Jim Cramer was shocked when someone who is bearish on the market suddenly found five stocks in the that he actually likes.
Bruce Kamich is a technician and colleague of Cramer's at RealMoney.com and he's had a bearish perspective lately. So, when he said he was bullish on Flowserve, FMC Corp, Franklin Resources, Helmerich & Payne and NRG Energy, Cramer decided to dig deeper.
"Of the five stocks our bearish chartist Bruce Kamich likes here, four of them … seem like buys to me," the "Mad Money" host said.
The first was Flowserve, which makes pumps and valves for the oil, gas, refining and chemicals market. On the surface, it seemed like a total loser to Cramer, because it is guiding down for pretty much everything. However, when he did his homework, he was stunned.
Cramer actually found that things are stabilizing, not getting worse; at the same time Flowserve is closing, selling or downsizing 13 plans and reducing its workforce by 15 to 20 percent. Cramer thought the story sounded like it was bottoming from the tone of questioners on its conference call, so he called this one a buy.
FMC is another one that shocked Cramer. The company has transformed and gotten out of the alkali chemical business and has now become the eighth largest crop protection company. FMC makes lithium for Panasonic, which in turn makes car batteries for Tesla. On Monday, FMC announced it would triple its lithium capacity in order to serve the fast growing electric-vehicle industry.
"Given the incredible land grab in agriculture … the eighth largest company in this space might be worth speculating on, particularly since FMC has a market cap of just $6 billion," Cramer said.
Kamich also liked Helmerich & Payne, but Cramer didn't concur. The oil-and-gas decline crushed this larger land-based drilling company. It has 347 rigs, and 263 are idle. It managed to cut costs and beat estimates when it reported, but that didn't change Cramer's mind.
"I think oil can trade up to $50 but not much beyond that. And at $50, this company's fortunes will not be aligned positively," Cramer said.
Cramer attributed the positive technical for this company because it is viewed as a logical takeover target for Halliburton after its huge deal with Baker Hughes was nixed. However, he won't recommend a stock on a takeover basis if the fundamentals are in a decline. Thus, he says he would much rather own Schlumberger.
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