FEATURED SLIDESHOW
Who Is The Worst CEO?Mad Money needed new inductees for its
Wall of Shame, so we asked viewers for
nominations.
RECENT POSTS
- Time to Buy Treasurys?
- Lightning Round: Las Vegas Sands, ADC Telecom, Satyam Computer and More
- Lightning Round OT: Knight Capital, Ebix and More
- Is Lear, Back From Bankruptcy, a Buy?
- Sanofi-Aventis Falling Off a Patent Cliff?
- Cramer: Your Thanksgiving Week Game Plan
- Cramer: Next Week Should Define Rest of ‘09
- Mad Money: Mad Mail: Buy RIM or Apple?
- Lightning Round: Cisco Systems, Citigroup, Baidu.com and More
- Lightning Round OT: Martek Biosciences, Valmont Industries and More
MAD MONEY FEATURES
PODCASTSWatch the Lightning Round whenever and wherever you want.
OFFICIAL MAD MONEY WIDGETGrab this all-in-one application and get recaps of the show sent right to your desktop or blog.
CRAMERS SOUNDBOARDAdmit it: You've always wanted to hit the "They
know nothing!" button. Here’s your chance.
CHECK OUT OUR PHOTOSCheck out Cramer on set, back to school, behind the scenes and more.
SHOP FOR MAD MERCHANDISEBuy Cramer books, bobbleheads and other Mad Money merchandise.
RING TONESPick up the phone! It's Cramer! New Mad Money sounds for your cell phone.
TEXT MESSAGE ALERTMad Money's mobile. Get show highlights sent to your phone.
Text Size 
Thank Meredith Whitney for the Dow’s 185-point gain on Monday, and the S&P 500’s 22-point bump. But not because she said anything revelatory, mind you. The market reacted positively to the bank analyst’s call simply because she had been negative all along. When one of Wall Street’s biggest bears goes bullish, Cramer said, stocks move.
Whitney surprised investors this morning when she rated Goldman Sachs [GS
Loading...
()
] a buy and predicted a better-than-expected earnings report from the bank on Tuesday. She had positive things to say about Bank of America [BAC
Loading...
()
] as well, and the sector as a whole, but her announcement still came after a similar call by The New York Times over the weekend. Yep, even the Grey Lady beat Whitney to the punch – as did virtually every other analyst, Cramer said – so it’s not like she wowed investors with her foresight.
The significance of the call was a loss of standing for all other bears. With Whitney defecting to the opposite camp, the naysayers, including the media, lost their legitimacy. Cramer has talked relentlessly about journalists’ constant search for the most attention-grabbing headlines, which usually entail doom and gloom. But they won’t have such an easy time of it now, and that leaves more room for the bulls to state their case.
Cramer saw the chance to finally put problems like housing into context. The media seemed to predict that 50% of the 14 million mortgages issued between 2005 and 2007 would default. Do the math: 7 million homes times an average of $200,000 per mortgage equals $1.4 trillion. It’s an enormous number, no doubt, but here’s the catch: The banks have already written off more than that.
That 7 million number is a worst-case scenario anyway, Cramer said, but even if it were right the banks have taken those losses into account. That means the worst case has already been priced in, a fact that bears haven’t been willing to admit. But Whitney’s announcement today may force them to do so.
The bottom line? Here’s yet another reason not to quit, Cramer said, “because you never know when the bear on the other side of the trade is as exhausted as you are.”
Cramer's charitable trust owns Bank of America and Goldman Sachs.
Call Cramer: 1-800-743-CNBC
Questions for Cramer?
Questions, comments, suggestions for the Mad Money website?
Data is a real-time snapshot *Data is delayed at least 15 minutes