'Honeywell Is the Buy' as GE Deals With Acquisition Issues

Jim Cramer says that Friday is ‘one of the most exciting days’ of earnings season ‘because Dave Cote of Honeywell (HON) is going to report.’ Honeywell is set to report before the market opens on Friday, July 17th. The industrial company is one of the stocks held in Jim Cramer’s charitable portfolio, Action Alerts PLUS. Cramer said that Nelson Peltz, activist investor and head of Trian Fund Management, said that Dave Cote ‘may be the great industrial CEO of his time.’ Cramer reiterated Peltz’s support saying that Honewell ‘is a terrific stock to own.’ Switching gears slightly, Cramer moved on to talk about GE (GE), who is also set to report earnings before the market opens on July 17th. Cramer says that ‘GE has been making a series of divestitures that has raised a lot of capital.’ But despite the sizable amount of capital raised, Cramer says that there are still ‘two open issues’ with the Fairfield based industrial company. Cramer’s first issue that he brings up is that the United States recently filed a lawsuit to stop GE from being able to sell its appliance business to the Swedish appliance manufacturer, Electrolux, who already owns major appliance companies like Fridgidaire and Kenmore. Cramer says GE’s second open issue is that it ‘hasn’t closed the French acquisition yet.’ The European Union Commission rose antitrust concerns about GE’s acquisition of the energy business at France’s Alstom. Cramer says that with these two issues, there are a lot of questions around what GE is ‘going to do with all that capital.’ In this situation, Cramer reiterates that he thinks Honeywell is still the buy.