In This Market, Anything Can Get Broken

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One of the major reasons why people fear this market is the action in a stock like Prudential (PRU - commentary - Cramer's Take). First, let me say that when it comes to the insurers, where there is smoke there is so much fire that it is scary. Pru is a great company, but because it can't come out or hasn't come out and said, "We are not MetLife (MET - commentary - Cramer's Take), we are not Hartford (HIG - commentary - Cramer's Take)," it is susceptible to the same raiding I detailed earlier in the short battle annihilation.

PRU was at $45 this morning, now it is at $39. That's the kind of crazy trading that makes me think this is a sucker's market. These are lifetime moves, and it is almost impossible to catch them, and who wants to, because we know that stocks can go to zero. It is incredible to see these kinds of declines from companies like the Rock. It is nuts.

Until you think that insurers of financial instruments have almost all been wiped out, and when you think that the assumptions of the pension funds and annuities could be all wrong, you have to figure that none of these stocks is actually safe.

Or how about Morgan Stanley (MS - commentary - Cramer's Take). It is a commercial bank that just got $9 billion in cash. It is solid. But solid financials are still easy prey, using the short formula I just gave you. Or SunTrust (STI - commentary - Cramer's Take)? What the heck is wrong with that one? Who knows? Probably easy to craft a scenario, though. Or XL Capital (XL - commentary - Cramer's Take): investment losses cutting it in half. Can XL be the only one?

Or how about SLM (SLM - commentary - Cramer's Take)? Where does that one stop? Or CIT Group (CIT - commentary - Cramer's Take)? It has taken giant action to repair things, but no one cares. It just keeps going lower.

Then there is the General Motors (GM - commentary - Cramer's Take)/Ford (F - commentary - Cramer's Take) situation. I thought the federal money would be in these guys' coffers but the Globe and Mail says it isn't yet, so you could argue that these companies are day-to-day.

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