Watch the Falling Banks for an Entry Point

When is it safe to buy crumbling financials? Why buy them at all? I think it's because Fannie (FNM - commentary - Cramer's Take) and Freddie (FRE - commentary - Cramer's Take), if they become government-owned, in part, will allow for a huge amount of holding of property rather than foreclosing of property, and that will, when coupled with the radical decline in homebuilding, yield stable housing prices.

But that's the fundamental issue. The real issue is, can you afford to not make these juicy gains that we have seen in the financials off their bottoms?

In 1990, still the best analog, we caught the 50% move, and then we heard endlessly that it was just a short squeeze and it would all be repealed. That's where we are now. But let's use Wachovia (WB - commentary - Cramer's Take) as an example. Can anyone let that stock go back to $9 without being in?

Or how about JPMorgan Chase (JPM - commentary - Cramer's Take)? We know the earnings, near term, have gotten bad, but the dollar getting stronger -- always helpful to the financials -- and the share-take we all see mean that there is a moment for this onetime book-value stock to be ready to rock again.

I see so many of these stocks that everyone wants to come down now, but I think that's because they want to get into them.

There are two exceptions: Lehman (LEH - commentary - Cramer's Take) and AIG (AIG - commentary - Cramer's Take). They are still black boxes because of horrid European mortgage exposure. Washington Mutual (WM - commentary - Cramer's Take) and Downey (DSL - commentary - Cramer's Take) seem, at this point, to be call options the way that MBIA (MBI - commentary - Cramer's Take) and Ambac (ABK - commentary - Cramer's Take) turned out to be.

Remember that Fannie and Freddie just seem like dead-weight losses to me because of the upcoming federal dilution.

The decline has gone from one to be feared to one that people look to for opportunity.

Not yet; almost there.

At the time of publication, Cramer was long JPMorgan Chase.

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