The SEC’s charges against Goldman Sachs are not a reason to leave this market, Cramer said Friday. Stocks soon enough will settle down and their true driver will be back behind the wheel: corporate profits.
Sure, retail investors may find it hard to swallow Goldman’s alleged fraud. They may think back to Lehman Brothers, Bear Stearns and AIG and wonder who’s pulling Wall Street’s strings. Certainly someone has to be considering today’s revelation, right?
Absolutely not, Cramer said. In fact, he was adamant today about letting viewers know that “this is not a rigged game.”
Does corruption exist? No doubt. And Cramer likened the Lehman and Bear collapses, and maybe even Goldman, to that. But what really makes stocks rise and fall are the earnings of individual companies, which lately have been roaring back along with the world’s economies.
“And nothing we heard today about Goldman Sachs changes that,” Cramer said.
“It’s nuts,” he continued, to let this news scare you out of one of the market’s best stocks, Apple , or any of his favorite dividend plays for that matter, such as Coca-Cola or Verizon . Nor does it negate the great leadership at Ford and Starbucks , whose CEOs have engineered miraculous turnarounds. And it’s not a reason to give up on Intel and the thriving chip industry.
All it means is that investors have to take an active role in managing their money, Cramer said. Do the homework, keep your portfolio diversified, take profits when you have them. That way you’re in the best position possible when days like today happen.
Cramer's charitable trust owns Apple, Goldman Sachs and Intel.
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