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Mad Money Recap

Cramer's 'Mad Money' Recap: Backed Up Against a Wall of Shame

TheStreet.com Staff

09/28/07 - 08:09 PM EDT

Click here for an archive of Cramer's "Mad Money" recaps.


"It is time to pay a visit to my Wall of Shame for CEOs that are so bad their very presence could bring down a company's stock," Jim Cramer told viewers on his "Mad Money" TV show Friday. "If they just vanished, leaving no one at the helm, their stock could go higher."

He placed Alcatel Lucent's (ALU Quote) Chief Executive Patricia Russo at the top of his list.

After issuing its third profit miss of the year, the company recently had a meeting at which Alcatel's directors asked Russo to come up with an emergency plan to salvage its financial performance, Cramer said.

The Financial Times has reported the deadline for Russo to come up with this restructuring plan is one month, he said. But if Russo leaves, Cramer believes Alcatel would be better off.

The second slot on the CEO Wall of Shame list, he said, goes to Marsh & McLennan's (MMC Quote) Michael Cherkasky.

The management at MMC is "in complete and utter disarray," Cramer said, and the turnaround CEO Cherkasky keeps promising keeps taking longer than expected. There are two ways MMC could go higher, he continued. Either Cherkasky could leave or he could announce the breakup of the three different divisions that make up MMC.

Cramer believes if MMC were to be split up, it would be worth 14% more than it is now. He said he came to that conclusion by comparing MMC's segments to its respective peers to see what each broken-up piece is valued at.

Cramer said he knows he used to refer to MMC as one of the great stocks to avoid, but now he believes either Cherkasky could shortly leave the company or it could be broken up.

Boiling Biomarin

Cramer presented viewers with BioMarin Pharmaceutical (BMRN Quote), "a hot, sizzling biotech name" on Speculation Friday.

BioMarin, he said, is the replacement for Savient Pharmaceuticals (SVNT Quote), one of his best speculative stocks of the year. Cramer advised buying BioMarin soon, but told viewers to give the stock a week to come in so they don't buy it too high.

BioMarin's drug Kuvan, used in the treatment of phenylketonuria or PKU, an inherited metabolic disease, is the big catalyst that could take this stock higher, he said. There currently is no drug to treat the disease, said Cramer, and patients are usually told to keep a restrictive diet.

Kuvan is expected to cost $25,000 a year, Cramer said. But Cramer believes the price is right because it will be the only drug for PKU allowed on the market.

Biotech companies with pending drug approvals are always speculative, he said, and BioMarin is no different. If Kuvan doesn't get approval, the stock will get hurt badly. But it should get FDA approval by the end of the year, Cramer said.

He said people should consider buying BioMarin for Kuvan because if approved the stock will go much higher. At the same time, it is a risky investment, Cramer warned.

Who Will Take Us to Dow 14,548?

In his "Game Plan" segment, Cramer told viewers the Dow needs to go up by 653 more points to reach his year-end price target of 14,548.

He came to 14,548, Cramer said by doing a bottoms-up analysis of the Dow stocks. Some of the stocks, like Exxon Mobil (XOM Quote), Verizon (VZ Quote), General Motors (GM Quote) and Procter & Gamble (PG Quote), said Cramer, already have exceeded his price targets, and will probably go higher.

Other stocks like McDonald's (MCD Quote), Alcoa (AA Quote), Coca-Cola (KO Quote) and Merck (MRK Quote) are all trading around his individualized targets, he said.

But some stocks, like Wal-Mart (WMT Quote), Home Depot (HD Quote), Pfizer (PFE Quote) and Johnson & Johnson (JNJ Quote), Cramer expects, will do nothing.

When it comes down to it, Cramer said he believes four names will lead the charge to his target: Boeing (BA Quote), DuPont (DD Quote), Caterpillar (CAT Quote) and Altria (MO Quote), the latter two of which he owns for his charitable trust, Action Alerts PLUS.

"Those four they will be the four horsemen to take us to the Dow 14,548," Cramer said.

'Mad Mail'

In his "Mad Mail" segment, Cramer said he was wrong to profile GigaMedia (GIGM Quote) as an ISP company during a recent Lightning Round.

He advised another mailer to wait to buy Amazon (AMZN Quote), as the stock has been "marked up heavily." The reason AMZN is going up, Cramer explained, is because its revenue id high, costs are low and he expects "a lot is going to fall on the bottom line."

Lightning Round

Cramer was bullish on Sun Microsystems (JAVA Quote), Agrium (AGU Quote), Mosaic (MOS Quote), Potash (POT Quote), Cheesecake Factory (CAKE Quote), CVS (CVS Quote), General Motors (GM Quote), Ford (F Quote), China Mobile (CHL Quote), Baidu.com (BIDU Quote), VF Corp (VFC Quote), Valero (VLO Quote), Marathon (MRO Quote), First Solar (FSLR Quote), Lockheed Martin (LMT Quote), First Horizon National (FHN Quote), Barrick Gold (ABX Quote), Yamana Gold (AUY Quote), Pan American Silver (PAAS Quote), Electronic Arts (ERTS Quote), Activision (ATVI Quote) and Exxon Mobil (XOM Quote).

Cramer was bearish on Western Refining (WNR Quote), Energy Conversion (ENER Quote), Starbucks (SBUX Quote), Marvell Technology (MRVL Quote), Coeur d'Alene Mines (CDE Quote), DivX (DIVX Quote), GameStop (GME Quote) and Haynes (HAYN Quote).

Want more Cramer? Check out Jim's rules and commandments for investing from his latest book by clicking here.

For more of Cramer's insights during the Lightning Round, click here.


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