Cramer Will Be Watching DuPont Earnings in Case of Guidance Downgrades

Jim Cramer will be watching DuPont (DD) next week when the company reports earnings. The American chemical company is going to be reporting earnings on Tuesday, July 28th before the market’s opening bell. Cramer reminds his viewers of the ‘very, very intense proxy struggle’ between activist investor Nelson Peltz’s investment firm, Tiran Fund Management, and DuPont. The struggle was over Peltz’s attempt to force himself onto DuPont’s board and push Trian’s plan to split DuPont up into multiple companies after Trian Fund invested $1.8 billion into the chemical company. Cramer says that ‘Trian lost in part because the index funds voted with management of DuPont.’ DuPont is not part of Cramer’s charitable portfolio, Action Alerts PLUS, however Dupont’s competitor, Dow Chemical (DOW) is in the portfolio. Dow Chemical reported earnings on Thursday, July 23rd that beat earnings expectations on the bottom line, however the top line sales showed a significant drop from the $14.9 billion earned in the second quarter of 2014 down to the $12.9 earned in its second quarter for 2015. In regards to Dow Chemical’s latest earnings release, Cramer says, ‘we thought the quarter was good,’ however this was a contrarian view given that ‘the stock got completely killed.’ Cramer says that one of the reasons the stock was doing poorly was actually because of agriculture. But while agriculture was hurting Dow Chemical, Cramer says that DuPont will not have the same problem.