Reap DuPont's Seeded Success

Almost a decade ago, Monsanto (MON - commentary - Cramer's Take) and DuPont (DD - commentary - Cramer's Take) went on seed-buying binges: Dekalb and Pioneer, respectively. These acquisitions were roundly criticized as overpays that made very little sense, other than as attempts to reinvigorate dowdy businesses.

Meanwhile, all anyone cared about were these deeply cyclical chemical businesses that sank or swam with the darned GDP.

Now look at these two stocks. They trade like biotech stocks, for heaven's sake! The seed businesses have kicked in, accelerating the growth of these written-off companies to the point whether they feel more like Celgene (CELG - commentary - Cramer's Take) and Genzyme (GENZ - commentary - Cramer's Take) and less like Rohm and Haas (ROH - commentary - Cramer's Take) or PPG Industries (PPG - commentary - Cramer's Take).

All of this is thanks to the decision to make biodegradable fuels, reusable, that need seeds, that devour seeds in a way no one thought possible.

Right now there is such a shortage in seeds that we have tremendous pricing power in the industry. That allows for very nice margin expansion and actually masks any of the weaknesses in related businesses. For DuPont, which has large cyclical businesses, this seed expansion comes at just at the right time.

DuPont's still cheap. It can still move up. Monsanto has a more stretched valuation. Perhaps it is time to swap into the lower-valued DuPont, although only because Monsanto can stall here given the high price.

Random musings: Classic investigation in Washington about the sale of stock by Sallie Mae (SLM - commentary - Cramer's Take) executives ahead of a bad quarter. Of course, they missed out on a huge buyout, but that's not important to the feds. Here's where I come out: Soon the only sales that will be allowed by executives are going to be pre-existing, planned sales. The market's just too fraught with major changes and the scrutiny will be too tough for most execs to handle. ... Barclays (BCS - commentary - Cramer's Take) and Royal Bank of Scotland really could care less about their shareholders, it seems. But then again, CVS (CVS - commentary - Cramer's Take) and Express Scripts (ESRX - commentary - Cramer's Take) seem to have cared, and the winner of that bidding war for Caremark was everyone! ... Corning (GLW - commentary - Cramer's Take) out with earnings and a statement about the gigantic demand for more fiber. This was a huge, huge quarter. Best since 2002. ... That's the Level 3 (LVLT - commentary - Cramer's Take) story writ large. Many of the big spec stocks -- Blockbuster (BBI - commentary - Cramer's Take), Level 3, Qwest (Q - commentary - Cramer's Take), Dynegy (DYN - commentary - Cramer's Take) -- stalled here, but I think they're just resting and shaking off big gains. Only Blockbuster seems a bit suspect, given the change at the top and the worries about Netflix's (NFLX - commentary - Cramer's Take) decline. ... Forty-four million shares short Amazon (AMZN - commentary - Cramer's Take)! How wrong is that?!?

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Jim Cramer is a director and co-founder 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. Click here to order Cramer's latest book, "Mad Money: Watch TV, Get Rich," click here to order his book, "Real Money: Sane Investing in an Insane World," click here to get his second book, "You Got Screwed!" and click here to order Cramer's autobiography, "Confessions of a Street Addict." While he cannot provide personalized investment advice or recommendations, he invites you to send comments on his column by clicking here.

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