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Nov.19

4:13 PM ET

Wednesday, 19 Nov 2008

Voice of Cramerica: Don't "Pin" Your Hopes

Posted By:Cliff Mason

Topics:Mad Money | Stock Picks | Stock Market

Companies:Hewlett-Packard Co | United Technologies Corp | Honeywell International Inc | Precision Castparts Corporation | Boeing Co

Cliff Mason
Senior Writer
Mad Money

We talk about "pin action" a lot on Mad Money, by far our favorite bowling metaphor. In the past, for example, when a big company like Boeing[BA Loading... ()

] has reported a good quarter or some other piece of good news (not something we've seen much of lately) we look for the pin action off of that -- the companies that make what goes into Boeing's airplanes: Precision Castparts [PCP Loading... ()

], Honeywell [HON Loading... ()

], or United Technologies [UTX Loading... ()

], to name a few.

On tonight's show Jim talked about how there is no pin action off of Hewlett-Packard's [HPQ Loading... ()

] positive earnings preannouncement because nearly every other technology company has reported pretty dire results and said things are awful.

That begs the question, if there's no pin action in tech when a big company like Hewlett-Packard with a lot of inputs does well, should we stop relying on pin action in other sectors? Is this economy so awful that only a handful of the strong can survive? Have we reached a point where what's good for one company is good for that company and that company alone?

I wouldn't go that far. But I'd take Jim's discussion of Hewlett-Packard on tonight's show as a cautionary tail. Be careful before you chase any pin action off of other companies with good results -- not that there are many of them in this market anyway.

Cliff Mason is the Senior Writer of CNBC's Mad Money w/Jim Cramer, and has been that program's primary writer, in cooperation with and under the supervision of Jim Cramer, since he began at CNBC as an intern during the summer of 2005. Mason was the author of a column at TheStreet.com during 2007, which he describes as "hilarious, if short-lived." He graduated from Harvard College in 2007. It was at Harvard that Mason learned to multi-task, mastering the art of seeming to pay attention to professors while writing scripts for Mad Money. Mason has co-written two books with Jim Cramer: Jim Cramer's Mad Money: Watch TV, Get Rich and Stay Mad For Life: Get Rich, Stay Rich (Make Your Kids Even Richer). He is 100% responsible for any parts of either book that you did not like.

Mason has also had a fruitful relationship with Jim Cramer as his nephew for the last 23 years and will hopefully continue to hold that position for many more as long as he doesn't do anything to get himself kicked out of the family.

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