Jim Cramer
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:
- a truly worrisome sign at Bear Stearns;
- the dangers of buying the brokers too early; and
- one area where all's not lost.
Bear Bigwig's Departure Is Bad News
Originally published on Aug. 6 at 9:13 a.m. EDT Warren Spector, formerly of Bear Stearns(BSC Quote - Cramer on BSC - Stock Picks), was too bullish. Period, end of story. When the hedge fund problems hit Bear, he was telling everyone not to worry and that the "Dumb" fund (to reuse the nomenclature from my series on Bear's two failed hedge funds) would be worth a lot of money once the new money took off the pressure of margin calls. That outlook, more than anything else, explained his departure. He committed more than a billion in hard-earned Bear capital to the "Dumb" fund, and the money is lost -- something I know I didn't see happening. This change at the top of Bear is not good news. It shows that Bear has lost control of the situation to some degree and has put an investment banker up top of the food chain, a curious choice at best. Also, it causes tons of head-scratching, not just because the CFO said this is the worst market in 20 years, hardly the "business as usual" statement we expected. It was Spector's ouster, which I had gotten wind of on Thursday, that shook me. This is a man at the heart of the mortgage trading business, a hard-core realist who knows his way around collateralized debt obligations (CDOs) and CDO squared and mortgage insurance and the interaction of the mortgage chain from mortgage customer to the hedge funds and European banks and insurance companies that bought this stuff. If he was too bullish, what the heck was everyone else? Random musings: Remember, the Accredited Home Lenders(LEND Quote - Cramer on LEND - Stock Picks) deal will close unless the acquirer, Lone Star Funds, is insolvent. That's how iron-clad that deal is. All the negative language that reporters quoted last week was included in the deal documents when it was first reported. Odd that it's just now getting focused on. I repeat, the language about insolvency was not new news.Please note that due to factors including low market capitalization and/or insufficient public float, we consider Accredited Home Lenders to be a small-cap stock. You should be aware that such stocks are subject to more risk than stocks of larger companies, including greater volatility, lower liquidity and less publicly available information, and that postings such as this one can have an effect on their stock prices. At the time of publication, Cramer had no positions in any of the stocks mentioned in this post.
Buying Brokers? You're Playing With Fire
Originally published on Aug. 7 at 12:39 p.m. EDT Hard to repeal? Is it possible that the moves in the banks and brokers will be hard to repeal even if the Fed says the wrong thing? That's a very difficult question. These are moves of some magnitude and we are oversold. I want to focus on something away from the Fed: the numbers, the estimates. I think the estimates are still too high for these companies. I believe that the time to own the brokers is when the estimates are set to reality and honestly, I don't know what reality is. That was part of the problem with the Bear Stearns(BSC Quote - Cramer on BSC - Stock Picks) call on Friday. We heard before the call that July was solidly profitable. People are looking for flat numbers year over year for Bear. They are looking for a couple bucks of increase for Goldman(GS Quote - Cramer on GS - Stock Picks). Is that realistic knowing what we know? I would have to believe that these banks are rallying off of a very oversold position. That means we will eventually work off the oversold. For all of those who are short-term in nature, that means you can sell some Goldman into the Fed meeting and then hold to see the results. But it also means that you are playing with estimate cuts that I think are not in the stock. Can there be a takeover of Bear? Is that why it is up huge? Anything can happen. I believe that stock was so knocked down that unless it was having massive losses, it couldn't go much lower for now. If you like these institutions long-term like I do and you can trade, you can sell some into strength and get ready for the cuts to buy back when the bottom will be put in. At the time of publication, Cramer was long Goldman Sachs.Be Confident in Tech, and Little Else
Originally published on Aug. 8 at 8:06 a.m. EDT The Fed says things are fine, NovaStar(NFI Quote - Cramer on NFI - Stock Picks) starts lending again, I guess things must be a-okay. It's moments like this that you say to yourself if only it were so easy. If only people would start buying homes because Bernanke says the predominant risk is inflation. And maybe home prices will get reflated because of it! Doesn't Toll Brothers(TOL Quote - Cramer on TOL - Stock Picks) know how good things are? You look at those earnings this morning and you would think they are clueless, not Bernanke. Bob Toll, come on, get with the inflation program! Maybe Bernanke inspired confidence because he said we should be worried more about the great strength of the economy. Maybe we should go buy some cars to celebrate. I have no confidence in Toll or Bernanke. I do have confidence in companies with great balance sheets that spew cash and have tons of opportunities to grow worldwide because of innovation and intelligence and great execution. Unlike Bernanke, I have the confidence of knowing when not to be confident, and my lack of confidence drives me to buy not a car or a homebuilder but, well Cisco(CSCO Quote - Cramer on CSCO - Stock Picks). Tech is safe. Tech is best. And it isn't even up much! Safe from Bernanke. Safe from Toll. Safe from credit. Perfecto!Please note that due to factors including low market capitalization and/or insufficient public float, we consider NovaStar to be a small-cap stock. You should be aware that such stocks are subject to more risk than stocks of larger companies, including greater volatility, lower liquidity and less publicly available information, and that postings such as this one can have an effect on their stock prices. At the time of publication, Cramer had no positions in stocks mentioned.
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