As positive as General Motors’ public offering may be, it’s a “shame,” Cramer said, that retail investors are largely being left out of the deal.
The “Mad Money” host on Wednesday took issue with the Obama administration for not finding ways to include average Americans, especially when their tax dollars paid for GM’s bailout. Cramer had called for an auction on eBay as one possible option for selling shares to retail investors, but Washington never made any serious attempt to open up the IPO.
“This is an outrage. They had ample time to do it,” Cramer said during “Stop Trading.” “It is incredible to me that the so-called reformers and sheriffs of Wall Street went with same old, same old.”
Cramer noted the discrepancy between President Obama and his railing against the excesses of Wall Street’s fat cats and the hands-off approach to this deal by his deputy secretary of the Treasury, Neal Wolin, who is in charge of the GM IPO. Wolin from the start had decided that the government would stay out of the offering, leaving the underwriters to do their work. And now the only people who will profit, it seems, will be those Wall Street fat cats.
“Let’s speak in one voice here,” Cramer said, “the people’s voice.”
Wolin on Wednesday was in London making a speech at the London Stock Exchange.
But for those who can’t get in on the deal, Cramer recommended Ford’s preferred shares. He has been a big backer of the Ford common stock as well, saying that this is the better company and should end up trading higher as a result once GM comes public.
Also as a play on GM, investors should consider the rails. Norfolk Southern , Union Pacific and CSX are all raising rates, partly because of the increase in auto shipments. He called the return of General Motors “terrific” for this group.
“I like the rails,” Cramer said. “They are too cheap.”
Lastly, there are “major short squeezes” going on in retail, Cramer said. Watch the action in Urban Outfitters for proof of that.
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