Cramer: Weird Tech Dichotomy Explains A Lot
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If you look at the price action in ChannelAdvisor and Hewlett Packard you may see similarities. But it's the small differences that Crammer says matters more.
"Both Channel Advisor and Hewlett Packard were the two stand-out names in the market on Thursday, with both making significant gains. "Yet, they represent the polar opposites of the tech spectrum," Cramer said.
It doesn't really make sense for a stalwart technology titan like Hewlett Packard and a nimble young player like Channel Advisor to both lead the sector, does it?
Dig down and Cramer thinks you'll find a phenomenon that explains a lot.
Looking at Hewlett-Packard, the stock soared after the company reported better than expected earnings.
Although the results showed a year over year decline, it still showed net income of $1.08 billion, or 55 cents a share, in the fiscal second quarter. Although revenue declined year over year it totaled $27.58 billion.
The takeaway on Wall Street was that HP continues to operate profitably and CEO Meg Whitman has gotten the balance sheet under control. Immediately value investors hopped on the stock as a bet the stock was oversold.
By contrast, "ChannelAdvisor is a brand new company, that and it's losing money," Cramer explained. In fact, the company plans to lose money for a while. "They stated right in the offering that it expects "operating expenses to increase significantly in the foreseeable future which may make it more difficult to achieve profitability."
However, Channel Advisor is a leading player in the placement of ads on the Internet. "That's a growth business," said Cramer. "In fact it has the potential to become the dominant cloud play for retail sales."
Immediately growth investors, hopped on the stock as a bet the company may have a sharp upward trajectory of growth and profits.
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As a result, Thursday's session ended with gains in both HP and ChannelAdvisor. That's an important dichotomy. "It's almost a bipolar style of investment," he said.
And it suggests that just because a category of stock stages a rally, it may be a mistake to immediately extrapolate a conclusion, broadly. Although all buyers may all be bulls, they may have a very different agendas.
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