Stockpickr Staff
Updated at 3:59 p.m. EDT on April 28, 2009

Headlines are dominated so far this week by news of the swine flu, which has pork futures sinking. Pork stocks, however, are rallying today after taking a beating yesterday. Smithfield Foods (SFD) was trading up 3.8% at $9.38 near the close on Tuesday after a 12% dip on Monday, and Tyson Foods (TSN) was up 1.3% to $10.09 after plunging 9% yesterday.

Flu-vaccine stocks, including Novavax (NVAX) and BioCryst (BCRX), are up for the second day in a row. Lately, Novavax was trading up 23.5% at $3.15 near the close on Tuesday, and BioCryst was up 8.3% at $4.20.



With everyone trying to game the swine flu (and avoid the virus), what other stocks might benefit?

With this in mind, we thought we'd take a look today's top stories and see what Jim Cramer's had to say lately about stocks associated with them.

These stocks could be in the news for a number of reasons. Some require immediate attention; while 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 soft-goods stocks' reaction to the swine flu:

"It's terrific to see the moribund stocks rally, Pepsi (PEP), General Mills (GIS), Bristol-Myers (BMY) and the like, but we have to be realistic that without the flu epidemic, these would be doing their same old 'off 27 cents a day' dance that has disheartened so many and caused so many to sell.

"I think we are going to see a definitive return to the cyclical the moment the flu epidemic is put to bed, but in the interim a little outperformance is just the chance people might have to take a little of the table ... because the group is still wrong.

"Please don't misinterpret me. A balanced portfolio should have one or two of these. But this market is so devoid of enthusiasm for these -- the retail people want to own and trade ETFs, and the institutional are still seeing outflows -- that it takes a tremendous amount of negative news to move these stocks.

"I own a bunch of them for Action Alerts PLUS because their yields are absurdly high and because I need some exposure to the group. I would be buying Hershey (HSY) here if I had more room. But these stocks are simply the enemy of performance right now, and the flu bug is giving people a chance to exit if they want to take it.

"Random musings: JPMorgan (JPM) is still acting as if it is about to be handed a good bank from the Fed as part of the stress test. ... Is Goldman Sachs (GS) acting well because of the article this weekend about how it wants to raise bonuses?"

(Editor's note: At the time of publication and/or original publication of his posts and shows, Cramer owned Pepsi, General Mills, Goldman Sachs and JPMorgan for his Action Alerts PLUS charitable trust.)

Who's on Stockpickr Answers? Dan Fitzpatrick will be on Stockpickr Answers on April 28 to respond to investing and trading questions posed by members of the Stockpickr community. Not a member? Join the Stockpickr community today -- free.