Deciding when to sell a stock is just as important as deciding when to buy it, Jim Cramer told his Mad Money viewers Monday. Don’t let your emotions drive those decisions and don’t fall victim to “lazy thinking.”
Cramer diagnosed the market with a serious case of lazy thinking, or the inability to see when your negativity is blinding you to a good story.
Cramer explained how he recently purchased shares of steelmaker Nucor (NUE) – Get Report for his charitable trust, Action Alerts PLUS, a few weeks ago on the hopes of a quick infrastructure bill. As the bill was delayed in Congress, shared tumbled, and when they eventually recovered, Cramer said he was quick to sell and pretend his initial exuberance never happened.
But that was lazy thinking, he said, as Nucor was still a great company, steel prices are up and the infrastructure bill is now even closer to being passed. Shares of Nucor were up another 3.3% Monday.
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There are plenty of cases of lazy thinking out there, Cramer continued. Many people still just assume the Federal Reserve will be forced to raise interest rates despite high unemployment. That’s lazy thinking.
Others saw the weakness in stocks like the Air Products (APD) – Get Report and assumed that weakness must apply to the entire sector, despite stocks like Linde (LIN) – Get Report being far better companies. That’s lazy thinking. And still others simply listen to money mangers on TV, taking their opinions as gospel without doing their own homework. That’s also lazy.
It’s important to not fall victim to emotions or laziness, Cramer reminded viewers. Discipline and homework should always be a part of your investing strategy.
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Infrastructure, Energy and Hydrogen
Now that the infrastructure bill looks likely to pass into law, Cramer checked in with energy analyst Rusty Braziel, founder and executive chairman at RBN Energy, to see what the bill could mean for clean hydrogen and the energy sector overall.
“This time, it looks real,” Braziel began, noting that in order for the U.S. to meet its climate obligations, we need to have hydrogen fuels in our energy portfolio. Hydrogen is not just one fuel, however, it’s actually three different fuels, he continued.
First is green hydrogen, which is made from air, water and renewable energy. There is also gray hydrogen, which is a byproduct of making natural gas. Gray hydrogen emits carbon as it’s produced, which makes it dirty, but the hydrogen itself, burns clean, making it better than coal, oil and natural gas. However, if you capture the carbon produced during manufacturing, then you have blue hydrogen, which sits in between gray and green on the scale of environmental friendliness.
What do all of these colors mean for you and me? Braziel said gray and blue is already being produced, but for green hydrogen to become mainstream for industries like long-haul trucking, then it needs the provisions and incentives that are in the infrastructure bill being debated in Congress right now.
It will take time for green hydrogen to finally come into fruition, Braziel concluded, but companies like Plug Power (PLUG) – Get Report have already proven it can be done, we just need the incentives to finally get it down after decades of false-starts and promises.
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At the time of publication, Cramer’s Action Alerts PLUS had no position in the stocks mentioned.