Patience, Oracle Watchers

JJC wants to use the potential bad news to buy -- but not before he sees what it really is.

Author:: Jim Cramer
Publish date:: May 13, 1999 10:50 AM EDT

Can

Oracle

trump the rest of tech? The negative premeeting stuff about Oracle, coupled with its immense insistence on linking itself to the Net, has stalled the NDX on what otherwise would seem to be a ramp kind of day.

How annoying. This whole tech tape has moved off the October bottom without Oracle. So I think it is quite WRONG that we would all be held hostage by a company stuck in a tough industry and hamstrung by ragged competitors.

I know my partner,

Jeff Berkowitz

, and I are worried that if Oracle is as negative as the

Lashinskys

indicate, then they will pull down everybody. Remember, few companies ever say, "You know, we are doing a terrible job executing and everything in the world is rosy." What they say is, "The tech market is not as strong as you think," or "Tech is soft right now." They never blame themselves.

This blame-the-industry-not-the-company rap is time-honored by the also-rans. How many times did

AMD

(AMD) - Get Report

blame the industry?

Compaq

(CPQ)

, under

Pfeiffer

, became a real industry-blamer. Disk-drive companies always blame the industry (hmmm, there they could be right). By the way, has anybody ever heard

Cisco

(CSCO) - Get Report

blame the industry? Or

Michael Jordan

, for that matter?

All I can say is, around

Cramer Berkowitz

we use these Oracle-created opportunities as good times to buy -- but not today, tomorrow. In the a.m.

No sense jumping the gun if Oracle is really bad. Plenty of opportunities await us. It's kind of like those post-Christmas sales. Why not wait if you don't have to buy? You know the merchandise will be on sale.

Patience.

James J. Cramer is manager of a hedge fund and co-founder of TheStreet.com. At time of publication, his fund was long Cisco. His fund often buys and sells securities that are the subject of his columns, both before and after the columns are published, and the positions that his fund takes may change at any time. Under no circumstances does the information in this column represent a recommendation to buy or sell stocks. Cramer's writings provide insights into the dynamics of money management and are not a solicitation for transactions. While he cannot provide investment advice or recommendations, he invites you to comment on his column at

letters@thestreet.com.