Down big in the first half of the year, up big in the second – that is Cramer’s latest investing thesis.

The Mad Money host found a number of stocks, culled from the S&P 500’s worst-performing sectors, that he thinks offers a tremendous amount of snapback potential. One of them, in fact, has lost almost half its value so far in 2010, but Cramer said it could end up being one of the best stocks to own over the next six months.

The others, whose loses may not be as severe, still stand up as very attractive buys for the rest of the year, Cramer said. Investors who agree with him probably want to buy in now, as these picks won’t stay secret for long.

Read on for the Top 6 Comeback Stocks of 2010.

Posted 26 July 2010

When Cramer highlighted Verizon on July 12, the stock had fallen 15% over the first six months of 2010. They may come as little surprise given that telecommunications was the S&P 500’s worst-of-the-worst sector over the same time period, but Cramer is expecting a turnaround here, at least for Verizon.

He said the company holds “huge opportunities” in the wireless space, where it owns 55% of the second-largest carrier in the industry, Verizon Wireless. And with the “reaffirmed rumors” that the company will start selling the Apple iPhone in January 2011, “I think … Verizon should lead the industry in terms of market share gains,” given how much of a game-changer the handset was for AT&T.

And that’s not even taking into account smartphones as a whole. Only 17% of the company’s wireless subscribers own true smartphones, leaving open a huge opportunity for revenue growth as they make the switch.

Click here for more on Verizon.

Cramer thinks this graphics chipmaker, down 40% in the first half of the year, should snap back thanks to a number of new revenue-driving products for gaming PCs, notebooks, netbooks tablets and smartphones. There’s also new visual computing software, like Adobe’s Creative Suite 5, require NVIDIA’s high-end semiconductors, also giving a boost to revenues.

The company’s ION chips for notebook computers are in 70 laptop designs, 50 of which are scheduled to start production in the next six months. And NVIDIA’s chip for smartphones and tablets should be in a whole slew of products that are also going into production during the last part of the year.

For these reasons, NVDA should be ramping ahead of these products launches, not losing nearly half its share-price value. And that’s why Cramer thinks the stock could be “one of the biggest gainers in the second half” of 2010.

Click here for more on NVIDIA.

Oddly, Jabil’s stock took a 15% hit over the first two quarters of the year, even though the company’s June 22 earnings report showed a business that is firing on all cylinders. The problem? Too much exposure to Europe – as much as 31% of Jabil’s production ends up on the Continent – and that has sent investors running.

According to the company, though, there has been no slowdown in business there. So that collective freak-out was all for naught. And as Europe comes back, Cramer said, so should JBL. Investors might consider buying the stock now given how cheap it is.

Click here for more on Jabil Circuit.

The catalyst for this stock’s rebound will most likely be study that Range Resource conducted on its drilling practices that flew in the face of environmentalists everywhere.

Hydraulic fracturing, or fracking, is a process by which natural-gas drillers like RRC use large amounts of water with some chemical additives to boost production, and there had been concerns from both environmentalists and the Environmental Protection Agency that it could contaminate drinking water – even though there never been any documented cases of that contamination.

Well, Range Resources in July disclosed that , for its Marcellus shale wells, 99.86% of its drilling fluid consists of water and sand, with just 0.14% comprising highly diluted chemicals. RRC was the first company to “open its books,” so to speak, in this way, and RRC rallied accordingly.

“I think maybe this the beginning of a major turn in the stock,” Cramer said.

Click here for more on Range Resources.

This health-care company lost 11.4% of its value this year, in part, because of its exposure to Europe – 24% of the company's sales come from the Continent. But Cramer thinks this will become less of an issue in the second half of the year, as CEO Miles White has vowed to take a conservative stance on European business.

Cramer also likes the pharmaceutical company's range of drugs and little exposure to generics. Its flagship product, Humira, is a psoriasis drug and anti-inflammatory, which makes up 35% of the company's sales and is growing by 20%.

The Abbott Park, Ill.-based company is also making "savvy" acquisitions in emerging markets, including India, which is an $8 billion pharmaceutical market that's expected to double in size by 2015.

Plus, the company boasts a 3.6% dividend yield and, for the last 38 years, has increased its payout every year. 2010 should be no different, Cramer said, because it's growing earnings at 11% annually, which is twice the pace of other pharmaceuticals.

Click here for more on Abbott Labs.

This West Chester, Ohio-based steel company struggled in the first half of the year, posting a 37% decline year-to-date. Cramer didn't like this stock at first because it's not a vertically-integrated steel maker, meaning it doesn't have its own mines and needs to buy its primary raw materials. In other words, AK Steel's operating costs were very high.

But Cramer thinks this stock could be poised for a turnaround, as those costs have since plummeted. He also likes the company's management, who reduced the employee headcount by 30% while maintaining the same production capacity. At the same time, the company has used more than $2 billion of internally generated cash to shore up its balance sheet. It has also managed to muddle through the recession without selling equity, issuing debt or cutting its small dividend, which has a 1.4% yield.

Click here for more on AK Steel.