Cramer: P&G Stock Drop Evidence of Glitch

NEW YORK (TheStreet) -- In lieu of his usual daily appearance on Stop Trading! early afternoon, Jim Cramer appeared as a guest on Street Signs when the Dow fell more than 900 points, then pared back some of those losses.

The sudden drop occurred as agitated investors watched the social unrest that unfolded in Greece, where furious protesters descended upon the capital after the approval of crucial austerity measures; and European debt contagion fears continued to spread.

Cramer said that retail stock investors should be wary about playing the stock market in these conditions. "I do believe this is not the right time," he said. Still, he seemed to remain confident about consumer staple stock Procter & Gamble(PG).

P&G was one of the biggest, sudden decliners, falling 4%, then suddenly plummeting 20% -- an inconceivable price drop for a stock as stable as P&G. The stock with 30 minutes left in the trading day, was back at $60.58, down 2.5%.

Cramer declared that there's no fundamental reason behind the rapid descent in this consumer staple behemoth, and attributes the decline to a software glitch, program trading run amok. It has, Cramer reminded, happened before -- most notably as a precursor to the crash of 1987, for example.

In this market, where retail investors could be feeling fragile, Cramer suggests looking at stocks not on a price basis, but on yield basis. "Again, use limit orders," he said.

As P&G was making its rapid descent, Cramer said to just go buy P&G. The company had a decent quarter, he commented. "You put in a 49 bid for 200 shares of Procter," he suggested, when the stock was showing, for example, a reported drop to $39.37 on the NASDAQ.

-- Reported by Andrea Tse in New York

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