Jim Cramer's Best Blogs

Jim Cramer fills his blog on RealMoney every day with his up-to-the-minute reactions to what's happening in the market and his legendary ahead-of-the-crowd ideas. This week he blogged on:

• the upside of knowing the downside;
• the Canadian invasion; and
• a shocking bank stock pick.

Click here for information on RealMoney.com, where you can see all the blogs, including Jim Cramer's -- and reader comments -- in real time.

---

Black Holes Defined, We Can Presume the Best

Originally published on Oct. 1 at 11:18 a.m. EDT

Told you so. That's UBS(UBS Quote). That's Citigroup(C Quote) and that's Skype. We absolutely love it when black holes are defined in size. We knew that eBay(EBAY Quote) had stumbled with Skype but now we know how big the stumble.

Clarity is a wonderful thing. The market believes in charges. The market believes in them because they are meant to slam the book on mistakes.

I saw Dick Bove from Punk Zeigel on this morning using a basic cockroach theory (bad news tends to come in clusters) with Citigroup. He believes there's more to come.

He may be right, but he misses the real point: Until you have another charge, people presume the best. The obvious is also true; there were wild rumors out there that both UBS and Citigroup had much worse black holes, virtual quarries. Looks like the closure is spilling over to Merrill Lynch(MER Quote), which was challenged last week by the Goldman piece.

Clarified!

Same with eBay. It has finally bitten the bullet on Skype and changed management, recognizing the mistake.

The market will love that, too.

That's just the way it works. You don't like it? Go be an academic.

Random musings: Nokia's(NOK Quote) taking on everyone with this buy of Navteq(NVT Quote). It has me trying to figure out if Garmin(GRMN Quote) can be bought knowing that it will still be a Garmin Christmas. Wait for a downgrade tomorrow? Or will we get a reiteration? Don't know myself.

At the time of publication, Cramer was long Citigroup.

---

Canadian Banks Can Infiltrate Northeast

Originally published on Oct. 2 at 8:16 a.m. EDT

The Canadians are coming!! This buy of Commerce Bancorp (CBH Quote) will rock the Northeast. It will be the ultimate game-changer because once you establish the foothold in a market, you have to make it bigger than just one bank. You have to backfill, and Toronto-Dominion can start doing that now.

They can buy, with cash and stock, banks as diverse as Astoria Financial (AF Quote) or New York Community Bancorp (NYB Quote) or Hudson City Bancorp (HCBK Quote). Even Capital One (COF Quote) may be for sale. These are all down on their luck but could, with Commerce Bancorp, take a huge amount of share in the one market that is still robust and staying robust -- New York City.

You could see TD and Bank of Nova Scotia (BNS Quote) sweeping in and taking the deposits of everyone from National City (NCC Quote) to Comerica (CMA Quote) to Key (KEY Quote). Same with Bank of Montreal (BMO Quote). These Midwestern-based banks have all been hobbled by residential real estate but have no problem whatsoever with keeping deposits.

We have forever looked at these institutions as banks that can't grow and pay big dividends but are crummy loaners. Now we can look at them as targets of strong currencies and strong markets because the Canadians can lever their strong balance sheets to take some pain.

After all, after Citigroup's (C Quote) miserable quarter and subsequent uplift, anything's possible.

Random musings: Dean Foods (DF Quote) will keep stumbling. They did the dumbest leverage re-cap I have ever seen. I would put the CEO on the Wall of Shame, but he was just trying to reward shareholders when he did it and then got hit by the worst bad luck. ... Didn't know the Saudi prince was still calling the shots at Citi. I guess if you are a board member, you don't have to worry until the puppet master acts and disturbs the marionettes.

At the time of publication, Cramer was long Citigroup.

---

Four Reasons Bank of America Works Here

Originally published on Oct. 4 at 8:16 a.m. EDT

Wachovia's (WB Quote) been my favorite financial for a while because of its big dividend and exposure to rate cuts. But I am increasingly thinking that it is Bank of America(BAC Quote) that might be taking us higher here.

First, BAC has been buying back more shares than any other company. Second, it's got that great deposit base. Third, it has stakes in Chinese companies that nobody's even taking seriously that could amount to much more ammo for the buyback.

But most important, in what looks like sheer genius, in less than a month it can buy Countrywide(CFC Quote) for what looks to be on the cheap in a business that is about to get great: servicing and issuing mortgages.

I believe that the sudden rush to own servicing rights companies shows that there are going to be some big gains in that area, and Countrywide owns it. In terms of issuances of mortgages, you could be in a situation where you can take a gigantic spread simply because nobody even wants to be in that business anymore. Bank of America will end up being the mortgage king in this country. Deposit king; mortgage king; fee king.

That's making me think that this is a stock that makes a ton of sense here.

The financials are the only cheap stocks left in this market.

I am thinking that if you buy BAC here, you could look like a genius six months from now.

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