Jim Cramer: Speculation Isn't a Dirty Word

NEW YORK (TheStreet) -

Lindsey Bell: Jim, you have always been looking at different stocks that have been under speculation. Now, in the last couple days, a bunch have played out how you expected.

Jim Cramer:

Well, in some cases, yes, I said stop selling Nokia. It's just enough already. Declare victory if you don't like Nokia and that was at two dollars and that was good. Sprint, I liked it very, very much at two dollars. I said Dan Hesse, their CEO, is going to make this thing work.

Clear Wire, I didn't believe in. Candidly, that one now has Charlie Ergen fighting over some of it. And this one today, SuperValu. I had been very, very negative correctly all the way down. I didn't tell people when it got to a certain level, I should have guessed when it got to $1.50, I should have said, hey listen, I'm no longer negative. I did not see Cerberus coming in and doing what is basically a tender offer at a higher price.

So two for four the way I look at it, but it has to do with an ethos, a philosophy that I have, which is that I'm one of the few people out there, who ever thinks you should speculate and I'm ridiculed for this.

I'm ridiculed for many things in my life and I think that you reach a point in your life where you just say, listen, go ahead and kill me all you want, you want to speculate, I never would have thought it would be this bountiful, that you would have Sprint and Clearwire work out, that you would have SuperValu work out. I mean, just rapidly, hat Nokia would work out.

Now, the critics say, "listen Jim, those stocks were dramatically higher", but that's okay because my philosophy has been listen, I told you to get out of them. It's only when they got to a certain level that they became interesting.

So, to rebut, something that I think people who will be watching the videos will want, look I didn't like Nokia much higher, but I reserved the right to be able to say listen, it's done on the downside and that's what happened in all these cases.

Lindsey Bell:

When you see a stock move down so significantly as some of these have over time, it may be time to look at them?

Jim Cramer:

Well, I mean, Hewlett Packard, yesterday, Tony Sacconaghi at Sanford Bernstein said listen, he put a sum-of-the-parts valuation at $29 and said look, I've hated Hewlett Packard for reams and reams of points, I don't hate it anymore.

I also saw, I was fortunate enough to like Ford much lower and the Ford preferred, got that right, I'd still stay long on Ford. I've been very negative on Radio Shack.

This morning, I don't care anymore. If you want to go buy it, I'm saying fine. Best Buy, I've been very negative. They report. They have some numbers tomorrow. If the numbers are really horrible, you want to get in after, fine.

What I'm saying is that, well Best Buy I think can fall further. There is a moment in time where you have to take council of what happened in the last 72 hours in these stocks, which is that they came back to life.

So I think the take away is, there's a level where you can speculate where the worst may be in a stock.

Lindsey Bell:

Okay. Thank you Jim.