The Playbook on Citi Is Well Established

Citigroup's (C - commentary - Trade Now) pattern of trading is becoming quite clear to me. Quick out of the chute, rallying throughout the day, and then giving up the ghost as the daytraders exit.

It's too easy to make a quick profit.

Citigroup's one of a handful of single-digit stories that has totally captured the imagination of the masses and the sharp daytraders.

The daytraders grab some at the opening, the money flows in all day -- mostly from mutual funds trying to build positions ahead of the Sept. 10 beginning date of when the feds can sell -- and then the daytraders bang it out. In the end, the closing price tends to be even with the opening price.

Friday's trading was typical: big leap at opening, huge leap during the day, hammering back to the opening price in the last half-hour.

To me, the best time to buy is the last half-hour, as the day traders can't resist banging it out.

More important, I think all of the commentary going forward is going to be positive, as you are going to see the separation of Citigroup Holdings and Citigroup come to closer fruition, and we'll get the constant restructurings and cost takeouts.

You can see all of the little-dollar stocks running: E*Trade (ETFC - commentary - Trade Now), Level 3 (LVLT - commentary - Trade Now), Fannie (FNM - commentary - Trade Now) and Freddie (FRE - commentary - Trade Now) as well as Regions (RF - commentary - Trade Now), Huntington (HBAN - commentary - Trade Now) and Fifth Third (FITB - commentary - Trade Now). Of these, I have conviction only in Citigroup and Huntington. Fifth Third's moved too much. Fannie and Freddie are questionable as to what accrues to the common stocks, Fifth Third has moved hugely, E*Trade just did a huge offering that hasn't been digested, and Level 3 had a not-so-hot quarter.

Citigroup's the best in the single-digit show.

Random musings: I didn't mean to slight Ford (F - commentary - Trade Now), but if I were Ford I would absolutely do a secondary to get the money needed to rebuild that balance sheet. ... I'm mesmerized by some of these moves based on slim turns: Motorola (MOT - commentary - Trade Now), Gannett (GCI - commentary - Trade Now), any insurer. ... Matt Horween, who has worked with me for years, has a very compelling and commonsensical piece on our Opinion page on the flagship site. I urge you to read it to get provoked, to get angry. Pretty amazing stuff. Check back all week -- Matt will be featured on the Opinion page every day this week.

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

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