These Early-Cycle Stocks Are Starting to Break Out
08/28/08 - 04:20 PM EDT
Jim Cramer
Here's three stocks making nice moves that seem to have bottomed: Fortune Brands (FO Quote - Cramer on FO - Stock Picks), Masco (MAS Quote - Cramer on MAS - Stock Picks) and Black & Decker (BDK Quote - Cramer on BDK - Stock Picks).
These unlikely three, all early-cycle stocks, have been moving up with the HGX and are really starting to break out, particularly Masco. These are all fine firms that have been clubbed relentlessly because of their exposure to housing, but, alas, might be generating some performance for a bit. I owned Black & Decker for Action Alerts Plus but got in it too soon before the huge downturn in housing that occurred before the July 15 bottom. You can see that it got to the mid $50s and then was able to top relentlessly lowered earnings estimates, which led to a nice move. It's just had a little retracement, but acts well now. In fact it acts a bit like Sears (SHLD Quote - Cramer on SHLD - Stock Picks).. Masco bottomed right on July 15th--boy was that day bad--and it has had a monster move, the only one of these that seems to have come too far too fast, considering it's just really a glorified cabinet and bathroom appliance maker. But it is a well run one. The stock that might be most intriguing but has been a big disappointment is Fortune Brands, a company addicted to buying back stock that has a liquor division that should be helping it more, as you can see from looking at a chart of Brown Forman (BF Quote - Cramer on BF - Stock Picks). This one, if you can handle some earnings shade down that some bull might have to give you on the sell side, is probably the most attractive of the three. I wish it didn't have that golf division. Golf without Tiger is sinking fast. But that's probably not enough to cause a further decline in the numbers. I think this group is still another one that people want to rotate back to because the multiples are so cheap and the downside seemingly quantified by what might be a 2009 housing bottom.
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