Move Away From the Dichotomy of Old and New

 

Stop it with the Old Economy/New Economy stuff already.

It is a dichotomy that makes you no money. We think the world is divided between companies that rely principally on the Net to make money, and companies that rely on the whole economy to make money.

Sometimes they intersect. Oracle(ORCL Quote), for example, gets most of its earnings away from the Net but gets its buzz from its B2B work. So we think that Oracle is an important tell. But LSI(LSI Quote) and Texas Instruments(TXN Quote) are not principally Net, so they might be okay.

We can't be in Commerce One(CMRC Quote) now because it is total Net infrastructure, which is in the hands of the most margined players. We can be in Bank of America(BAC Quote), even though some of the earnings might come from the Net. It has no buzz from the Net whatsoever to lose, even though it has the most online accounts of any bank.

For us the toughest is Exodus(EXDS Quote). We are long it. We think its prospects are great. We think that its business is not susceptible to the kinds of pressure the analyst at Prudential was talking about when it comes to B2B. But it is owned by margined players, so we can't be aggressive in any purchases of it. So we use a very wide scale to leg in.

Keep in mind, by the way, that the panic level among the mutual funds and hedge funds who are in these highfliers is extremely high, because they have gone from wanting to show they owned these stocks to wanting to show they are short these stocks or not in them -- in five days!

Now that's a rotation.

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James J. Cramer is manager of a hedge fund and co-founder of TheStreet.com. At time of publication, his fund was long Texas Instrument, Bank of America, Exodus and LSI. His fund often buys and sells securities that are the subject of his columns, both before and after the columns are published, and the positions that his fund takes may change at any time. Under no circumstances does the information in this column represent a recommendation to buy or sell stocks. Cramer's writings provide insights into the dynamics of money management and are not a solicitation for transactions. While he cannot provide investment advice or recommendations, he invites you to comment on his column at jjcletters@thestreet.com.




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