hallo,
ich wäre ganz vorsichtig mit den optionsscheinen.
zu wachrütteln hänge ich einen artikel an der mir besonders gut gefallen hat.
viel spass beim lesen
Jim Cramer
06/16/11 - 12:42 PM EDT
This column by Jim Cramer appeared earlier Thursday on RealMoney. Click here for a free trial, and enjoy incisive commentary all day, every day.
Sometimes I tire of doom and gloom. I get exhausted by it because it sounds so dire, so catastrophic. So why not take advantage of a non-catastrophic moment to address the gloomiest scenario imaginable?
Earlier I wrote about the assumption, and it is an assumption at this point, of a "Lehman moment." I think the Europeans will postpone what many believe is the inevitable, but let's give you the inevitable and figure, like the commentators say, that the center will not hold.
So why not play it out? Why not give you the end-of-the-world Armageddon thesis, if only to have you be able to say, "OK, I see it, I want to sidestep it." I bring this up because we know what a Lehman moment does. I know I have been castigated for having told people to sell stocks to raise money for anything they might need for five years, a solid attempt by me to really warn people who were counting on stocks for retirement and college tuition when we were at Dow 11,000 and Dow 10,300.
The assumption at the time was that things were bad -- like now -- but that it was worth buying and holding and "riding it out."
I didn't think so. I thought it was better to sidestep it and then come back when the coast was clear, a moment that was called both by my friend the late Mark Haines on CNBC and by our own Doug Kass here, the so-called generational bottom.
I got bullish 5,400 points ago because Haines and Kass got bullish and because I couldn't see much more downside unless JPMorgan(JPM) failed, Bank of America(BAC) failed and many of the Dow stocks cut their dividends. I don't have a lot of pride of authorship. I would rather just be right.
Interestingly enough, the criticism of my "get out and get in" move had to do with the fact that we came back up, so why bother to sell? There was very little consideration of how great it is to avoid big losses and then get big gains. It's fantastic, but the greybeards somehow say it is the same as staying the course. They are wrong, but they have the microphone and the mindshare, not me.
Think of it like this, right now: If we were going to have somewhat of a repeat of the 2008-09 catastrophe, which is becoming perceived wisdom, if not consensus, let me give you what you would be sidestepping. So here is the terrible follow-up to the 2008-09 crash if you think that Europe's "Lehman" will arguably trigger a scenario that's the worst since the Great Depression. I am still ruling out the Great Depression, because the safety nets don't disappear, even as the strands of it have already been strained.
Throw in the towel and buy lower and later if you think the worst is coming. Or stay the course. At this point, the choice is yours, and I don't want to make it for you. I did it last time and didn't get much credit for it, even though I was right, and even that is being disputed, although I don't know how that can be. I tire of criticism, so let me lay it out. You decide whether you want the pain.
Here's the worst-case scenario:
- Greece defaults. Presumably that reveals all of the credit default weaknesses where banks and insurers, chiefly in Europe, go belly-up. So do Portugal and Ireland. Spain, too. We get a Latin American moment where huge amounts of debts are canceled and reissued in the form of bonds that nobody wants, but at least the hit is taken.
- The hit wipes out a huge number of foreign banks which, we discover, had insured the government paper and the bank paper that went under. We have the equivalent of Lehman, Bear, AIG, Fannie, Freddie. Washington Mutual and Wachovia. Throw in a Citigroup(C). These banks are closed or merged by the surviving countries' financial institutions.
- Huge layoffs occur, and Europe is thrown into a great recession. Companies with decent balance sheets that have decent yields become accidental high-yielders and become attractive, because companies have much better balance sheets than governments do.
- The recession pulls down the U.S. because of the tie-ins and the collapse of at least two or three banks that have hidden exposure to Europe. We learn about it too late. These banks are merged with healthy banks that raised a lot of capital. But the stocks get hammered close to 2008-2009 lows.
- Big layoffs happen here because of Europe. Our economy wasn't growing anyway. We're sinking under the weight of higher commodity prices and Washington dithering and a president who hasn't succeeded in creating a lot of jobs.
- Money goes, again, from risky stocks into higher-yielding companies that weren't higher yielding that long ago. Safety stocks rally because commodities collapse and their margins widen. This move happens on the way down.
- New leadership emerges that is basically of the Coca-Cola(KO)-Pepsi(PEP) variety, as all industrials are hammered back to accidental high-yield levels. These stocks, along with the knock-offs and the pharmas, don't need growth. They are winners.
- China stops tightening because commodities have collapsed and wage inflation ends. That stems the decline in the likes of Caterpillar(CAT) and United Technologies(UTX).
- Many companies fall back to their cash levels. .The companies buy back their stock, but they were buying at the highs so it doesn't matter.
- People leave the market in droves and stocks go to P/Es of 10 or lower, but it turns out the earnings aren't there, so the P/Es are actually about 14-15, which is historic norm territory.
- We get close to a 63% pullback of the entire run of 6000 Dow run. Let's say we touch 7500 on the Dow. There are bargains galore. No one wants them.
- We bottom out at levels that aren't as bad as 2009 but are really bad, and people have had it with the market. We bottom because sellers are exhausted and earnings turn out to be bad but not terrible.
There. Now you have it. This is it. You have a big down road ahead.
The Warren Buffetts of the world will say to ignore the decline because America is great.
Meredith Whitney and Nouriel Roubini are hailed as geniuses again.
If you a.) think Armageddon can happen and b.) want to skip Armageddon now, you know what you will skip. The stock market will still open. There will be lots of companies with stocks that are driven down below what they are worth. People with fresh cash will get a terrific opportunity, and others will be vaporized.
And that's that. You make the call!
At the time of publication, Cramer was long BAC, KO and CAT.