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TheStreet.com TV Recap: Sell Some Apple

TheStreet.com Staff

After Apple's (AAPL) earnings come out on Wednesday, people can buy the stock, but for now they should consider selling some of their position, Jim Cramer said on TheStreet.com TV's Wall St. Confidential Web video Monday.

There have been comments on Stockpickr.com that Cramer's been "ducking" Apple, but this is not true, he said. "I have continually said that Apple is one of those stocks that you must trade around on every data point," Cramer explained. "What I said is that as we got closer to the iPhone launch, you should sell it."

He suggested that because during the time of the iPhone launch, he said there would be people pressuring Apple shares down. Then after there had been some disappointment created, Cramer said people could buy it back.

"I feel the same away about the earnings," he said. "We have now had this first-class ramp into earnings. I don't like ramps into earnings."

The reason market players got a "big run" in Intuitive Surgical (ISRG) and Research In Motion (RIMM) after earnings was because "no one was expecting anything," Cramer said. Meanwhile, everyone is expecting something good with Apple.

Cramer said he believes the call is not going to be about the iPhone, but about the company's earnings, and he doesn't believe there is anything special in Apple's earnings. "The next day [after the earnings] it will get hit and then you can pull the trigger," he said of Apple.

Piper Jaffray raised Apple's price target to $205 on Monday, but Cramer said if he were running that research department, he would have held that piece until after Apple's earnings came out.

"We do not want to have a situation where people who have owned the stock from when I first recommended it at $95 have not taken anything off," he said. "That's just foolhardy.

"One of the things that the home-gamers have to recognize, and I always have such reluctance to this, is that it's OK to sell half your position," Cramer continued. "What I say to people who are unwilling to take something off is, 'Look, you better not mind a sell-back to $135. You better be able to deal with that because I don't want you in my face telling me, "Thanks a lot, why didn't you tell me to sell some Apple?"' ... I am being abject and adamant: Sell some Apple."