What a reversal. The market looked poised to build on Thursday's gains when a brutal final-hour selloff put investors on their collective heels.

The market absorbed some more weak economic news on Friday, but it was widely expected.

Most pointed fingers at "hedge fund liquidations" as the reason behind the selloff.
Regardless, take your pick and it was down: General Electric (GE), Intel (INTC), Cisco (CSCO), Pfizer (PFE), Nokia (NOK) -- and on and on.

With this in mind, we thought we'd take a look at some of the stocks people were searching for on TheStreet.com on Friday and see what Jim Cramer's had to say about them recently.

These stocks could be in the news for a number of reasons. Some require immediate attention; others may not. Regardless, it never hurts to hear what Cramer (or any of the other professional investors on the site) has to say about them. The key is to gather as much information as you can in order to make the most informed investment decisions you can.

In a recent post to his RealMoney blog, Cramer had this to say about Citigroup (C) and Goldman Sachs (GS):

"Let's talk about, not the elephant in the room, but the two woolly mammoths stalking your house: Citigroup and Goldman Sachs.

"First, Citigroup is the original black hole, but it's the company that squawked the loudest when I called it a black hole many months ago. Here's a company clearly too big to fail that the FDIC tried to save with a Wachovia (WB) betrayal, that has been the benefit of considerable largesse of the Treasury -- no more than others, but I bet they wish they could have singled out Citigroup for more money -- that seems as technically insolvent as it was in 1990.

"Of course we got the big insider buying yesterday, which is supposed to instill confidence. But Bob Steel bought a ton of Wachovia, so I am no longer using that as a judgment.

"Citigroup needed radical surgery and a gigantic capital raise. I bet it needs a special program from Treasury, which it will get, of course. But it sure is hard to be bullish with this stock getting hammered and the insider-buying respite lasting all of a few minutes.

"The other one, Goldman Sachs, is in some ways is more problematic, because if Citigroup is F Troop, Goldman Sachs is the 82nd Airborne. No losses, fabulous track record, a company widely presumed -- until now -- to have a true book value which is now almost 50% higher than it is now. The endorsement of Warren Buffett still means something, although the shorts are swarming, and Doug Kass sure has a bead on it.

"When you hear 'Is Goldman in trouble?' the tendency is to give up, just give up, as in, 'If Goldman is in trouble, then what are we supposed to think about Morgan Stanley (MS) or Citigroup or Bank of America(BAC) or any of the other banks that took TARP money?'

"For me, this wooly mammoth is particularly damaging psychologically, as investing is a confidence game. I have said over and over to many people that I can't believe Goldman is 'really' in trouble, and maybe it isn't, but the losses have been so horrendous already, who can possibly think that things aren't hugely awry? And I don't mean just a $2 loss/hit to book value. I mean something earth-shaking.

"These two stocks are the biggest problems in this market other than the automakers.

"They are going to have to be righted before any serious advance can occur in this tape."

For more of what Cramer's had to say about Fridays top-searched stocks, including Massey (MEE), Qwest (Q), Freeport-McMoRan (FCX) and NYSE Euronext (NYX) check out the Cramer's Take portfolio at Stockpickr.com.


(Editor's note: At the time of publication and/or original publication of his posts and shows, Cramer owned Cisco, Freeport, General Electric, Goldman Sachs, Morgan Stanley and Wachovia for his Action Alerts PLUS charitable trust.)

Posted on Nov. 15, 2008