take) -- told you not to trust that group.

Cramer: Lehman Not Out of the Woods

But let's call a spade a spade: Lehman trades as if it is still going under. And you can't buy back stock when you just issued it, although if you are moronic like AIG (AIG - commentary - Cramer's Take), you can boost the dividend!

Yesterday's financial rally was so bogus as to be just plain stupefying. Washington Mutual (WM - commentary - Cramer's Take) up big? Look at it today. It trades like the Bank of New England for you old timers. BONE was here today, gone tomorrow. I mean like gone.

Fannie Mae (FNM - commentary - Cramer's Take) and Freddie Mac (FRE - commentary - Cramer's Take) trade like Texas banks in the 80s.

For point of reference, only Cullen Frost made it through that selloff. JPMorgan (JPM - commentary - Cramer's Take) trades as if it is taking a beating on the Bear portfolio. Believe me, though, the issue here is Lehman. Most of the deals where money was put in had the optics of success: You made money for a couple of days. This one is a nuclear meltdown and, finally, the buyers, the value buyers, seem like they are running out of money.

Of course, there are suckers born every minute when it comes to value investing. It wouldn't surprise me if the Washington Mutual buyers are all set to put more in!

But post-Lehman, who can possibly lose money this fast?

Even value guys have to blanch.

Which is why, I believe, the market is taking such a beating today.

Random musings: Ugly day but we are getting so oversold that I can anticipate a bounce. ... Here comes ag again, group that will not quit.

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

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