Firms With Solid -- and Sorry -- Growth Plans

I recently wrote that plans to fire lots of workers won't solve the underlying problem at Pfizer(PFE Quote - Cramer on PFE - Stock Picks) and Motorola(MOT Quote - Cramer on MOT - Stock Picks): lousy product innovation.

If you survey the stock market landscape, you'll find more former predictable growth stocks that now offer the same uncertainty that Pfizer and Motorola do. That, of course means that an investor shouldn't pay the same high price-to-earnings ratio now for the less predictable growth of a Coca-Cola(KO Quote - Cramer on KO - Stock Picks), a Citigroup(C Quote - Cramer on C - Stock Picks), an Intel(INTC Quote - Cramer on INTC - Stock Picks) or a Dell(DELL Quote - Cramer on DELL - Stock Picks).

And it means that the relatively fewer growth companies still pumping out predictable double-digit growth, such as a Procter & Gamble(PG Quote - Cramer on PG - Stock Picks) or a PepsiCo(PEP Quote - Cramer on PEP - Stock Picks), deserve a higher multiple.

The most interesting -- and potentially most profitable -- cases are those once-great predictable growth companies that are now on the cusp. Will a company such as McDonald's(MCD Quote - Cramer on MCD - Stock Picks) return to the ranks of those companies able to produce predictable double-digit growth? Should investors think of Cisco Systems(CSCO Quote - Cramer on CSCO - Stock Picks) as belonging to this category? And is Johnson & Johnson(JNJ Quote - Cramer on JNJ - Stock Picks) going to defy skeptics and keep pumping out that growth?

Sometimes it feels like the universe of great, predictable growth stocks has become very small indeed. But, fortunately, investors are witnessing the emergence of a new generation of growth stocks in the developing economies of the world. That's a topic for another day, however.

New Developments on Past Columns

"Five Buys for a Fourth-Quarter Rally": There's no place to hide, but a few spots in the supply chain do provide some shelter from the storm. In 2006, the average selling price for a 42-inch LCD television fell by almost 50%, according to iSuppli. That crushed profit margins at the companies that manufacture the sets.

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