Bigger Than Tech; Showing Bruises: Cramer's Best Blogs
NEW YORK (
) --
fills his blog on
RealMoney
every day with his up-to-the-minute reactions to what's happening in the market and his legendary ahead-of-the-crowd ideas. This week he blogged on:
- financials vs. tech; and
- disruption in tech.
for information on
RealMoney
, where you can see all the blogs, including Jim Cramer's -- and reader comments -- in real time.
The Market Is Bigger than Tech
Posted at 12:48 a.m. EDT on Friday, July 19
The market is bigger than
Microsoft
(MSFT) - Get Report
,
(GOOG) - Get Report
,
Intel
(INTC) - Get Report
and
eBay
(EBAY) - Get Report
.
This market is about
General Electric
(GE) - Get Report
and
Schlumberger
(SLB) - Get Report
and
Bank of America
(BAC) - Get Report
and
UnitedHealth
(UNH) - Get Report
. We have so many OTHER ways to win away from tech that we don't want to be blinded by the high-profile disappointments.
Remember, financials are almost as big as tech in the S&P 500 and that's fabulous news for the market. I am dazzled by literally every single bank and broker. Regional, national whatever and they are, even after these terrific earnings they can still go higher. My favorite remains
Wells Fargo
(WFC) - Get Report
, which won't get expensive until it's $50. But Bank of America can go back to $16 without much of an effort.
Also see: Don't Give Up on Google >>
The industrials? Take a look at
Eaton
(ETN) - Get Report
if you like what you heard from
Honeywell
(HON) - Get Report
and General Electric and
Ingersoll Rand
(IR) - Get Report
. That's the analogue.
UnitedHealth and
Johnson & Johnson
(JNJ) - Get Report
are the best proxies for how well health care's doing in this market and it is fantastic. These stocks, while expensive now, don't make sense to sell. How are you going to get back in?
Then how about that Schlumberger? International drilling is finally being spurred by the inexorable price of oil. I think that bodes well for tons of companies including
BP
(BP) - Get Report
, which I interviewed last night, and
Occidental
(OXY) - Get Report
, as well as one that I am shocked isn't higher,
Ensco
(ESV)
.
Also see: Markets Show No Signs of Surrender as Stocks Cap Four-Week Advance >>
Finally there's the commentary from
Union Pacific
(UNP) - Get Report
. You think this country's not coming back? Go listen to that call. Autos? Oh my, they are strong. Chemicals -- including oil -- are amazing. Materials all good. Most terrific, I think, was coal. You need to watch coal. It's not going down. That's why I like
Joy Global
(JOY)
, but it is so hated after Jim Chanos talked about how you must bet against the commodity supercycle by shorting
Caterpillar
(CAT) - Get Report
. Joy is regarded as CAT without the infrastructure diversity. I think it's just too cheap to avoid.
At the time of publication, Action Alerts PLUS, which Cramer co-manages as a charitable trust, is long EBAY, ESV, ETN, GE, HON, JOY, OXY and WFC.
Competition Is Bruising Tech Companies
Posted at 6:44 p.m. EDT on Thursday, July 18
Maybe there's just too much competition, too much disruption -- even for the disrupters -- and too little worldwide growth for tech to thrive right now?
That's how I feel after interviewing Bill McDermott, the co-CEO of
SAP
(SAP) - Get Report
, after the company disappointed, in large part because of a slowdown in the Asia Pacific market but also because of the difficulty of switching to a more cloud-like model. That's how I feel after hearing from
Microsoft
(MSFT) - Get Report
and
(GOOG) - Get Report
, where the competition has really stung and the disruption has got even the most disruptive company in the universe, Google, which disappointed on the mobile line.
I think this competitive thesis doesn't get talked about enough. If you go on the conference calls of SAP and
Oracle
(ORCL) - Get Report
, you hear about how dog-eat-dog things have become. These companies aren't even collegial any more. They are just going at each other. Oracle may have declared a truce with new partner
Salesforce.com
(CRM) - Get Report
, but that's because Oracle simply didn't have enough of a cloud business, in part because that undercuts its lucrative enterprise software business.
We know that
Intel
(INTC) - Get Report
has got problems with its missing of the mobile move, but I think that it may even be surprised by a resurgent
Advanced Micro Devices
(AMD) - Get Report
.
Also see: Best Careers for Paying Down Debt >>
Meanwhile, what's winning this market? Companies that have little competition, such as the healthcare maintenance organizations.
UnitedHealth Group
(UNH) - Get Report
just isn't duking it out with anyone significant that I can tell. The rails? They don't seriously compete anywhere. The defense stocks? They've pretty much carved out their areas of expertise. The airlines? They used to go at it, but the government has sanctioned a host of mergers that take out the competition pretty much for good.
Yep, when companies compete, I mean really compete, like they do in cellphones and tablets and personal computers, it can be brutal out there. And the brutality can hurt the best, as we found out with
Apple
(AAPL) - Get Report
in the last few quarters and now with Google tonight.
Strength in the worldwide economy can mask the problems that stem from competition for those that do compete globally, but not in this environment, where Europe, Asia and Latin America are weak and can't be counted on for upside. Yep, competition is the common thread of the losers, without the economy to bail them out. Things can change -- new innovations, improving economies. But for the moment, the competition has gotten the better of the tech companies that have reported so far.
At the time of publication, Action Alerts PLUS, which Cramer co-manages as a charitable trust, is long AAPL.