The Market’s 12 Gifts of Christmas
Both Diamond Foods and Lululemon Athletica delivered better-than-expected earnings. That’s one. And two came the from the short squeezes that followed in both of them because they were so heavily shorted, pushing the stocks higher.





Three was the Chinese IPO we saw today for SemiLEDS, which popped 52 percent. And that followed similar, if not better, moves in Youko.com and DangDang on Wednesday.



Freeport-McMoRan was the bearer of gifts four and five, first for its $1 special dividend and second for its stock split. You might scoff at the split, but Cramer said fact that FCX in February, when the split goes through, will halve in price entices new buyers into the market.

Number six is the gain a company gets from making a smart acquisition. Case in point: Helen of Troy’s purchase of Kaz, which markets products you see under the brand names of Vicks or Honeywell. Think humidifiers, fans and air purifiers that you probably wouldn’t buy if they lacked the big-name label on them. HELE, a personal-care products company, was up nearly $4 on the news.

Ciena closed 15 percent higher than its $15 and change trading price this morning after raising its sales guidance for 2011. That was gift number seven.

Dean Foods was number eight thanks to the refinancing of its debt. The stock jumped 12 percent because the potential for insolvency seems less likely.

Big contracts gave us win number nine. That came courtesy of radio company Clear Channel awarded ratings agency Arbitron with a deal that sent ARB up almost 19 percent. The deal came out of the blue, leaving analysts scrambling to upgrade the stock.

Speaking of upgrades, gift 10 was the new “buy” recommendations on Legg Mason and Janus . A push from analysts is definitely a gift, Cramer said, or at least a stocking stuffer.

Angry shareholders were the givers of gift number 11. They urged Charles River Labs to put itself up for sale, and the chatter alone send the stock 2.6 percent higher.

And finally, number 12: AIG has finally generated cash enough to start paying back the government some of the money it owes for that bailout. As a result, AIG climbed 13 percent.

Cramer thinks gift 13 could be coming Monday, a day when mergers are often announced. Will it be a better offer for Compellant from Dell? Or Air Products for Airgas. He’ll be watching to find out.

Oh, and one final note: Cramer thinks Lululemon Athletica, which rose $8 after reporting a stellar quarter on Thursday, is still a buy—even up here. And not just because of outperformance. There’s also the fact that there are only 20 million shares trading on the market. It’s that scarcity that’s driving the price, he said, and he doesn’t think it’s done. Not with big institutional investors trying to get as much of it as they can.

“I say pray for a secondary,” Cramer said, “because that’s about the only way that people will be able to get enough without moving it.”

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