Top Stocks

By Jim Cramer, TheStreet

The market mocks us daily. With Europe and oil both coming down, we want the futures to come down with them. After Tuesday's brutal session -- when a ton of money went to work and then disappeared in the ether -- we don't need to be skunked again.

So what do the futures know? That the last half hour was "phony" as I have been saying? That we can ignore Europe, as it is simply catching up to our downside? That Tuesday’s banking and tech gains can override the weakness in Banco Santander and BBVA (BBVA)? That the euro seems to have a hard time going through 122, perhaps because of central bank buying? That China didn't go down or that the Aussie mining tax is going to be less onerous than we thought?

You add these up and I think you get nothing, nothing that is worth keeping stocks for. Remember, we need to see a number of things happen for a solid move up.

As cleanup costs mount and with no end in sight to the undersea oil gusher in the gulf, investors have started to take a hard look at the reality at the disaster’s impact on BP (BP). The company has shed more than $70 billion in value since April 20 when an explosion on one of its oil rigs in the Gulf of Mexico sparked the worst crude oil disaster in U.S. history.

Some say that things could get even worse as the blowout on the ocean floor continues to wreak havoc and the price tag continues to mount. But many others say the sell-off is overdone, and that investors would be wise to buy shares at what could be bargain valuations.

Yet another possibility is a buyout by one of BP’s bigger oil rivals – and here’s who would be the most likely suitors:

Motorola (MOT) has been one of those stocks that investors love to kick around. It peaked at almost $60 a share during the tech bubble days of 2000, slumped to $20 a share in 2006 amid increased competition from smartphones, and bottomed out at about $3 a share in March of 2009.

But Motorola has staged a comeback. The stock has almost doubled in the last year and a half with all the  buzz behind its Google (GOOG) powered Droid handset. What’s more a recent ChangeWave smartphone survey shows Motorola now ranking #2 among “very satisfied” customers -- only trailing Apple (APPL) and its vaunted iPhone. But will this mean continued success for the stock?

Foreclosures are clogging the system so much now that the average borrower doesn't get evicted until 438 days of delinquency.

That's up from 251 days in January 2008, The New York Times reports. About 1.7 million U.S. households are in foreclosure.

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There are a few reasons for the delay. First is sheer volume -- banks just can't process all the foreclosures on time. Also, legal challenges are becoming more common. Finally, the government is pressuring lenders to provide modifications and delay foreclosures.

The financial sector has been a strange double-edged sword in portfolios over the last two years or so. In the wake of the Lehman Brothers bankruptcy, billions of wealth was erased in what were long thought of as conservative stocks. Then the resurgence of some banks since the lows of last year made other investors a fortune, with Citigroup (C) and Bank of America (BAC) both soaring about 300% since historic lows on March 9, 2009.  

The drama continues in the financial sector even now with the endless see-saw of mortgage default news and the continued worries over sovereign debt in the euro zone. Any investor jumping into financial stocks right now is really taking the tiger by the tail – but if you do your homework, there a number of opportunities in the sector become clear -- particularly among financials in Latin America.

Here are three:

By Joseph Woelfel, TheStreet

BP (BP) shares were falling 11% after the oil company said its "top kill" effort failed to stop the oil leak in the Gulf of Mexico.

BP's American depositary shares were sinking 11% to $38.11 at 10:43 a.m. ET. 

BP said Tuesday it plans to place a new containment valve over the blown-out well this week. BP said it wil begin cutting through the riser that's spewing oil and gas into the Gulf as soon as Wednesday, after which it will attempt to install the cap-like device that would siphon the mixture to the surface.

Can there be a real rally until the BP (BP) spill is controlled? I am beginning to think not.

The uncertainty this disaster is causing and the ripple effects for the Southeastern U.S. will not be contained at these stock prices. It looks like we are pretty much done with offshore drilling, like we were done with nuclear after Three Mile Island.

I had thought that weak European countries alone could take the Dow ($INDU) to 9,500, but it looks like BP's in a foot race to take us down faster.

Barchart Market Momentum -- Percentage of stocks closing above their moving averages for various time frames -- Above 50% is always good -- This week was better than last week but not as good as a month ago

I don't know when the euro debt crisis will be over or when European stocks, particularly European bank stocks, will stop sinking like stones. 

Certainly investors aren't out of the woods yet: Fitch Ratings downgraded Spain to AA today (finally), for example.

But I do know that with a yield of 9.5% Friday, Banco Santander (STD) is paying me quite handsomely to wait.

It was another anxiety-provoking week for stock investors, as Europe's debt woes continued to send the U.S. markets on a volatile, and generally downward, path. But according to many of the market's top strategists, the Euro Zone's problems aren't a reason to shun stocks. 

Kenneth Fisher, for example, says the Europe fears are overblown. While the market tumbled Friday amid news that Fitch downgraded Spain's credit rating, Fisher says investors shouldn't give much credence to rating agencies -- whose failings to properly evaluate debt were a big part of how the U.S. credit crisis developed. “It’s simply astounding, after all we’ve seen in recent decades, that anyone pays attention to credit ratings put out by the officially sanctioned rating agencies,” Fisher writes in his latest Forbes column. “Moody’s and Standard & Poor’s compound investors’ worst sins, including the tendency to make a mountain out of a molehill.”

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Fisher says investors shouldn’t give in to fear. “Panics pass. This one will, too,” he writes. “Stop thinking about short-term market jitters and more about long-term investing.”

He's not alone in his bullishness.

Toys R Us, which was taken off the markets to become private in 2005, is getting ready for a new initial public offering.

Is this stock worth a look? After reading through the company's prospectus, I'd say no. Toys R Us hasn't grown its sales and is burdened by huge debt.

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Let's go through some of the details of what's happened to this company in the last five years. Here's a rundown of the challenges Toys R Us faces:

Yep, Apple (AAPL) is a focus of mine. Yesterday on "Morning Joe" -- my favorite talk show (I can't wait when I am booked) -- we were all playing with our iPads and the crowd was in disbelief that Apple could be so big.

To me, though, the question is how can Apple be this cheap?

We have to use Karen Cramer's old 10-to-1 rule. You need to divide this stock by 10 to think about it. Would you buy a $25 stock at a 12 multiple that has $5 in cash, no debt and is growing quickly -- perhaps by as much as 20%? How about if it only had a single-digit share in all of its key markets? How about if it had new product cycles, several of them, happening all at once?