Jim Cramer -- Few Earnings Winners, 'Long Line of Losers'
"We just came through what is obviously a brutal earnings season," TheStreet's Jim Cramer, co-manager of the Action Alerts PLUS portfolio, said in an exclusive interview with Action Alerts PLUS subscribers earlier this week. "There were very few winners and a long line of losers."
Most notably, the technology, finance, health care and retail sectors were major disappointments.
"Tech was pretty much a collapse of everything except those stocks that are directly related to the cloud," Cramer said. Cell phones are in a glut, as evidenced by Apple's (AAPL) - Get Report results, While PCs remain "dreadful," he added.
In healthcare, it's hard to figure out the puzzle because the government continues to swap out the pieces. The Justice Department has no problem putting a stop to M&A, while pricing pressures plague generic drug companies like Valeant (VRX) .
There are "landmines" everywhere, Cramer said.
As the economy continues to seesaw, so does the stock market- - something Cramer covered more extensively earlier in the day. Because the economy has been gyrating, the Federal Reserve is being to forced to hold off on raising interest rates.
Because the Fed can't raise rates without inducing a catastrophe, the financial companies can't see margins expand. Lower margins in turn equals lower profits, something investors, understandably, aren't very pleased with.
"So the group falls endlessly out of favor," Cramer reasoned.
Retail earnings really speak for themselves, as Macy's (M) - Get Report , Kohl's (KSS) - Get Report and Nordstrom (JWN) - Get Report are all down by double digits this week. Plus, did anyone see Fossil's (FOSL) - Get Report results? Cramer asked. Shares are down a whopping 30% this week after the company's disappointing report.
This comes despite retail sales posting the best results in a year. But Cramer pointed out Amazon (AMZN) - Get Report continues to do extraordinarily well, highlighted by its "absolutely stellar" earnings, as it continues to disrupt the traditional brick-and-mortar business.
Everytime it looks like the market has picked a direction or a trend is starting to emerge, some new bit of news comes out and stomps out the whole theory. It's very mixed, Cramer concluded.
At the time of publication, Cramer's Action Alerts PLUS had a long position in AAPL.
