“Housing is the linchpin of the recovery here in America,” Cramer says, and he thinks the market “has finally bottomed.” While money managers might pile into the homebuilder stocks, Cramer would rather see investors buy Home Depot. A crucial internal restructuring has turned this company around, and it’s put HD in position to “kick Lowe’s butt.” This is another stock with a great dividend that pays you to wait for the recovery.

Is it too late to buy Home Depot (HD), down 13 points from when housing was crashing, even though you now have new and better management?

historically low PE at a time home imp is at a standstill

Housing starts

Buy under 25

growth potential

Q: Why is technology an issue?

A: Because retailers have been so late to the game. That's the underlying story at Saks [SKS]. They have invested a lot in technology. So has J.C. Penney [JCP], which has spent a lot of time on cycle-time reduction. And there's Home Depot, which is upgrading its technology. That's the common thread in terms of the retailers we have Buys on. Consistent with this theme, Nordstrom [JWN] did a major technology implementation in 2004, and now they have some of the best inventory turns in my coverage universe.

Lowe's competitor

housing is rebounding more

In every single case I can spin every single piece of data negative. There are no pure positives. Target (TGT), Wal-Mart (WMT) and Kohl's (KSS) say back to school is good? A whole host of little ones say it is bad. Home Depot (HD) says things are getting better but Sears (SHLD) and Lowe's (LOW) can't say that.

poor management

I never find what I'm looking for at Home Depot. I view their stock similarly.

Not convinced the housing market has bounced back.

good

home depot

Bad houseing market

B. Nardelli ran this good company into the ground, got rid of the decent people and now its just a skeleton of what it used to be. Very sad.

hate stores. Housing is bust

Major drop in value

Home Depot is a dead man walking as long as the housing market does not begin to bloom which it doesn't look like for at least another 2-3 years or so.