"Riddle You Right Back, Dougie!"
By Jim Cramer
RealMoney Columnist
6/8/2010 12:10 PM EDT
"Is the "market" cheap? Is it, as Doug Kass suggests, compelling because it is selling at 12-and-change times earnings? Yes, it is cheap if the earnings come through. Yes, it is cheap if Europe resolves itself. Yes, it is cheap if China declares victory over property inflation.
Otherwise, no.
Here's why. We saw many upward estimate revisions after the last quarter was reported. Many. We saw so much good that analysts couldn't resist taking up numbers in the belief that employment would improve, that Asia was stable to getting better, and that Europe was blah.
We only care about future earnings when we are trying to figure out if stocks are cheap. What has happened since the end of last quarter and the reporting period? I saw (riddle me that!): (1) Europe's become a danger zone with wholesale austerity being put through, (2) the United States failed to stem hiring losses and (3) China has slowed, taking Asia with it.
I do not see how we can make those earnings estimates. There is too much translation risk from the euro. Too much growth risk from Europe, China and, now, the United States.
Now, the good news is that at a certain point, lower stock prices will price in the new estimates. But I have always believed that markets in general go higher when estimates move up and go lower when estimates come down.
So I say, wait. Estimates simply cannot be as good as they were when they were last made.
And that's my riposte to my friend Dougie's view on what I wish were the case."
(in
www.realmoney.com)