Jim Cramer's Best Blogs
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:
- evidence of an economic turn,
- a four-letter frenzy, and
- the church of momentum.
for information on
RealMoney
, where you can see all the blogs, including Jim Cramer's -- and reader comments -- in real time.
You Want Proof of an Economic Recovery?
Posted at 1:21 p.m. EDT, April 27, 2009
Don't trust
Whirlpool
(WHR) - Get Report
? Don't trust the anecdotal evidence of a bottoming in economic activity? Then take a look at the Texas Manufacturing Outlook Survey that came out today from the
Federal Reserve
Bank of Dallas:
"The decline in Texas manufacturing activity slowed in April," the survey said. "Although still negative, the business activity index -- the survey's broadest measure of state manufacturing trends -- saw improvement as the share of companies reporting better market conditions rose from March to April. The company outlook index strengthened, recovering the ground lost since September."
There. That's it. That's the real sign that the depression that began after the federally mandated collapse of
Lehman Brothers
is now over.
You can imagine what these numbers mean for the U.S. economy given how big Texas is for the nation. You can imagine everything from the technology industries to the oil industry showing recovery, as both are big in Texas, and you can assume it is a microcosm of the country given the tentacles of its industry.
I don't care what you buy off this survey, a
Schlumberger
(SLB) - Get Report
, a
Dell
(DELL) - Get Report
, an
Exxon
(XOM) - Get Report
, or a
Wal-Mart
(WMT) - Get Report
or
Best Buy
(BBY) - Get Report
--restocking plays -- the point is we have genuine empirical evidence of a turn, and it couldn't be more spot-on than this survey.
Again, this is a reason to be more bullish even as people feel less bullish with each up week.
At the time of publication, Cramer was long Wal-Mart.
Four-Letter Frenzy
Posted at 1:24 p.m. EDT, April 28, 2009
Don't look now, but the
Nasdaq
is up 7% year to date, and that's just too glaring to be ignored. Performance is a magnet when it comes to stocks and the magnet is in four letters. Originally it was just the four horsemen --
Apple
(AAPL) - Get Report
,
(GOOG) - Get Report
,
Research In Motion
(RIMM)
and
Amazon
(AMZN) - Get Report
-- and while those stocks, all of which I like, keep powering higher, we are starting to get something really broad happening here with the biotechs starting to move --
Gilead
(GILD) - Get Report
,
Celgene
(CELG) - Get Report
and
Biogen
(BIIB) - Get Report
-- and some of the networking techs -- notably
Juniper
(JNPR) - Get Report
,
Cienna
(CIEN) - Get Report
and
Cisco
(CSCO) - Get Report
. If this move goes double digits, I believe portfolio managers will go nuts for tech and take
Qualcomm
(QCOM) - Get Report
to $50 and
Intel
(INTC) - Get Report
to $17 and
Microsoft
(MSFT) - Get Report
and
Oracle
(ORCL) - Get Report
to $22. I also like
eBay
(EBAY) - Get Report
and
Yahoo!
(YHOO)
as restructuring laggards.
The process of these teenage Nazz moves intrigues: They have big one-day moves of a point or two and then they creep higher, which is really what is going on with Cisco and
Comcast
(CMCSA) - Get Report
right now.
Then there are the big dogs like Apple and Google that get fewer and fewer research adherents but get more and more mutual fund fans. Plus the shorts are, as usual, taking them up because they were short on valuation and then the companies blew away the numbers.
The move's got legs and will get more of them if it finishes up April as strong as the last month.
Random musings
:
IBM
(IBM) - Get Report
doesn't hurt the tech cause with a nice dividend boost and a big buyback. That's some stock!
At the time of publication, Cramer was long Qualcomm, Cisco, Gilead and Celgene.
Call Me a Convert in the Church of Momentum
Posted at 1:01 p.m. EDT, April 30, 2009
Mutual fund managers have worshipped at the altar of price momentum for the last month, and it is working like gangbusters.
OK, maybe not today, at this moment, because President Obama is freaking people out with his lecture about how to build cars. That kind of intervention is putting him in the position of president and dictator. But I think that the momentum's just taking a break -- maybe even a nap at the rest area -- and nothing more than that, because of the bids that live endlessly underneath the market.
Yep, as painful as it is, I have seen the worshippers, I know the worshippers, and they are positively Taliban-like in their zeal and their desire to make everyone prisoner; no rational power can stop them when they are pushing their agenda and punishing nonbelievers.
Yep, Doug Kass is right in his "
second derivative
" piece, dead right -- the worshippers at the altar of price momentum are in charge, and you can tell, especially from the runaway
Nasdaq
, that they must be obeyed.
And that's where I disagree with
Doug
. I can't fight them. It has never worked for me except for at huge turning points, especially a major economic turning point, but the problem is -- and it is a big problem -- this turning point is positive, not negative, and the vehicles that the momentum people are pounding higher --
Apple
(AAPL) - Get Report
,
(GOOG) - Get Report
,
Intel
(INTC) - Get Report
,
Microsoft
(MSFT) - Get Report
,
Cisco
(CSCO) - Get Report
,
Qualcomm
(QCOM) - Get Report
,
Amazon
(AMZN) - Get Report
,
Research In Motion
(RIMM)
-- are companies that I think are still undervalued.
All the data I look at on the macro level, whether it be the decline in copper inventories or the increase in personal consumption, whether it be the coming U.S. stimulus or the ongoing Chinese stimulus, whether it be the still-low inflation or the still-low interest rates, whether it be the coming housing bottom -- all of them say the price-momentum worshippers are worshipping in the right pew.
Plus, if these great tech guns can do this well in the single worst environment I have ever seen, and because I believe everyone will soon recognize that things are getting better, people will have to join up and will be converted in increasing numbers.
When Apple, Intel, Research In Motion, Microsoft, Cisco,
Oracle
(ORCL) - Get Report
and Qualcomm were at much higher prices, things were about to get really ugly. Now they are much lower and things are about to get much better.
I am
in the pew with them
. Call me a convert. They've got the right hymns, and I am in there singing with the choir, as we are still well below where we were and the future is much brighter. I am, in another way, all-in with Dougie's thinking on the
and probably won't get off until we hit his
.
The rest is just a distraction, and a chance to buy more. I am not talking with my mouth, but with my money, as anyone can see from
.
I just wish I were longer.
At the time of publication, Cramer was long Cisco and Qualcomm.
Jim Cramer is co-founder and chairman 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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