Jim Cramer on Oil Stocks and Opportunities for Consolidation

Jim Cramer, portfolio manager at Action Alerts PLUS, sat down with research director Jack Mohr to discuss the Action Alerts PLUS portfolio as they enter into the second half of the year. The portfolio has been up 2.4% while the S&P has been up only 0.2%, but as Mohr points out, the one sector that has been lagging has been in energy. There are five oil companies in the AAP portfolio: Occidental Petroleum (OXY), Marathon Oil Corp (MRO), EOG Resources (EOG), Energy Transfer Partners (ETP), and Schlumberger (SLB). Cramer and Mohr like these oil names for their excellent market position and leadership and their ability to wade the current storm of low oil prices and political instability. Cramer says that these stocks are valued as if the price of oil were in the low $40’s despite the fact that the price of oil is now over $50. Cramer says that even if the price of oil were to drop below $50, it would not hurt the valuations for these stocks much. But what Cramer really likes about the space is that ‘there’s going to be mergers here’ because ‘the stocks are too cheap.’