Tech: All Talk, No Profit

Editor's note: Jim Cramer will present his 2009 stock outlook for the first time at TheStreet.com Investment Conference on Saturday, Oct. 25. Click for details.

The strange love affair with tech for so many of our readers is a tad unnerving to me. With the exception of Apple (AAPL - commentary - Cramer's Take) and Google and, for a while, Research In Motion (RIMM - commentary - Cramer's Take), for most of this century tech has done nothing, made you no money, created no value.

But the love affair persists, and I find it quite bizarre. What's the point of it? Why do we focus, for example, endlessly on Apple, when for all we know Steve Jobs is sick and the quarter's as bad as RIMM's?

Why do we focus on Google when, after all, it is ad-supported and the ad market is in a severe depression. It is a cyclical decline, so when it gets better, Google will take share, but clearly there are better bargains out there.

Nothing even remotely exciting is happening in tech. Microsoft (MSFT - commentary - Cramer's Take) and Intel (INTC - commentary - Cramer's Take) have been remarkable duds. There is nothing intriguing about Oracle (ORCL - commentary - Cramer's Take). I like Hewlett-Packard (HPQ - commentary - Cramer's Take), but only because it is doing a big restructuring because of its acquisition of EDS, and I believe that Dell (DELL - commentary - Cramer's Take) may be falling apart.

But think of it. What is the case for EMC? For National Semi (NSM - commentary - Cramer's Take)? For Nokia (NOK - commentary - Cramer's Take), other than the dividend? For Corning (GLW - commentary - Cramer's Take)? For Micron (MU - commentary - Cramer's Take)? For Applied Materials (AMAT - commentary - Cramer's Take)? For KLA-Tencor (KLAC - commentary - Cramer's Take)?

I simply do not know what it is other than that the analysts are endlessly bullish and like to move stocks a point or two with their calls.

The out-and-out pointlessness of this seems to be totally lost among viewers and readers. Tech is simply not a place to make money.

But nobody believes it.

The height of strangeness in a strange and bizarre market.

Random musings: This Baltic Freight Index is still signaling world downturn and is pretty much going down in a straight line. China is nowhere to be seen.

At the time of publication, Cramer had no positions in stocks mentioned.

ALL JIM CRAMER BLOG ENTRIES | POST A COMMENT | READ COMMENTS  

---

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. 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.

TheStreet.com has a revenue-sharing relationship with Amazon.com under which it receives a portion of the revenue from Amazon.com purchases by customers directed there from TheStreet.com.