Stop Trading!
Cramer's 'Stop Trading!': Reconsider Retail
TheStreet.com Staff
09/05/08 - 04:06 PM EDT
"You saw all these names bottom today because the margining's done," said Jim Cramer on Friday's "Stop Trading!" segment on CNBC. "It doesn't meant that we aren't fundamentally in trouble."
The midday turnarounds in stocks such as Apache(APA Quote), Transocean(RIG Quote) and Mastercard(MA Quote) were due largely to hedge fund redemptions, Cramer said, for which funds had to finish liquidating today. "There are fundamental problems with every one of those stocks," Cramer said. "That's not a reason to buy. It is a reason to explain why we might have turned around when the selling was done, the forced selling."
Next, Cramer addressed two analyst calls today: Goldman Sachs added Merrill Lynch(MER Quote) to its conviction-buy list and lowered its estimates to the lowest in the market, and Morgan Stanley downgraded AIG(AIG Quote) and lowered its price target. "There were two of the worst calls that I've seen in a long time," he said. "The AIG downgrade? Was the guy really recommending it the whole way?" He said he'd buy Merrill if it got back to $22 or $23, but "I don't think it will."
Cramer did see areas for optimism. "We've got to stop being so negative about retail, about banks, about housing," he said. "Those are all up. Those are all up, but people think they're down."
He mentioned retail stocks Phillips-Van Heusen(PVH Quote), Home Depot(HD Quote) and Urban Outfitters(URBN Quote). "Why aren't these down if retail's so bad?" he said.