Cramer's 'Mad Money' Recap: Betting Against the House

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

---

"The housing bubble is dead," Jim Cramer declared on his "Mad Money" show Monday evening.

The second-home market in particular is being hit by a triple whammy of rising oil and gas prices, rising raw materials costs and rising interest rates, Cramer said.

And Cramer believes that is good news for Merrill Lynch (MER) and Charles Schwab (SCH), as individual investors take their money out of real estate and put it in the stock market.

Cramer is also bullish on E*Trade (ET) and Ameritrade (AMTD) for the same reasons.

Connecting With Conexant

Cramer's stock of the week is Conexant Systems (CNXT). His reasoning is this: JDS Uniphase(JDSU), a stock that has been "awful," rallied 7% Friday after Citigroup upgraded it. Thus, "if it's time to stop hating JDSU, it's time to start buying CNXT," said Cramer.

Conexant makes chips for DSL modems, optical communications, Wi-Fi and satellite television set-top boxes. Cramer sees Conexant earning 20 cents to 40 cents a share next year. At $1.63, where the stock ended the regular trading session Monday, it isn't expensive, said Cramer.

A caller wanted to know if she should sell Intel (INTC) to buy Conexant. Cramer said Intel should be held. Conexant is a speculative trade, he said. Intel is an investment.

For a "safe" way to make money on the trading of derivatives, Cramer is bullish on GFI Group (GFIG).

First, the market for derivatives has been growing at an annual rate of 31% since 2001, said Cramer, and GFI is a pure play on this market.

Second, GFI just created a new market for derivatives with CB Richard Ellis (CBG) based on European commercial real estate. "I don't know how well this will do," said Cramer. "But, even if the real estate bubble is popping, interest in it is going to be pretty high." The new business is just "mildly" profitable, said Cramer, but "it's a brand new growth engine for GFIG."