Cramer Critiques Poor Management

Stock Tickers: UPS, MMM, MRK, MOT; ITW, BDK

This morning on TheStreet.com’s Wall Street Confidential, Cramer said it’s 2-days of Fed blabber and the media has to cover it but it’s unimportant.  Illinois Tool (ITW) and Black & Decker (BDK) are the ones going up and if you focus on the fed you won’t see these.  If you look at the Fed meetings 6-months out then you have easy comparables ahead, and stocks try to discount 6-months out.  He hits some management teams he doesn’t like: Merck (MRK) has poor management and bad pipeline; UPS (UPS) he’s trying to get a feel for; 3M (MMM) management doesn’t have a clue and the company isn’t in control of its management like it used to; and on Motorola (MOT), Icahn is now different because he comes in with critique and suggestions that are well founded.  Cramer noted Ed Zander isn’t what the street thought he was.

Cramer does think we’ll still get rate cuts but he is no longer relaying on the Fed to make huge returns to us.

All comments are not verbatim and are meant as contextual and some summary notes as we do not cover all aspects or every single aspect of Cramer’s calls.

Jon C. Ogg
January 30, 2007