Housing-Related Stocks Bide Their Time

Housing-relating stocks such as Fortune Brands (FO - commentary - Cramer's Take) or Masco (MAS - commentary - Cramer's Take) or Black & Decker (BDK - commentary - Cramer's Take) just can't catch a bid. It's almost as if these companies are considered worthless by the market. Their market share, their products, their intellectual property and their channel sales mean nothing. There's no price that these sellers will stop selling at.

I have seen this so many times in my career. If you think that these companies do not have products that can sell again -- newspapers, typewriters -- you have to sell them. But if you think, as I do, that there is a level at which someone else will just come in and buy them if they keep trading down, then you have to stick bids in.

But these stocks are the opposite of Potash (POT - commentary - Cramer's Take)/Mosaic (MOS - commentary - Cramer's Take)/Agrium (AGU - commentary - Cramer's Take). They have endlessly decelerating businesses that the market says will never turn around.

Because of the nature of the Action Alerts PLUS portfolio, I own some stocks that will not be able to play out positive until we get a new a turn in housing -- but when we do, you will not be able to buy them, because they will rally so hard, so fast.

I think all three of these stocks fit that pattern, but I feel that I can virtually guarantee that the next point is down.

Oops. That takes care of that. You will never buy them now!

Random musings: Names that need to be put out of their misery through mergers: Radian (RDN - commentary - Cramer's Take), MBIA (MBI - commentary - Cramer's Take), Ambac (ABK - commentary - Cramer's Take), National City (NCC - commentary - Cramer's Take), Washington Mutual (WM - commentary - Cramer's Take), Corus (CORS - commentary - Cramer's Take), Downey Savings (DSL - commentary - Cramer's Take)....

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At the time of publication, Cramer was long Black & Decker.

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