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 expected rotation into slower-growth stocks, oil service stocks, how the system failed us, five stocks for the end of chaos, what the bears should worry about and not waiting for perfect prices.

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

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Expect Rotation Into Slower-Growth Stocks

Originally published on 2/27/2007 at 9:18 a.m.

We are looking at serious declines, a 2% rout across the board. Can't be complacent about these, even as you know that what we will probably see is a rotation into the Procter & Gamble(PG Quote - Cramer on PG - Stock Picks)/Altria(MO Quote - Cramer on MO - Stock Picks) world because of worries about a global slowdown.

We've had a market all year where the Kelloggs(K Quote - Cramer on K - Stock Picks) and Altrias of the world have flatlined while every cyclical has been bid up madly. I see that being undone swiftly today.

So what happens? A Boeing(BA Quote - Cramer on BA - Stock Picks) get smashed even though we know orders are going up. You see pain in the Black & Deckers(BDK Quote - Cramer on BDK - Stock Picks) and the Caterpillars(CAT Quote - Cramer on CAT - Stock Picks).

You get some spillover into weak tech, maybe Microsoft(MSFT Quote - Cramer on MSFT - Stock Picks) and Cisco(CSCO Quote - Cramer on CSCO - Stock Picks). People forget about the bull market in cable and fiber and sell the retailers because of Nordstrom(JWN Quote - Cramer on JWN - Stock Picks) and bad guidance with Federated(FD Quote - Cramer on FD - Stock Picks).

Make no mistake about it, this is a rotation into a slower-growth world as all year, all we've heard about is a faster one.

Watch Altria. It has been the worst. Could be among the best in today's trading.

At the time of publication, Cramer was long Altria.

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The New Safe Haven: Oil Service Stocks

Originally published on 2/27/2007 at 10:46 a.m.

Looking for a safe haven? Who has pricing power that won't be eroded by this China news? Who has long-term visibility? Cereal companies? Drug companies? Aerospace? Farming? Hardware?

Nah, oil service!

I'm not kidding, these companies have the longest contracts, the most visibility and a fantastic long-term outlook.

I believe it's important to recognize that there is a ton of oil out there but only a couple of companies have rigs that can reach it, most notably Transocean(RIG Quote - Cramer on RIG - Stock Picks) and GlobalSantaFe(GSF Quote - Cramer on GSF - Stock Picks). We need service companies, and Halliburton(HAL Quote - Cramer on HAL - Stock Picks) just announced one of the biggest buybacks -- go read the fine print of the KBR(KBR Quote - Cramer on KBR - Stock Picks) exchange. We need seismic and tech and more rigs; that's National Oilwell Varco(NOV Quote - Cramer on NOV - Stock Picks).

These stocks have what people want: a long-term view with built-in estimate increases as long-term contracts roll over and as we get better rates -- because with oil above $50, drilling as deep as possible works.

At the time of publication, Cramer was long Transocean and Halliburton.

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How the System Failed Us Today

Originally published on 2/27/2007 at 4:15 p.m. directly to TheStreet.com

You didn't even have time to panic.

The system failed us, breaking down too fast for you to panic.

We totally collapsed between 2 p.m. and 3 p.m. ET, dropping 200 points. All the circuit breakers and all of the rules that were put into place years ago after 1987 just utterly failed.

Then we had the backdraft, and it happened so fast we don't yet know how it went wrong. But it did, with the sellers' heavy tinder. Maybe that exacerbated the hard-selling ETFs. Whatever it was, the wick caught and then flared -- when we thought we were fireproof.

The buyers, and there are plenty of them, simply couldn't get to the floor fast enough to buy and put out some of that selling.

In the old days, when things were sane, we would have had order imbalances, a stoppage of trading. We didn't get that today. We got nothing. We got nothing but a gap, and it reminded us of the old days, when we used to have to have bids way underneath. In other words, be ready to buy because of the whims of sellers.

But there's another difference now. You can force the market down. The old rules put into place in the 1930s, the ones that were meant to stop motivated sellers from breaking the market are all gone now, taken out by a complacent Securities and Exchange Commission that never dreamed of what could happen today. My sources indicate that a big options trade went awry and some concentrated ETF selling simply cut through this market as easily as a knife through butter.

You only have a couple of protections from the whims of a broken system:

1. A company that pays you a dividend that is equal to or better than Treasuries after taxes is a good defense.
2. Or you want a stock that has a valuation so low that you know it's a bargain -- and its management knows it's a bargain (read: it's buying back stock right here).
3. Last chance: a company that is so defensive in nature that even if there's a worldwide slowdown, it will meet expectations regardless: Coke(KO Quote - Cramer on KO - Stock Picks), Pepsi(PEP Quote - Cramer on PEP - Stock Picks), Altria(MO Quote - Cramer on MO - Stock Picks), Kellogg(K Quote - Cramer on K - Stock Picks), General Mills(GIS Quote - Cramer on GIS - Stock Picks), Clorox(CLX Quote - Cramer on CLX - Stock Picks) and Colgate(CL Quote - Cramer on CL - Stock Picks).

If you don't anything that fits one of those three criteria (I'd rather have two or three per company) you will not be OK for now. That's because we are now going to have people who just say, "Wow this is too crazy, let me out of here!"

But nobody ever made a dime panicking. This time will be no different, but only if you are shrewd about what won't hurt you and what can work in a volatile and down environment.

At the time of publication, Cramer was long Altria.

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Five Stocks for the End of Chaos

Originally published on 2/28/2007 at 7:24 a.m.

On the first day, chaos. Pure chaos. Tough to even get prices. That was 2001 and 1987 and, now, yesterday. Computer malfunctions, overwhelming short-selling from ETFs and derivatives gone awry obscure the battlefield totally.

On the second day, we get some order. Let's see: bonds up (rates down), gold cracked, copper down, perhaps a slowdown? So let's look at the slowdown stocks and see if there were any dislocations.

In fact, they're right in the Dow stocks, which seemed to take it on the chin from some derivative pressure and from some mistaken prices that made it so buyers couldn't get down fast enough to meet sellers.

To me, the five natural plays are:

• Altria (MO Quote - Cramer on MO - Stock Picks), which is now yielding far better than Treasuries and has taken out all of the fluff from the guessing of the restructuring
• Procter & Gamble (PG Quote - Cramer on PG - Stock Picks), which just gave up 3 hard-earned points
• AT&T (T Quote - Cramer on T - Stock Picks), which got back to 4% yield yesterday (and much better after tax)
• Coca-Cola (KO Quote - Cramer on KO - Stock Picks), because we just got a series of upgrades predicated on the possibility of a real turn in that buyback giant
• Exxon (XOM Quote - Cramer on XOM - Stock Picks), which is the most defensive oil and quickly gave up a move that had taken months to complete, a 3-point throwback.

We know, from the just-completed quarters, that all five of these stocks delivered solid results with good outlooks.

None of these stocks should have been down as much as they were. The problem, of course, is that I bet they all open up.

That's problematic. The history of big up days after big down days on a percentage basis is pretty decent, but the history of big down days on a point basis and then nice follow-through is more mixed. In other words, the appearance of a crash generates flipping by those who bought at the bottom yesterday and selling by those who conclude that this whole business is too risky.

But this selloff did make the cover of The New York Times, always a sign that we are late in it, although only in one column. When we were at the hedge fund, a two-column headline on the top of the Times was often all we needed to start buying.

Compounding things is that we probably gave up a percentage point and a half more than we should have because of computer errors, so it makes sense, with Europe stable, that we open up. I would do this with these end-of-chaos stocks. I would not buy them at the opening if they are up. I would just say, "Oops, didn't buy the chaos, missed them."

If they drop later, then you buy.

There is some benefit to buying the chaos. You don't have to stand there when they open them up; you can sell off a little and wait.

But when you buy up, you buy on yesterday's quicksand, which sometimes turns to terra firma but most often doesn't.

Random musings: We took some action in the chaos of yesterday in Action Alerts PLUS, so we are not worried about what to do today. Check it out. ... Congratulations to Doug Kass for being "all in short" for the crash. I know that this was one of the best calls I have ever seen made, and Doug remains the must-read on the network of TheStreet.com sites.

At the time of publication, Cramer was long Altria.

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What the Bears Should Worry About

Originally published on 3/1/2007 at 12:56 p.m.

OK, we all know the negative scenario. Let me give you what the bears should worry about.

The fact that we recovered from down 200 will encourage Europe, where the markets are better, to be up 1% to 2% tomorrow as the buyers come in and take advantage of the decline.

When you get Europe strong, you may have an up opening that doesn't fail.

Then you could have a situation where the bears try to knock the market down and they fail. Or you have short-covering on Friday afternoon, an old pattern for bear markets.

That this good scenario could occur cannot be ruled out, if only because today was a day where if you panicked, you know it was wrong.

If that's the case, there's still plenty that works: Altria (MO Quote - Cramer on MO - Stock Picks) right here, General Mills (GIS Quote - Cramer on GIS - Stock Picks), Coca-Cola (KO Quote - Cramer on KO - Stock Picks), Heinz (HNZ Quote - Cramer on HNZ - Stock Picks), Clorox (CLX Quote - Cramer on CLX - Stock Picks), Avon (AVP Quote - Cramer on AVP - Stock Picks) and Bank of America (BAC Quote - Cramer on BAC - Stock Picks). All of these make sense here.

So do the stocks that are in the drilling complex. Halliburton (HAL Quote - Cramer on HAL - Stock Picks) is down since it announced its buyback! GlobalSantaFe (GSF Quote - Cramer on GSF - Stock Picks) was magnificent. Transocean (RIG Quote - Cramer on RIG - Stock Picks) has pulled back big.

I'm just trying to get the long side your attention now that the bears have not been able to send the market down very strongly since the morning V bottom.

Oh, and for you technicians out there, we did hold the levels that we hit the other day.

That matters, too.

At the time of publication, Cramer was long Altria, Halliburton and Transocean.

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Don't Wait for Perfect Prices

Originally published on 3/2/2007 at 9:04 a.m.

Good stocks never get to where you want them to go. They never let you in at prices that make them seem like bargains.

In the 1989 mini-crash -- man, am I dated -- we had a 15% correction in an afternoon. (No wonder I am taking this one in stride.)

Yet, do you know what? When the smoke cleared, almost none of the stocks I wanted were at my price. Many of them were a point or 2 above if they were in their 20s or 30s, and 3 or 4 points above where I thought we had ideal levels.

I whiffed on most of them. I just didn't want to pay up.

Yet it was, in retrospect, a fabulous time to buy.

I bring that up because I am now reading articles about how "it is not down nearly enough" and "it has much further to go," typically from people who have hated the market or sat out the last 15% of it.

Look, I don't know if this is a bottom. In fact, I don't think it is except for the third that I have highlighted endlessly, but I do know that those of you hoping for perfection buys will be disappointed.

You just never get them. And when they do happen, you will be scared to death to buy them.

Figure out your prices and your levels, but be ready to be a little flexible. You want to buy some AT&T (T Quote - Cramer on T - Stock Picks), make your target price $35 and change. Not $35 plain.

Give yourself some give. If you don't buy all at once, you can pay up a tad if you have to get something on.

But don't shrug your shoulders and say, "Nothing's down enough to buy." I can tell you from experience that something is down enough to buy, and you have to do your best to find it.

Random musings: My friend Dan Dicker, commodities trader extraordinaire, has a great piece coming later today on the site.

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