Cramer on Top-Searched Stocks: Lehman

These stocks could be in the news for a number of reasons. Some require immediate attention; others may not. Regardless, it never hurts to hear what Cramer (or any of the other professional investors on the site) has to say about them. The key is to gather as much information as you can to make the most informed investment decisions you can.

Oil prices and GDP numbers are dominating the news, but we'll kick it off today with Lehman Brothers(LEH Quote).

Cramer recently broke down the situation in a post on his RealMoney.com blog:

It is time. It is time for Lehman to put up its defense. Not the talking one. But the one it used in 1998 when everyone thought it was a goner. It needs to go in and start buying its stock.

Think about it. If Lehman is right and self-styled nemesis David Einhorn from Greenlight Capital is wrong about the firm needing capital, this has to be one of the greatest buying opportunities Richard Fuld, the CEO, has ever had. Not since 1998, when he bid me $31 for a million shares in order to take advantage of the endless raids that his firm had because of alleged problems in London, has Richard Fuld had such a great chance to make a statement.

But here's the flip side. Without such a vow and show of not just confidence but opportunity, the market is going to determine that Greenlight is right and the spiral will be endless. We know what happens when a company needs capital. You get a Washington Mutual(WM Quote), a Nat City(NCC Quote), an AIG(AIG Quote) or worse, a Bear(BSC Quote).

We all know this. We also know that these companies are surprisingly easy to break in a world where money is fungible.

Still, there is worth here. Lots of worth. I know that the earnings power has been impaired, but I do not believe the capitalization is impaired. I don't know if that is the case unless I see a buyback. It is what makes Goldman Sachs(GS Quote) different.

Why now? Because the stock is clearly down artificially if Einhorn's wrong. A panic valuation.

The silence of the non-buys is speaking every bit as loudly as Einhorn against this great institution.

Next on the list is AIG(AIG Quote).

Cramer broke down that situation in another recent blog post:

If you think the disclosure is bad for these financial insurers here, it is every bit as poor over there in the U.K., where we just learned that housing prices dropped the most ever on record.

Most of the major monoline insurers, and of course AIG, have exposure to Britain in ways that we are all too familiar with over here. The only difference is that I believe the trajectory was considered far more certain over there than here. AIG in particular bragged about this business in December, to show their diversification away from the U.S. Kind of like how Bear bragged that by putting a lot of different mortgages together from Florida and California and the rest of the country and varying their ratings you have created a wondrous, diversified instrument called a CDO.

Yesterday, Erin Burnett, my partner in "Stop Trading" on CNBC, asked me about all of those assets that AIG has, like the great Chinese business, the leasing business and the like. They are all great businesses. But Citigroup(C Quote) had great businesses, and they weren't enough to offset the losses. AIG's looking a lot like Citigroup -- lots of assets generating a solid return that is easily wiped out by the magnification of losses through leverage.

Or, in English, AIG is better than an Ambac(ABK Quote) or an MBIA(MBI Quote) for certain, but that doesn't mean you have to own the darned thing.

For more of Cramer's opinions on yesterday's most-searched stocks, including including Petrobras(PBR Quote)PBR and Procter & Gamble, check out the Cramer's Take on Top 10 Most-Searched Stocks portfolio at Stockpickr.com.

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(Editor's note: At the time of original publication of his posts and shows, Cramer owned Sears for his Action Alerts PLUS charitable trust. Cramer is a featured commentator for CNBC, which is owned by General Electric; as part of his contract, Cramer holds restricted shares in GE.