With the prospect of GM (GM - commentary - Cramer's Take) filing for bankruptcy looming this week, it might be the moment for the keepers of the Dow Jones Industrial Average to do the housekeeping that we all know is coming. We know they don't allow bankrupt companies in the Dow. We also know they don't like single-digit companies. That means Bank of America (BAC - commentary - Cramer's Take), Citigroup (C - commentary - Cramer's Take), and Alcoa (AA - commentary - Cramer's Take) could follow GM out the door.
So four slots are up for grabs. The financials are relatively easy. In place of Bank of America will most likely be Wells Fargo (WFC - commentary - Cramer's Take), which, at $66 billion --even as it falls rapidly -- still has some heft. The keepers of the Dow could go one of two ways for Citigroup, either choosing to view it as an international banking concern, which would mean that Goldman Sachs (GS - commentary - Cramer's Take) is the pick, or as an international transaction machine, which means Visa (V - commentary - Cramer's Take) gets the nod. Both are capitalized at about $48 billion, so that is six of one or a half dozen of the other.
General Motors and Alcoa are tougher. They are industrial companies, but the biggest industrial companies that aren't in the Dow don't really fit the mode. You could add ConocoPhillips (COP - commentary - Cramer's Take) at $68 billion, but then you would have three oils, something you would like to do with oil at $135, not $35. You could choose to think New Economy and pick Google (GOOG - commentary - Cramer's Take) at $112 billion or Cisco (CSCO - commentary - Cramer's Take) at $89 billion -- both make sense. Apple (AAPL - commentary - Cramer's Take), with an $88 billion capitalization, surely belongs in the Dow as a consumer goods play and a tech play. It is a natural. Oracle (ORCL - commentary - Cramer's Take), at $74 billion, could fit in if the keepers thought that Google was too new or too concentrated in its holdings. They are all more deserving than Alcoa, believe me. You would be way heavy on tech, but I think that's right, given how representative it is of the economy as we all see it. You could go pure industrial, which would bring back Honeywell (HON - commentary - Cramer's Take), which never should have been kicked out to begin with (like Chevron (CVX - commentary - Cramer's Take)). Or you could anoint Emerson Electric (EMR - commentary - Cramer's Take), a true industrial. Maybe it is worth considering Lockheed Martin (LMT - commentary - Cramer's Take), as there are no pure defense plays.
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