When Treasury Secretary Tim Geithner says there will be no Lehman Brothers-like catastrophic collapse in Europe, you should listen, Cramer said Wednesday. And that’s exactly what many investors did, with stocks ending sharply higher.
The “Mad Money” host was referring to the interview he did with GeithnerWednesday morning at Delivering Alpha Conference presented by CNBC and Institutional Investor.
“(Geithner's) been around long enough to know that it isn't worth it to make claims ruling out a Lehman-style event even if there's even a scintilla of a chance that there will be one,” Cramer said.
Cramer said Geithner is counting on “crony capitalism.” In other words, the people running the big European banks are “so close, so clubby and so cozy” with the regulators and finance ministers that the idea of a Lehman-like shutdown is inconceivable because the regulators and ministers are ready to ensure that their friends won’t be hurt.
Because of Geithner’s comments, Cramer said investors simply could not be as bearish about the world.
So if we take those comments at face value and we get more rumors that something like Lehman is going to occur, what should you buy on that weakness?
Cramer has his eye on a number of tech names, including German software giant SAP , whose business has been doing well but has been kept down by European woes. He also likes Apple and Juniper, which has been crushed in valuation to the point where not much can hurt it. Google remains a “terrific play on mobile” and has been making big inroads in Europe, he said. Finally, Salesforce.com reported a terrific quarter and has a European business that isn’t faltering.
Cramer’s bottom line—when Tim Geithner says there will be no more Lehmans and that the Europeans won't let it happen, the market reverts a little more to the fundamentals.
“And the fundamentals simply aren't bad enough to warrant selling,” he said, “and instead, next time we plummet back to Dow 10,700 and change on rumors that the next Lehman's about to occur, I think it will be time to buy.”
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When this story was published, Cramer’s charitable trust owned Apple and Juniper.
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