Friday, March 29, 2024
Homemad moneyCramer: Rally will reverse—rare chance to buy this

Cramer: Rally will reverse—rare chance to buy this

Before anyone gets caught up in the euphoria of Monday's rally, Jim Cramer warned not to get too excited. Any opportunity that lingers in the market will certainly not be derived from Monday's action.

"I suggest you take a breath and do some thinking, because I bet this move will reverse itself later this week," the "Mad Money" host said.

Instead, Cramer thinks it is best to look in his favorite place for new ideas—the list of stocks that hit a 52-week high from last week.

Excluding stocks of companies that were acquired, Cramer saw an amazing coincidence. There were exactly 60 new highs and 60 new lows, and most were somehow related to oil and gas.

"I think this was a countertrend day, and the themes that dominated last week will reassert themselves going forward," Cramer said.

Under Armour logo on batting glovesThearon W. Henderson | Getty Images

With this in mind, Cramer went through the new high list to see what themes have been winners. There were eight groups with significant new high activity.

The food and beverage stocks were the top performing group, which Cramer attributed to the fact that most of these companies are huge consumers of commodities, and oil has been in free-fall lately. It also had the most merger & acquisition activity.

However, the strength of the food and beverage names indicated to Cramer that the economy is much weaker than the employment numbers indicate, and if the Fed tightens too soon we could be in big trouble.

That means that big players like Kellogg, General Mills, Mondelez and Campbell Soup should be bought into weakness. Cramer's top pick? WhiteWave Foods.

The second group was the med-tech names, with Stericycle, Bard and Becton Dickinson as the leaders. Cramer's suggestion would be for a consistent company that wasn't on the list—dental supply kingpin Henry Schein.

Third were the home-related stocks, which mostly pertained to furniture and materials, used to buy homes. One odd thing that stood out to Cramer was that there was only one actual homebuilder on the list, DR Horton. Cramer preferred Lennar for its breadth and strong management, or Lowe's.

Read more from Mad Money with Jim Cramer

Cramer interpreted the strength of this group as meaning that more people would rather invest in their current home than to purchase a new one because of scarcity of value, higher rents and better job growth.

"I don't think this theme will be knocked off kilter by the first rate hike. That said, I don't think it could survive a second rate hike in rapid succession," Cramer said.

Travel and leisure were also on the list, but only the bargain names like Priceline, Expedia and Royal Caribbean. There were no hotels, airlines or restaurants on the list except for Chipotle. Cramer wondered if either investors don't believe that oil will stay down or that the non-bargain names have become too competitive and lost their luster.

Next up were the information technology outsourcing firms, like Accenture, Cognizant and Equifax. Cramers thinks the strength showed that many money managers want to have tech in their portfolio, but are hiding in these IT outsourcing blocks because they are so afraid of actual technology. Some of it is related to the strong dollar, and some is related to the recent pullback of Apple.

Athletic apparel was also a huge strength on the list. Cramer thinks there must be something going on here, because Nike and Under Armour keep showing up on the list. It's almost as if consumers are only willing to pay up for fitness, which would link to known millennial behavior.

Finally, there are the cats and dogs of the group that Cramer referred to as "special situations" because they defy traditional rubrics. These are stocks like Snap-On, Advanced Auto Parts and Netflix. They are all buy, buy, buys.

So while it was slim pickings on the new-high list last week, a dedicated investor can certainly find a few opportunities still out there.

"Given that these stocks are all winners if and when we get a rate hike, they make plenty of sense, even on a countertrend day like this one," Cramer said.

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