Stockpickr

Return to Article

Cramer on Top Searched Stocks: Deere

James Altucher

As expected, the Labor Department reported yesterday that applications for jobless benefits rose slightly last week. New York had the biggest rise in such claims due in large part to layoffs in the transportation and service industries while neighboring New Jersey experienced one of the largest statewide declines in jobless benefit claims.

The market interpreted the report as an indication the labor market remains weak but in check. The report follows a slight drop in jobless claims in the week prior.

CBS (CBS Quote - Cramer on CBS - Stock Picks) also made headlines with its announcement to acquire CNET (CNET Quote - Cramer on CNET - Stock Picks), an online technology news and entertainment company. The $1.75 billion deal is expected to close in the third quarter, and CBS is hoping the acquisition will bolster its online presence.

Meanwhile, General Electric (GE Quote - Cramer on GE - Stock Picks) plans to auction off its appliance unit for $5 billion to $8 billion. The appliance unit, hurt in large part by the housing slump and high metal prices, accounts for only about 4% of the conglomerate's $173 billion annual revenue.

With all of this news out there, we thought it made sense to take a look at Thursday's Top 10 Most Searched Stocks on TheStreet.com and find out what Jim Cramer's take has recently been on them.

These stocks could be in the news for a number of reasons. Some require immediate attention while others may not. But it never hurts to hear what Cramer (or any of the other professional investors on the site) has to say about them. The key is to gather as much information as you can in order to make the most informed investment decisions you can make.

Despite the swath of new economic data and Carl Icahn's rising battle with Yahoo! (YHOO Quote - Cramer on YHOO - Stock Picks) grabbing all of the headlines, we'll kick it off today with Deere (DE Quote - Cramer on DE - Stock Picks).

In a post Wednesday on his RealMoney.com blog (and reposted on TheStreet.com later that day), Cramer broke down Deere and a few other stocks that could benefit from the gigantic rebuild in China:

"Why not take advantage of the decline in Deere that has terrible pin action in Cummins (CMI Quote - Cramer on CMI - Stock Picks) and Caterpillar (CAT Quote - Cramer on CAT - Stock Picks) and Terex (TEX Quote - Cramer on TEX - Stock Picks)?

All of these will be candidates for the gigantic rebuild in China (particularly Cummins) ... and these are much less U.S. plays for construction than Deere. In fact, that's been the big change at CAT and the reason why it powered from $68 to $84.

Cummins just reported a great quarter, so that's not much of a risk. Terex is dirt-cheap. CAT has the best leverage to China and to all of the big oil projects going on around the globe. You have already seen the reversal in U.S. Steel (X Quote - Cramer on X - Stock Picks), which is part of the Chinese rebuild.

This rebuild will soon obliterate any worries about U.S. demand. You can only imagine the kind of heavy equipment that will have to be bought for that rebuild, and with a weak dollar, the orders will go to the U.S. manufacturers of heavy equipment -- NOT Japan -- which is really important because otherwise the geography would dictate the orders going much more to the Japanese."

Next on the list is Freddie Mac (FRE Quote - Cramer on FRE - Stock Picks).

Cramer broke down his outlook for Freddie in another post on his RealMoney blog Wednesday:

"Does Freddie's better-than-expected number take away systemic risk? We all know that there are only a few companies left -- now that the major banks have issued so much equity -- that could pull down the whole system, and Freddie and Fannie (FNM Quote - Cramer on FNM - Stock Picks) are two of them.

We know Fannie Mae was horrible, but we also know that the stock didn't go back to its low.

FRE's much better. Here's why. The bulls on the story, the value bulls, have long held that there will come a time when the earnings stream from fees and insurance would be so great that it would overwhelm the losses. But there were two caveats: No one thought that those streams could possibly kick in this soon, and no one thought that they could ever make good for the losses during the midst of the big downturn.

All of that changed today with this report. Suddenly the value guys have company on the next equity offering -- shorts and growth guys. In fact, FRE went from being part of the systemic risk to part of the reason why we might want to own financials. The fees are that big.

The market's bias is up here. The expiration is acting very positively. The inflation data were terrific. It is true that we have tons of bulls and we are not oversold, but it feels mighty explosive when you take off the table one of the biggest nightmares out there.

I know that the bears are saying that nothing's getting better and everything's getting worse. I would say that FRE should be much worse, and it isn't.

That's enough to sustain this rally in itself."

For the more opinions on Thursday's top searched stocks, , including DuPont (DD Quote - Cramer on DD - Stock Picks) and Goldman Sachs (GS Quote - Cramer on GS - Stock Picks), check out Cramer's Take on Top 10 Most-Searched Stocks From May 15.

(Editor's note: At the time of original publication of his posts and shows, Cramer owned Goldman Sachs for his Action Alerts PLUS charitable trust. Cramer is a featured commentator for CNBC, which is owned by General Electric; as part of his contract, Cramer holds restricted shares in GE.