Strong-Arm Stocks

There are stocks that can lead a portfolio the way a quarterback leads his team, Cramer said.

These are the best-of-breed companies that pull the rest of market with them as they move higher. Leader stocks are the first to rally off a bottom and they are the biggest gainers when the market turns up again.

So who are the best quarterbacks to lead a team against Bernanke and his inflation-obsessed Federal Reserve?

Exxon Mobile is the largest oil company on earth, Cramer said, and that sector is in a bull market Bernanke can’t touch. Recession or not, XOM will make money.

Schlumberger is another leader in that sector. But Cramer recommended waiting for a pullback. He expects SLB will come in the way Exxon did today because the Street thinks a Bernanke-led recession will cause a drop in demand for oil.

	Price		Change	%Change
DE		---
FWLT		---
HPQ		---
SLB		---
UTX		---
XOM		---

Hewlett-Packard, thanks to the leadership of CEO Mark Hurd, is now the largest manufacturer of PCs and printers in the world. Cramer said the stock “only knows how to go higher and higher.”

Deere is “incredible,” Cramer said. He called it a comeback stock from the depths of the farm recession. And while it might be thought of as an agriculture stock, Cramer sees it as an oil-services play.

United Technologies is a true ROWer, having its hands in the aerospace bull market and the global construction boom, Cramer said. CEO George David is a businessman Cramer has learned not to bet against.

Lastly, there’s Foster-Wheeler, which Cramer said was a great engineering and construction player with huge international exposure. And the more bio-fuels and ethanol are used, the more FWLT is levered to the worldwide infrastructure bull market.

Jim's charitable trust owns Hewlett-Packard.

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