Jim Cramer shares his views every day on RealMoney. Click here for a real-time look at his insights and musings.

Cramer: Banks Be Nimble, Banks Be Quick

Posted at 2:37 p.m. EDT on Tuesday, Jan. 31, 2017



Remember when lower rates were a good thing?

These lower rates are crushing the bank portion of the rally and you simply can't afford to lose the banks for long.

Why?

Because of the holders.

I have been peeking at my Twitter account. Can only peek because after the market's down a couple of days in a row then it becomes my fault for everything, and it's too much of a drag to do anything but just skim the mentions.

I am principally being blamed for being pro-bank stock, a posture I have had ever since Trump won because I expected and still expect an economic expansion that would help the banks.

After a couple of down days, though, caused by actions taken by Trump that trump his own business agenda, the holders are restless. They don't want to hear that the declines could be recharging the stocks.

You can't trust these complainers because they came in at the tail end when I wrote over and over again that you have to accept that the stocks have to come down and recharge, but they won't come down low enough for most people to be able to get out and get in.

When I see these kinds of shareholders, I shudder. You get another controversial executive order, you get an out-of-right-field U.S. Supreme Court pick, and rates are going to go down again and the money's going to flow out of the banks again.

I reiterate my view. Only the ultra-nimble can get out and get back in that easily.

But ask yourself this. If you own Bank of America (BAC) - Get Report and it traded down to $21, would you buy, stand pat or sell?

If it's the latter, may I suggest you sell now? Because my view on the banks is that we could be in a multiyear move, one where you may look at the chart and not even see that dip.

Yet that dip might just be too much for many of you.

It isn't about Bank of America right now. It's about yourself.

Action Alerts PLUS, which Cramer co-manages as a charitable trust, has no positions in the stocks mentioned.

Cramer: Trump Can't Have It Both Ways ... Can He?

Posted at 1:30 p.m. EDT on Tuesday, Jan. 31, 2017



Make love and war? I'm starting to think that's President Trump's modus operandi when it comes to business. We've never seen anything like it. It baffles us and it causes people to sell stocks because we've never seen anything like it before in our lives.

Take Tuesday. The president meets with the biggest pharmaceutical execs and he pretty much accuses them of out-and-out greed. At the same time, he praises them for innovation and suggests that if they hire more workers here in the U.S. then all will be well.

The stocks get hit hard when the president talks about outrageous price increases and then they rally when he doesn't threaten to use the government's considerable buying power to drive prices lower.

Friend? Foe? Frenemy? Hard to tell.

But this has been the pattern for months. He's at war with Lockheed Martin (LMT) - Get Report over the Joint Strike Force. Then he's praising CEO Marillyn Hewson for giving the government a $600 million price break. He harangues Greg Hayes from United Technologies about keeping jobs in the U.S. and then when he saves 1,000 jobs from going to Mexico he suggests people buy Carrier products made by UTX. Same deal with Boeing (BA) - Get Report and the Air Force Ones. Bashes; gets price concessions; loves! (Lockheed Martin is part of TheStreet's Dividend Stock Advisor portfolio.)

Now all of these instances so far haven't really impacted the stocks of these companies. In fact, they've gone up.

But there's something much bigger lurking that's freaking out both the executives and their shareholders. President Trump may be willing to sacrifice whole, hard-fought markets for our internationally oriented companies in order to further the jobs agenda he campaigned so hard for.

We keep hearing that Trump might get us into trade wars with our partners. How that's not about one-off moves like those surgical strikes against Lockheed or Boeing or United Tech or the drug companies. How it's about real earnings. As in "taking down numbers," the kinds of things that aren't ephemeral but long-lasting.

I have bad news for people who think Trump might put us into trade wars. Trump thinks we are already in wars all over the place but we act like we aren't. Or at least we did before he won the election. He's operating under the assumption that we've been losing trade wars for years by not fighting back and that's changing right now.

For example, Tuesday morning Peter Navarro, the head of Trump's National Trade Council, bashed Germany for using a debased euro to take business from the U.S. It's been an open secret that the European Union has been keeping the euro lower to steal our business. European inflation is at its highest rate in four years. There's no way the euro should be this low. But until Navarro spoke up, it's been sacrosanct never to attack our friends in Europe, particularly the Germans. Believe me, it's not ironic that the president has an hour-long conversation with Russian President Vladimir Putin and then his emissary unloads on German Chancellor Angela Merkel's trade policies two days later. Merkel and Obama had a special relationship not unlike what the U.S. has had with Britain. The Russians don't take our jobs, the Germans do? Is that what this is about?

Or how about China? Our companies have spent years developing relationships to sell everything from fried chicken to diapers to lattes to shampoo to the Chinese people. It's the biggest consumer market in the world.

But Trump doesn't care about those wins. He cares about how China has taken so many of our jobs away. He thinks we've been laying down on the turf while the Chinese are giving us the business. I think he'd sacrifice the inroads the consumer packaged-goods companies and the industrial companies have made in China in order to get the Chinese to stop dumping goods and start playing fair. Of course, if you are selling soap or toothpaste or tractors and trucks into China, you don't want to hear about the U.S. fighting back. That could take dimes, quarters, maybe even dollars out of earnings per share.

But when Trump barnstormed around the country, he heard countless attacks from people about how our own corporations sold our workers out for big profits either from selling into Chinese markets or giving them our jobs. Same with Mexico. Yep, he doesn't want a trade war. He wants all of us to stop losing the ones we are in.

Even here, though, there's love to go with the war. Yes, Trump wants to fight back and there will be lost sales for certain if he keeps it up, and I think it's pretty clear he will.

But at the same time, he's fighting the good fight to get corporate taxes lower and get money from overseas repatriated and to cut the massive mound of regulations that have built up over eight years of the previous administration.

There's a problem, though. The lost sales to our trading enemies--dispensing with the "partner" term for a moment--could ultimately be made up and then some if the president gets his way in Congress. In that way, maybe he's breaking some trading eggs but will give companies and their shareholders some excellent Western omelets down the road.

But what if he fails to get the agenda through? When Trump fires the acting attorney general over her refusal to enforce his executive order banning immigration from several countries, does that set back the business agenda? Is the pro-business president sacrificing his own business agenda by acting swiftly on issues that could get him crosswise with his own party?

I think that's the real rub. We know there's a stick, but what if he can't deliver on the carrot because of these other issues that he feels strongly about, issues that he promised he would address along with his pro-business, pro-worker stance.

In other words, maybe it's zero sum. Maybe it's war then love, but the love can't be delivered? I think that's why we are down. It's why we have been stalled here. And we may stay stalled until we are sure the wars don't result in real trade barriers going up with real earnings per share coming down while the hoped-for corporate tax-relief cavalry doesn't arrive in time to save 2017's numbers.

Action Alerts PLUS, which Cramer co-manages as a charitable trust, has no positions in the stocks mentioned.

Action Alerts PLUS, which Cramer co-manages as a charitable trust, has no positions in the stocks mentioned.