Jim Cramer's 'Stop Trading!': The Fed Still Doesn't Get It
On Tuesday's "Stop Trading!" segment on
CNBC
, Jim Cramer was too deflated by the
Fed's
quarter-point rate cut to offer up another "They know nothing!" tirade like the one he delivered Aug. 3.
"I'm no longer fiery. They had their chance. I wanted to do a wake-up call then, in August. ... That was when it still mattered," said Cramer, who had been hoping for a 50-basis-point cut. He believes the Fed's unwillingness to act "just made
Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson's job much harder."
"Everyone is in much more trouble," Cramer added. He chided the Fed for complacency. "These guys are academics. They're very far removed. ... They obviously don't get it. They want to take whatever pain we have. ... I admire them for their lack of panic, but the time to have done something was back in August."
Cramer did not share the Fed's outlook for the economy. "They're hopeful. ... very optimistic," he deadpanned. He had hoped the Fed would understand the severity of the situation, but he was wrong. "They flabbergast me. I'm like everybody else. ... 'You gotta be kidding me.'"
"You now just delayed the recovery," Cramer said. Cramer believes that there will now be large bailouts of companies hit hard by liquidity demands. "It's more likely that the companies that are trying to raise money won't get money," he said. He pointed to recent stumbling by
Washington Mutual
(WM)
,
Fannie Mae
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,
TheStreet Recommends
Freddie Mac
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and
UBS
(UBS)
, all of which were hurt enormously by the subprime lending crisis and the credit crunch. "I thought
the Fed saw," Cramer said.
Cramer believes that if monetary policy were managed more effectively, the Fed could have made the right decision: "They are a cellar-dwelling group of Federal Reserves. ... If they were in the NFL, they'd be fired."
Investors' hope, for now, Cramer said, is to "buy companies that aren't levered to the United States."
Although he forwent the rage he expressed in August, Cramer was no less delicate with the Fed's decision this time around. "How did we get such a mediocre Fed? How did this come to be? These guys are very optimistic ... good for them. ... Anything can happen. You know, the tooth fairy."
At the time of publication, Cramer had no positions in any of the stocks mentioned.
Jim Cramer is a director and co-founder of TheStreet.com. He contributes daily market commentary for TheStreet.com's sites and serves as an adviser to the company's CEO. Outside contributing columnists for TheStreet.com and RealMoney.com, including Cramer, may, from time to time, write about stocks in which they have a position. In such cases, appropriate disclosure is made. To see his personal portfolio and find out what trades Cramer will make before he makes them, sign up for
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