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RealMoney.com: Jim Cramer Blog
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A Weaker Dollar Would Save a Lot of Hands

By Jim Cramer
RealMoney Columnist

3/20/2009 2:11 PM EDT
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The market's sticking to true form. It loves the inflation trade! It loves it because, in the end, those of us who toil on conference call after conference call have heard the same thing over and over: We can't take this strong dollar. Wholly great quarters have turned into disasters because of the strong dollar. It caught everyone by surprise, no one was hedged, and you could listen to a Heinz (HNZ - commentary - Cramer's Take) call and be amazed that overseas had gone from double-digit increases to actual declines because of translation (hurt further by the bad performance in the U.S.).

You could be on a tech call and you would hear about inroads made overseas that you couldn't even see because of the dollar. You could be on an industrial call and hear how competitiveness had been so quickly eroded. I always laugh when I hear that the dollar's decline will signal a de facto trade war because it will make the U.S. so competitive, but the dollar is nowhere near as low as it was. It is a trend change, that's what matters, but it is a trend change vs. what we estimated after the last quarter, and when you roll back the last bit of extreme dollar and you match it with lower commodity costs, you can see why people are so excited.

Oh, and I am not even talking about the drug companies, which are going to see the dollar go straight to the bottom line without any boost to commodity costs, something that even Coke (KO - commentary - Cramer's Take) and Pepsi (PEP - commentary - Cramer's Take) must have to worry about if oil goes up too much.

The most punished company in the strong-dollar regime has been Johnson & Johnson (JNJ - commentary - Cramer's Take). Take a look -- it is bucking some incredibly stiff option headwinds to be pinned at the strike. That's genuine strength in the face of the force of gravity that is multiple Gs.

At the time of publication, Cramer was long Johnson & Johnson and Pepsi.


Know what you own: Cramer mentions drug companies. Players in the industry include Merck (MRK - commentary - Cramer's Take), Pfizer (PFE - commentary - Cramer's Take) and Gilead (GILD - commentary - Cramer's Take).






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Jim Cramer is co-founder and chairman of TheStreet.com. He contributes daily market commentary for TheStreet.com's sites and serves as an adviser to the company's CEO. Outside contributing columnists for TheStreet.com and RealMoney.com, including Cramer, may, from time to time, write about stocks in which they have a position. In such cases, appropriate disclosure is made. To see his personal portfolio and find out what trades Cramer will make before he makes them, sign up for Action Alerts PLUS. Watch Cramer on "Mad Money" weeknights on CNBC. To order Cramer's newest book -- "Jim Cramer's Stay Mad for Life: Get Rich, Stay Rich (Make Your Kids Even Richer)," click here. Click here to order "Mad Money: Watch TV, Get Rich," click here to order "Real Money: Sane Investing in an Insane World," click here to get "You Got Screwed!" and click here for Cramer's autobiography, "Confessions of a Street Addict." While he cannot provide personalized investment advice or recommendations, he appreciates your feedback and invites you to send comments by clicking here.

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