Cramer's 12 Picks For Recovery: Do We Care?

Mention the name Jim Cramer to most investors and you are bound to get a response. In addition, some investors might get a little jumpy. Perhaps this is simply a programmed response as Mr. Cramer has billed himself as a bit of a Wildman who is prone to running around the studio and will do just about anything in front of a camera.

While we are not big fans of his Mad Money show, we will admit to having a fair amount of respect for Jim Cramer’s resume. Our Dave M. even has Cramer's "Confessions of a Street Addict" on his must read list. After all, before he started ranting and raving on T.V. for a living, Jim Cramer did a pretty darn good job of investing “other people’s money.” And for this we must say, "Well done."

However, we are sorry to report that since leaving the world of money management, our view of Mr. Cramer's performance has declined a fair amount. Here's why.

We were early readers of TheStreet.com back in the late 1990's and to this day Dave M. still subscribes to Cramer's ActionAlertsPlus service, although, he will readily admit that he is not sure why. Maybe it is for nostalgic reasons or maybe there is the hope that Cramer returns to the form he displayed back in the early days.

If you will recall, Mr. James Cramer was just a wee bit critical of mutual fund managers during the 2000-02 Tech Bubble Bear market. He would publically rant and rave about the sheer stupidity of anyone who refused to sell stocks during a bear market. He named names. He cast aspersions. And in short, he called out the mutual fund industry for what it is – a bunch of closet indexers.

But that was then. Now, Jim Cramer is one of those guys who also doesn't sell stocks – even during the worst bear market in a generation. Yep, that's right, the Mad Money Man himself sat with more than 90% of his portfolio invested during the ENTIRE bear market. Imagine what he would have said about that a few years ago.

Because he never took any defensive measures, which in our book is simply unforgivable, during the Credit Crisis Bear, his portfolio got hit last year – and hit hard. But this also means that Cramer is enjoying a rebound this year and is ahead of the S&P 500 on the year for the first time in a long time. And in fact, his ActionAlertsPlus Portfolio, which he now refers to as "the fund," is now ahead of the S&P from inception. Since 1/1/2002 his public portfolio is up +11.78% as of 10-21-09 while the S&P 500 is down -5.70%.

Since we also live in a glass house and invest for all to see, we are not prone to throwing stones. However, Dave M. would like us to point out that his TopStock Institutional Portfolio sports a gain of +75.5% since 1/02 and his FlexPro Portfolio is up +129.15% through Thursday's close.

But in light of the fact that Mr. Cramer is on T.V. every day, his opinions are sought by an astonishing number of media outlets. So, apparently his views carry a fair amount of weight with the public. And it is for this reason that one of our subscribers sent us a list of Cramer's 12 picks for the economic recovery.

Thus, without further ado, we'll present the 12 stocks that Mr. Cramer likes for the economic rebound. Do with them what you’d like.

• Caterpillar (NYSE: CAT)
  
• 3M (NYSE: MMM)
  
• Emerson Electric (NYSE: EMR)
  
• PPG Industries (NYSE: PPG)
  
• ConocoPhillips (NYSE: COP)
  
• Union Pacific (NYSE: UNP)
  
• BHP Billiton (NYSE: BHP)
  
• Hewlett-Packard (NYSE: HP)
  
• Home Depot (NYSE: HD)
  
• VF Corp (NYSE: VFC)
  
• JP Morgan Chase (NYSE: JPM)
  
• Visa (NYSE: V)

Long Positions in stocks mentioned: MMM, V

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