Jim Cramer's Best Blogs

Catch up on his latest thinking on the hottest topics of the past week.

Author:: Jim Cramer
Publish date:: Nov 17, 2007 10:44 AM EST

Jim Cramer 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:

the return of retail stocks;
a bank that needs a clue; and
what the market should have in common with CSI.

Click here for information on

RealMoney.com

, where you can see all the blogs, including Jim Cramer's -- and reader comments -- in real time.

Retail Returning to Where It Should Be

Originally published on Nov. 13 at 1:31 p.m. EST

Retail suddenly rocks? No. Retail simply didn't deserve to get as sold down as it did, because things are never as bad as the media make them out to be when it comes to the consumer.

In other words, it will get cold, and there will be a Christmas.

I have been recommending retail on my show, starting with

Target

(TGT) - Get Report

(right), going to

Gap

(GPS) - Get Report

(right) and extending to

Kohl's

(KSS) - Get Report

(wrong) and

Nordstrom

(JWN) - Get Report

(dead wrong). I have always been recommending

GameStop

(GME) - Get Report

and

Costco

(COST) - Get Report

right through this.

To me, this is day one of this rally. The stocks are just so cheap that they can be owned for at least another 5% more before mortgage woes intervene and send us down again. In particular, I would buy

J.C. Penney

(JCP) - Get Report

, which is barely up and reports Thursday against an already guided-down number. (

Sears

(SHLD)

reports at the end of the month, but close readers know I am not pushing the stock.)

But the more important takeaway is that we have seen the worst in this group. If they get sold down again, you now know where to buy them.

At the time of publication, Cramer was long Sears Holdings.

What Bank of America Should Do but Won't

Originally published on Nov. 14 at 3:11 p.m. EST

Memo to

Bank of America

(BAC) - Get Report

: Shut up and buy. We know that as of Tuesday, Bank of America had $19 billion in China Construction Bank equity, which will get marked to market this quarter. When Bank of America starts selling this equity, it can easily take care of the $3 billion in losses it just mentioned.

But let's say Bank of America is radically wrong. Let's double the loss -- nah, let's take a page out of the pathetic

Citigroup

and

Merrill

(MER)

books and

triple

the loss.

You still have $10 billion left over.

What a fabulous chance to buy back stock! What a fabulous chance to bring in stock, which no one else is doing!

It's such a stupid thing, this reaction to this stock, given that asset. Again, remember that I am

tripling

the loss in my example. But no one believes in it.

In my scenario, the mortgage insurers go bust, the CDOs are marked down to $45 and the bank has a huge spike in bad home equity.

No one is talking about my scenario, which is incredibly bearish.

And yet I still want to be Bank of America over any of the others, except

Wells Fargo

(WFC) - Get Report

Does that mean you should buy Bank of America? No. It isn't going to do what I want.

I am, in this world, this banking world, a complete and utter nobody, or else Kerry Killinger at

Washington Mutual

(WM) - Get Report

would be gone, the mortgage insurers would be raising equity, and Chuck Prince would have been bounced when it still mattered, when Citigroup was at $50.

So don't listen to me; they don't.

Yet it seems so logical that maybe, just maybe, someone at Bank of America might take me seriously. Ken Lewis, the CEO, is fed up. He should cancel all conferences and get to buying hand over fist.

I have now spoken my mind. Bank of America is free to do the opposite.

Random musings

: That

Apache

(APA) - Get Report

story is still a good one. ...

Caterpillar

(CAT) - Get Report

is so hated that I guess it has to head to $65. Still like it though, because it is diversifying away from the U.S. ... Still liking Brazil. ...

Daktronics

(DAKT) - Get Report

is such a disaster. ... Good video with me and Farnoosh Torabi on

Lululemon

(LULU) - Get Report

check it out.

At the time of publication, Cramer was long Citigroup and Caterpillar.

The Market Needs a Cadaver

Originally published on Nov. 15 at 2:10 p.m. EST

Oh my, the 1990 pattern is just screaming here: inflation worries, no

Fed

help, and

Merck

(MRK) - Get Report

hitting a 52-week high.

Could it be more stark?

In 1990, it didn't even matter if you were a soft-goods maker that was doing terribly. Look at

P&G

(PG) - Get Report

; 52-week high off an

awful

quarter! So many people hated that quarter.

Johnson & Johnson

(JNJ) - Get Report

can't be contained.

Meanwhile, if it touches the economy at all, you can kiss it good-bye.

It seems so simple on days like this, and the up-300 day obliterated the simplicity. When you get an up-300 day, you simply laugh at that

Kellogg

(K) - Get Report

gain as being phony.

But in 1990, if you could finish up 6% courtesy of

General Mills

(GIS) - Get Report

and

Altria

(MO) - Get Report

, you were thrilled.

Put simply, we need a cadaver here, one of these banks, a

Corus

(CORS)

or a

BankUnited

(BKUNA)

to go under. We have to have a

Standard Pacific

(SPF)

go down. An

E*Trade

(ETFC) - Get Report

or a

Washington Mutual

(WM) - Get Report

. That way we can do an autopsy and find out where the real toxin is.

Otherwise, the Fed will take its cue from an up-300 day, not from one of these ugly days.

I don't wish ill for E*Trade. I want that firm to make it. But we need something, someone, to fail in order for us to need Fed intervention

now

Otherwise, it will be all of this inflationary blather right into the default of a major institution.

The Fed can read the

Bear

(BSC)

press release and the

JPMorgan

(JPM) - Get Report

conference call. Those make you feel just great about the U.S.

There couldn't be more false tells. As long as housing prices are going down, we are going to be in this cycle no matter what is said.

And only the Fed can hold that key until household creation expands and housing starts decline to levels below household expansion.

We are a year away from that.

A year of this kind of market will be enough to destroy a lot of capital. But that's what awaits us if the Fed says, "Hmm, Jimmy Cayne and Jamie Dimon say we are cool. We must be cool!"

Why doesn't he look at the stock of

Fannie Mae

(FNM)

?!? Now

that's

telling the truth!

Random musings

: Thanks

Morgan Stanley

(MS) - Get Report

for not gaffing the public on the

MSCI

(MXB)

deal. That was sweet. Danny Och, on the other hand, did us no favors with

Och-Ziff

(OZM)

. That last one is really stinking up the joint.

Please note that due to factors including low market capitalization and/or insufficient public float, we consider BankUnited and Standard Pacific to be a small-cap stock. You should be aware that such stocks are subject to more risk than stocks of larger companies, including greater volatility, lower liquidity and less publicly available information, and that postings such as this one can have an effect on their stock prices.

At the time of publication, Cramer was long Altria.

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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