Jim Cramer could only explain the decline of the averages on Friday as a repercussion of being in the heart of liquidation season.
Liquidation season occurs when clients of poorly performing hedge funds ask for their money back. It tends to occur at the end of a quarter or year. In response, hedge funds must sell stocks in the open market to raise the money that needs to be returned to investors.
That means if a hedge fund performed poorly this year; it is probably flooded with liquidation requests right now. In fact, there have been more failed hedge funds this year than any time since 2008.
“That means these managers do it yesterday and today, and maybe next week, before everyone goes on vacation and they get stuck with a market that is too thin to handle their sales,” the “Mad Money” host said.
As a result, Cramer said this market is now oversold. It might be tempting to buy stocks, but Cramer warned that the sellers of these hedge funds will need to keep dumping stock in anticipation of more redemptions.
“Expect that they can continue to wreak havoc, but remember, as stocks go down bargains get created.”
“Just be careful when you try to bottom fish, knowing that the bottom could always be a false bottom, a trapdoor, so to speak, that makes you overconfident versus the miserable moment we seem to be in,” Cramer said.
With this in mind, Cramer shared the events and stocks he will be watching next week:
Monday: “Star Wars”
This could be a great opportunity to get into Disney for the long term. The stock was downgraded by an analyst with a recommendation to sell at a $90 price target. However, Cramer thinks “Star Wars” is worth a lot to the company and could translate into sequels, merchandise and theme park business.
Tuesday: ConAgra, Micron, Nike
Nike: Cramer is nervous because the stock has run so much. However, it could crank out one more good number, and he recommended that those who own it stay the course.
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Wednesday: Household spending, mortgage applications, durable goods
Housing: Lennar had very good numbers on Friday and was positive about the future. Cramer thinks there could be a stampede to buy homes now that rates have gone higher.
Durable goods: “I believe the industrial economy is a heck of a lot weaker than the Fed must think it is,” Cramer said.
Employment might be great, but Cramer expects that this number will prove that things are not well in the manufacturing sector.
Thursday: Jobless claims
Cramer is especially interested in jobless claims, because if employment is so strong right now, there should also be a growth in profits at the manufacturing or service level. That does not seem to be happening currently, so he is interested to hear the results.
So, it seems that investors have shifted their attention away from the Fed and oil, and it is all about redemptions.
“Expect that they can continue to wreak havoc, but remember, as stocks go down, bargains get created,” Cramer said.
The question is, are there even bigger bargains ahead?
[“source -cncb”]