Transcripts For CNBC Mad Money 20140123

You would expect. Given that its unexpected with the dow free falling. The nasdaq down. 9 and s p down. 57. Im talking about the perspective chinese credit collapse. And we have all dethe sided it can reverberate into any company with exposure to china. Ford, coach, boeing, goldman sachs. The thing is all crises are pretty much the same in the post Great Recession world. There is the initial shock holy cow theres problems in the chinese banks which shouldnt be much of a shock at all. Until the last 24 hours, no one was focused on the credit equals gold number one collective trust. Thats the moniker of a 500 million chinese bond that could default as soon as january 31. Hurting individuals who own it or, well, the aches and pains of China Credit Trust. Another thing weve got to think about. The house of pain. We have endless ashurss not to worry because the peoples republic government has it under control. A bank possibly allowed to default there are implications that arent instantly pachd up when we have down ticks from the baltic freight index, a shipping rate, a major tell for china. And flash merchandise index report from china last night. Then with the initial shock, theres the broad panic we had today. That was immediately translateded into stocks via the s p 500 futures which take everything down. All 500 names, hence the ocean of red on the screen with just a few dots of green. There is no use fighting the initial tidal wave of fear considering the strongest areas of the market has been industrials, techs and banks. These areas have been suspect because many have ties to china. You want to buy caterpillar not knowing its run up and there is a chinese component . You want to be risky like that . You want to be first to come in United Technology and call bottom . Not for me. On the other hand, there is no reason to panic. You heard me. There is no reason to panic. In fact, you want others to panic so you can buy your favorite stocks for much lower prices than we have had for some time now. Its always easy to say, im cutting and running because of china. You should think, you know, there are real bargains created here. While china is important to the Global Economy its not as important as the United States which remains strong and on course for growth this year. One look at the robust existing home sales number this morning, good jobless claims numbers tell you that all you need to know is that we are doing better than they are. Neither housing nor employment here in america should be hurt by the potential collapse. Its still a potential collapse, not a foregone conclusion of anything in china. Because the communists may still save the bank. If you deliver a quarter that was beautiful, the way Union Pacific did this morning the stock can have a move higher even in the midst of hideous action. There are no railroads that start here and go to beijing. Union pacific is involved in cross commerce on the coast and given the 5. 62 rally, the transports were strong. Another sign things arent bad. Day one of the selloff is over. Lets go to day two of tomorrows action. Day two tomorrow is when it will be too late to sell stocks. Even as others, particularly the ones that outperformed last years 32 run for the s p might have another tough day. Tonight our job is to figure out what shouldnt have been taken down. What isnt impacted by china but has gotten hammered as surely as if it its cheap earnings string comes from beijing. I spent time on get rich carefully addressing the futures led panic should be tamed by you. I will tell you how you should handle it. My perspective can help here. As many people presume its game over when it might be game on. My suggestion for today, unless you have a specific company that reported an amazing quarter like Union Pacific or microsoft after the close you probably want to sit on your hands. Do some homework on the stocks that were brought low by the futures, particularly domestic banks, food, drugs, other health care names. Do a little buying, nothing big. How about unilever with a terrific quarter. Thats a Consumer Packaged Goods Company with colluding emerging market. How about stocks that never seem to come down. Mckesson was up huge. That will be up again tomorrow probably. Maybe it considers the charmed big pharmas like merck or bristolmyers. You have to ask yourself what does the potential collapse of a regional chinese bank have to do with the with price to earnings ratio. Bristolmyers normally i would say pick up domestic retailers. They had earnings difficulties. I dont know if they have been baked into the market. Not if you look at target or coach. Same with restaurants. The staying power of mcdonalds stock if there is a more disappointing quarter is more amazin amazing. Wendys delivered better numbers. They had no exposure to china. Chewys is up given an excellent report yesterday morning. Starbucks looks real good. I think it will be europe thats the star of the quarter. You can pick up your favorite bond market equivalent here. Kimberly clark and clorox in a classic fight to quality. So do the Master Limited partnerships. The Real Estate Investment trusts that arent connected to retail. How about the Nursing Home Company led by one of my bankable ceos i will talk about tomorrow. Debra cafaro or lynn energy. The juicy dividend stacks up well against the treshy. You only get a 2. 77 return if you own the tenure. Real gunslingers, you know, this is what they will do. Dont get mad. Theyre nutty and they love it. They will buy netflix though it ral lid 54 points today. Perhaps tesla or amazon. The cold stocks spring back first. I told you many times but its better day three material. People always jump the gun. Of course the nat gat stocks should come back with. Normally i would say the holy trinity of social and cloud. Going with the biotechs and health wellness. They were on a roll so they are up too much to pick at. Especially biogenident. Plenty of people have big gains who didnt sell today. They will take profits tomorrow. These themes could be more of a day three or four consideration. Day three is good for the regionals which are terrific to date. They were brought down by the etfs that handle financials and take everything down equally. I like the special situation plays. Dow chemical and maybe ebay now that they are under new act a vis pre activist pressures. The terrifically performing techs like telco equipment stocks, they have china exposure. Normally you dont want to be aggressive on day three. Because you dont know which ones have indirect exposure to china. The day four stocks will be regarded as sales tomorrow by many of the johnny come latelies who didnt sell today. Its not too late to bolt. You might ask, why bother, why do anything at all but sell . Why not let everything come down huge . Here is the issue. Being given incredible entry points if the chinese cut rates to fix the situation or bail out the bank that issued the bad paper. No need to rush in. Today is the first day people have heard of the China Credit Trust or credit equals gold number one collective trust. Obviously it wont be the last day. China is the second largest economy in the world. It never pays to be too sanguine many in the face of a crisis. Things in the United States are better than they have been in ages. China surprises us just when you think youre about to jump off a cliff without a net. Jim in california. Jim caller yes, jim. Thanks for taking my call. Some time ago i bought Stanley Black decker thinking the Housing Market went up and so would the stock. If the housing seems to be on the mend but the stock is languishing. Whats wrong with my theory and what should i do . Well know any minute. Theyre about to report. One thing that upset me, that was one of the worst quarters weed had. They had pobs in europe, with security. Theyre in the penalty box. The comanager of action own ohhers plus. Com thinks it may represent an attractive buy here. I want to see the next quarter because staas far as im concer the last one was terrible. Mad money will be back. Announcer coming up, time to shine . From paints to solar panels Ppg Industries is one of the best when it comes to getting things a bright finish. Can the stock give your portfolio a fresh coat of green . The new year . Dont miss cramers exclusive with the ceo. Later, dangerous drug. This biotech has more than doubled in the past year. But is it becoming a biohazard . Cramer is sounding the alarm on one stock that could threaten to hit the reset button on you. Is it lurking in your portfolio . Plus, figuring out your 401 k . Putting off looking at the retirement account or still need to get one set up . With the market on a tear over the past year, there is no better time to take a look. Cramer reveals the moves you should make now when he opens up his playbook. All coming up on mad money. Dont miss a second of mad money, follow jimcramer on twitter. Have a question . Tweet cramer, madtweets. Send jim an email to madmoney cnbc. Com or give us a call at 1800743cnbc. Miss something . Head to madmoney. Cnbc. Com. Female announcer its time to make room female announcer for the new mattress models, but sleep trains huge year end Clearance Sale ends sunday. Get beautyrest, posturepedic, even tempurpedic mattress sets, at low clearance prices. Save even more on floor samples, demonstrators, and closeout inventory. Plus, free sameday delivery, set up and removal of your old set. Dont wait sleep trains year end Clearance Sale ends sunday. Superior service, best selection, lowest price, guaranteed sleep train your ticket to a better nights sleep on a truly hideous day for the market its hard to remember that not everything is horrible. I try to accentuate the positive. For example, tuesday we learned dan lobe, the big shot shot activist investor is taking a major position in dow chemical to push the company to break itself up. He wants to separate dows chemical commodity business from the propriety business. Thats something dupont did and its something cramer favorite ppg has been doing for years. Its run by chuck bunch, one of my bankable 21. The 21 ceos i believe in to create value for shareholders like you. Hes the king of all sorts of applications as well as specialty glass and optical products. Under bumpbls leadership ppg made you a fortune. The stock is up 4 since october but its given you a 23 return since april. Its 358 gain with reinvested dividends since june of 2009. Ppg just reported last week and though the company delivered an earnings feed with in line revenues, stock initially was hammered going from 190 the day before to 182 the day the results went out rebounding to 187. Investors realized the quarter was solid. I like the stock into weakness. Lets check in with chuck bunch to find out more about how the company is doing and where it is headed. Welcome back to mad money. Thanks, jim. Great to be back. Thank you for the recognition. Of course. Chuck, ive got to start because of the proximate cause. In your Conference Call you say, look, at this point our macro forecast is up 2. 5 . A little strong here. Obviously stronger in china today. This worry about a chinese rift, should we take that out of the equation . We feel good about china. Obviously there was chatter in the marketplace today. But our businesses are good. We had a good Fourth Quarter. We are off to what we think is a good start here in the first quarter. That may have an impact here. The automotive business oem and refinish. We are looking for a good year in 2014. We came in to the end of 2013 with a lot of momentum. We feel good about china. I like your facts more than the rumors i heard all day today. I want to ask you about the real positives here. The first is you really have a bead on the idea that commercial construction in this country could be making a comeback. Yes. We see the commercial Construction Market from several different businesses, architectural codings and the flat glass business. We saw signs later in the year, in the Fourth Quarter that things are improving. Its a little regional now here in north america. Were seeing improvement in the southern u. S. And a few of the end use commercial segments like maintenance. But we think things are beginning to turn around. We have waited for a while for this recovery to start. We think its coming now slow will you but its coming. Speaking of waiting for a while. Volumes in europe which is about a third of your sales were flat for the first time after nine consecutive quarterly declines. You must be able to get, i would imagine, because i know you cut things back to the bone, some real earnings leverage off even just the flat sales number from europe. We did well in europe despite the weaker volumes over the course of last year. We had record earnings in europe. The Fourth Quarter was encouraging. We had no volume declines. First time. Things were getting better. The automotive business in particular showed signs of life. Forecasting that will be slightly positive for next year. We see some of the countries like the uk and Northern Europe as starting to turn positive. Construction markets, still awaiting a rebound, but we see recovery now in automotive and a industrial, albeit modest. I think people have to understand when we say there is a third of your business there, if things get good in europe it could be gigantic for the swing in earns for your company. Yes. It should help us. We have seen the earnings improvement we got on negative volume this year. So were poised to really take advantage of any opportunities in volume and market growth. We see a relatively moderate or no inflationary environment right now in europe on the commodity input cost side. By think were poised to deliver if we can get some volume recovery now coming into 2014. The only person i know with price increases in the last quarter. I know you have a lot of cash. I didnt know there was a paying acquisition. It was brilliant. Are there things on the horizon now that you think a year from now well talk about as another good acquisition for ppg . Yes, jim. We have discussions really on an ongoing basis. We have been quite active in these dialogues for some time now. We have cash on the Balance Sheet for a while. We expect another good year in 2014 in terms of cash plus the divesture of the Transitions Optical business. We are in active dialogues. Some are smaller companies. We hope over the course of the next few quarters to add to our codings and specialty portfolio. Terrific, chuck. Once again an amazing job. Thank you very much for coming on mad money. Thank you very much, jim. This is another stock. Its just a bankable stock with a bankable man. Ppg, stock broke down. Take advantage of the breakdowns. You heard china is a positive not a negative. What happens if europe comes back . It could be huge for ppg. Stay with cramer. Announcer coming up, dangerous drug. This biotech has more than doubled in the past year. Is it becoming a biohazard . Cramer is sounding the alarm on one stock that could threaten to hit the reset button on your games. Is it lurking in your portfolio . [ male announcer ] this is the story of the little room over the pizza place on Chestnut Street the modest first floor bedroom in tallinn, estonia and the southbound bus barreling down i95. This magic moment it is the story of where every great idea begins. And of those who believed they had the power to do more. Dell is honored to be part of some of the worlds great stories. That began much the same way ours did. In a little dorm room 2713. This magic moment a huge portion of investing comes down to credibility. Who can you trust . Its why i devoted a chapter of get rich carefully to 21 ceos i believe you can count on to create value for you. Seven more on power lunch tomorrow. Things are rarely clear cut. Bulls on one side, bears on the other and youre trying to make a decision. Some experts have more credibility than others. When herb greenburg, a cnbc contributor and a colleague from the street. Com and master of red flags. Warns us about a company hey, im tired. You Better Believe i pay attention. Herb wrote a piece for the street. Com questioning the sustainability of the value of phmaceuticals, vrx. Its a big Specialty Firm that last summer acquired bausch and lomb. Maybe the hottest spot in the market. I never talk about it. Thats my bad. This is up 112 in the last 12 months. The company has increased in value from 1 billion to billion as of today. In other words, in beast mode. The stock is blowing up. Two say its a hold and one lonely bear. When herb threw the ed red flag he was expressing a divergent view so for tonights sell block well look at the bull case from the analysts and the informed skeptic case from ed greenberg to see whos right. The thing analysts most like is the thing that makes herb negative. Gold man came out with a bullish acquisition. Value has gone from a small time player to a 44 billion company because its made a series of acquisitions. The difference is goldman and other bills like the m a strategy. They see a disciplined buyer with a track record that can keep doing what its been doing. Buy, buy, buy. But Herb Greenberg isnt so sanguine. To him value is just another rollup. Boo a wall street term for a company that gets growth from buying other businesses. Doesnt happen otherwise. This company did 60 deals in the last yes, 60. So far the strategy is successful. Herb thinks the fund will come to an end eventually with the emphasis on eventually. Herb doesnt time these things. He tells you that this is the kind of story we have seen often and it almost always ends badly. Herb sees a number of signs here. Not long after the currency taken over in 2008 he said the high aspiration goal was to be one of the top 15 Pharma Companies by the end of 2013. At its current value they reached the goal before the deadline. That makes him one of my heroes. Very impressive. What worries herb is there is a new target. They want to be among the top five by the end of 2016 which would be more than tripling the market cap over the next three years to 150 billion. Thats ambitious. Herb makes it clear the only way they can get near there is by doing many more acquisitions. Possibly a big one. Herb has a problem with that one. Gobbling up businesses to grow is not a great strategy. According to herb without more acquisitions they dont have much going for them at all. Thats a dangerous place for business to be. In the latest quarter, the organic growth was actually, get this, down 9 . And the guidance was at the low end of what analysts were looking for. House of pleasure. Hardly. But the stock keeps going higherment people are buying it not for earnings but the next big deal. This strategy is game of hot potato. When the deals dry up you dont want to be holding the stock. This the interim, another blockbuster acquisition would send the stock up once again. Perhaps in a great deal. But deals dry up eventually. Herb admits as long as they start making smart acquisitions the stock could go higher. He lays out reasons to be cautious. First of all we are in an environment with Interest Rates on the rise today excluded. Higher rates make it harder to borrow money needed to do the deals. From 2008 to 2013 where the take over strategy allowed the stock to soar is when the rates were at low levels. They used low rates to their advantage but the company from 4. 9 billion up to 17 billion as of last quarter. That did worry me. Now they are saying the next deal could be paid for with stock which makes sense, right, given the incredible run in the share price. To herb if they are paying for acquisitions it better get a good deal or they will dilute existing shareholders hurting the share price. The problem is we are seeing more m a in pharma. You have dloend Health Systems run by the forler president of valiant looking at these deals, one of many players out there. So the more Companies Looking the more they have to pay for deals. Whats my view . I dont know. Im more sanguine about rollups in general. Look at haines celestial or vf corp. They have grown for years with numerous smart acquisitions. You can see there are cases where the strategy works. I like both stocks. They have strong organic growth where valiant has shrinkage. They are more than valiant. Hain could be swallowed up by General Mills while vf corp. Is worth 25 million. As the business becomes too bag big growing via ak a by sigs is hard. Heres my bottom line. When Herb Greenberg throws a red flag we never want to go against him. His track record is too good. Im telling you to ring the renlster on some of the valiant and stay away from the stock if you dont. Im telling you its not worth the risk as we have followed herbs work for 20 years and i never, ever want to be on oh the wrong side of one of his red flags. Scott in louisiana, please. Scott. Caller hey, booyah, jim. Scott from west monroe, louisiana. How are you . Good. How about you . Caller pretty good. I got your book last week as a gift from my wife. She knows how much i love your advice. Top ten again this week. Im thrilled. Thank you so much. Caller i have been following a Biotech Company since it came out in july. Yes. Caller on december 3 there was news of a deal with sellgene and its been climbing. I have thought about allocating 1 of my portfolio to the stock as a speculative play. I wonder what you thought. I like the idea. When i saw sellgene did the deal. I said to myself it sounds like a good deal. Thats a good call. Sellgene is still cheap. Harlen in washington, please. Caller yes good afternoon, jim. Good afternoon. Caller thank you very much for all the help you have given us. Youre very kind. Caller Cubist Pharmaceuticals just recently reported 22 Revenue Growth and the blockbuster status sales were over 1 billion. How do you feel about their pipeline looking ahead . We like their acquisition strategy, their management very much. We like the fact that they are tactically against those super bugs and they have done a great job. I cant believe from the time we had on cubist i have been watching them closely. Youve got a winner in cubist. They are welcome on the show any day of the week. Valiant has been on fire. Im listening to herb on this one. Im putting vrx in the sell block now. Understand they do another deal, dont get mad at me. I dont want to be on the other side of Herb Greenberg. Stay with cramer. Fifteen minutes could save you fifteen percent or more on car insurance. Yeah. Everybody knows that. Did you know there is an oldest trick in the book . What . Trick number one. Lookest over there. Ha ha. Madeest thou look. So endeth the trick. Hey. Yes. Geico. Fifteen minutes could save you. Well, you know. [ chainsaw whirring ] humans sometimes life trips us up. Sometimes we trip ourselves up. And although the mistakes may seem to just keep coming at you, so do the solutions. Like multipolicy discounts from Liberty Mutual insurance. Save up to 10 just for combining your auto and home insurance. Call Liberty Mutual insurance at. [ thump ] to speak with an Insurance Expert and ask about all the personalized savings available for when you get married, move into a new house, or add a car to your policy. Personalized coverage and savings. All the things humans need to make our world a little less imperfect. Call. And ask about all the ways you could save. Liberty mutual insurance. Responsibility. Whats your policy . Announcer lightning round is sponsored by td ameritrade. It is time, it is time for the lightning round on cramers mad money. Rapidfire calls, say the name of the stock, i dont know the name of the callers or the questions ahead of time, when you hear what . [ buzzer ] then the lightning round is over. Are you ready, skeedaddy . Time for the lightning round on cramers mad money. Im going to start with barbara in new york. Barbara. Caller hi, jim. Barbara from oyster bay. How are you . Caller its a pleasure to talk to you. In the past you have been a believer in groupon. The stock has been going down this month. It had a double. They have new management in there. I have a belief in new management. I believe local advertising is going to work. I like yelp more. Gary in virginia, please. Gary. Caller booyah, jim. Yo, whats up . Caller i have been in the house of pain lately with tech smart. The house of pain. Caller pardon the expression. Is it still best of breed . Should i buy more . Im concerned of a slow down in the business. I hate to tell someone after a big move down to bolt but there is a slow down. These are high multiple stocks and you cant have that. It did get too the high versus how its doing now. How about neil in new york. Neil. Caller a big brooklyn booyah for you, jim. Brooklyn booyah, yeah. Home made mezcal. Not really. Caller cyrus one. Im playing with f5. Thats the one to be in. Luca in texas. Caller booyah, jim. My question is on visa. My answer is buy. Trent. Caller hey, jim. Pharmaceutical. The move has been head there. We have had a gigantic run. I pass on icpt. Joe in california. Joe. Caller hey. Im a transplanted southwest philly booyah to you. Holy cow. Ill give you a booyah. Whats up . Caller from the incense burning. He paid for my tesla with the stock. Solar city im going to play solar city. Buy, buy, buy. Taking advantage of the rules of rying to get solar in homes and its working. They have something going there. That, ladies and gentlemen, is the conclusion of the lightning round. Announcer the lightning round is sponsored by td ameritrade. [ tires screech ] chewleys finds itself in a sticky situation today after recalling its new gum. [ male announcer ] stick it to the market before you get stuck. Get the most extensive charting wherever you are with the mobile trader app from td ameritrade. Ive got a nice long life ahead. Big plans. So when i found out medicare doesnt pay all my medical expenses, i got a Medicare Supplement insurance plan. [ male announcer ] if youre eligible for medicare, you may know it only covers about 80 of your part b medical expenses. The rest is up to you. Call now and find out about an aarp Medicare Supplement insurance plan, insured by unitedhealthcare insurance company. Like all standardized Medicare Supplement insurance plans, it could save you in outofpocket medical costs. Call now to request your free decision guide. Ive been with my doctor for 12 years. Now i know ill be able to stick with him. [ male announcer ] youll be able to visit any doctor or hospital that accepts medicare patients. Plus, there are no networks, and virtually no referrals needed. See why millions of people have already enrolled in the only Medicare Supplement insurance plans endorsed by aarp. Dont wait. Call now. Anybody who has a High School Diploma has almost certainly taken chemistry, geometry, physics probably, a host of history classes. Do you know the one thing they almost never teach you in high school let alone touch with a tenfoot pole in College Financial literacy. Hallelujah im not talking about economics here. You could be an econ major and learn nothing about personal Financial Planning or retirement readiness. Cnbc is on a mission to educate and empower you to take control of your finances. You have to check your money. Cnbc. Com because it has the tools you need. I want you to start doing this. Thats why we are doing these segments and why Going Forward every thursday we are running a new segment called cramers playbook where i answer your questions, questions you could ask me on twitter, jim cramer with the hash tag, get a plan. I want to teach you about every aspect of managing your money to be a better investor both when it comes to retirement investing and playing with your discretionary mad money portfolio. Thats why i wrote get rich carefully. If you are looking for a way to get your feet wet in the homework department do yourself a favor and listen to the starbucks Conference Call this evening. Ceo schultz is always illuminating on his calls. Hes a fabulous teacher. Tonights question is from tank man 12, of course. He cuts to the heart of retirement investing when he says, quote, should imax out my foing or cut it back and do more in the stock market separate from the 401 k . Thats a really great query. Its one of the many question s weve gotten about how to manage a 401 k . If you dont know they are the main way americans save for retirement. They are offered by your employer and they are among the great tax Deferred Investment vehicles along with individual retirement accounts or iras. A lot of experts say to max out your 401 k if you make enough. This year the maximum contribution is 17,500. Those come from the pretax income. Im not one of the people who thinks you should max it out. Im not someone who will sing the praises and tell you it is the key to your financial salvation. The truth is they can be a real mixed bag. With a couple of great features and bad ones, too. The bad features eat at your returns year after year. Sometimes through fees that are almost totally hidden from you. Let me lay out the good, the bad and the ugly. Then i will tell you if it makes sense for you to contribute more money to your 401 k or maybe put the cash to better use somewhere else. First the good. The best thing is its a taxDeferred Investment vehicle. Pay no taxes and you never pay a penny of Capital Gains taxes on the profits made. It allows your money to compound year after year, totally tax free until you start making withdrawals. Regular viewers of the show know im a huge believe in the power of compounding. Let me give you an example p. Say youre 30 and you invest 5,000 a in the hock. Youre not paying taxes on that. Choose your investments wisely to generate a return of maybe 7 . Over the course of the next 30 years you will contribute 150,000 to your 401 k plan. Because the money compounds without Capital Gains taxes by the time youre 60 that 5,000 per year pretax income you have been investing would be worth over 511,000. If you had to pay taxes it would be as much as 110,000 lower. You only pay taxes on the money once when you decide to withdraw. At that point your withdrawals are taxed as ordinary income. Since you will likely be retired most of you will pay a lower rate than in f you were taxed when you earned it. Thats one reason to like 401 k plans. The second reason, many but not all employers will match or partly match your 401 k contributions. In other words for every dollar you invest your employer may throw in, say, 50 cents up to a certain point. Thats free money. You almost never want to walk away from free money. Especially when its untaxed. If you dont get a match from your employer its a much less compelling option. As i said there are things about 401 k plans that can be really bad. Which is why if, again, you dont get a match from your employer i believe it is a better idea to save for retirement via an individual retirement account or ira which has the same taxpayer status as a 401 k . You can only contribute 5,500 oh year or 6500 if you are other 50. When you change jobs you can roll the 401 k into an ira and thats what you should do. Why sit the better option . First of all, 401 k plans vary from company to company. Some give you a terrific range of choices and let you pick individual stocks. Many more Companies Give you 401 k plans with limited options. Sometimes you only get to choose between a couple dozen different mutual funds. If you cant pick your own stocks in the 401 k my number one rule is before you contribute money to the 401 k plan you have to make sure it gives you the option to put cash into something thats worth investing in. I will make it simple. You cant pick your own stocks in a 401 k you want a low expense index fund that mimics the s p 500. If the 401 k doesnt offer that go with the selfdirected ira from a full Service Discount broker dont sneeze when you do it. One more negative. When you invest in a mutual fund you have to pay fees. The 401 k administrator your Company Hires will charge fees. For all the money 401 k s save on taxes a great deal can be clawed back by fees. If you look at your statement and wonder why your 401 k holdings arent increasing like you thought they should that could be the reason. Heres the bottom line in retirement vesting. If there is an employer match put money into the 401 k until the match is maxed out. No reason to pass up free money. After that put Additional Savings in an ira. If there is no employer match or if there is a match but your 401 k doesnt give you options that are worth investing in you would do better to skip it and go straight to the ira. Of course we have barely scratched the surface of retirement investing tonight. If you want to learn more like about a roth or ira, particular kinds of iras or what to earn watch every thursday right here on oh mad money. [ male announcer ] this is the story of the dusty basement at 1406 35th street the old dining table at 25th and hoffman. And the little room above the strip mall off roble avenue. This magic moment it is the story of where every great idea begins. And of those who believed they had the power to do more. Dell is honored to be part of some of the worlds great stories. That began much the same way ours did. In a little dorm room 2713. This magic moment [ chainsaw whirring ] humans sometimes life trips us up. Sometimes we trip ourselves up. And although the mistakes may seem to just keep coming at you, so do the solutions. Like multipolicy discounts from Liberty Mutual insurance. Save up to 10 just for combining your auto and home insurance. Call Liberty Mutual insurance at. [ thump ] to speak with an Insurance Expert and ask about all the personalized savings available for when you get married, move into a new house, or add a car to your policy. Personalized coverage and savings. All the things humans need to make our world a little less imperfect. Call. And ask about all the ways you could save. Liberty mutual insurance. Responsibility. Whats your policy . You can write a book about carl icahns moves in the market like hes the central character in so many instances that hes the symbol of the era of aggressive activism. We know as of last night his latest cost is ebay breaking it up into plain ebay and sexy p paypal. This morning we spoke to john donahue on squawk box about keeping it together. He made a compelling case. Ebays poor business helps papal grow and vice versa. They have Excellent Group and hes managing the segments welch when you have low growth ebay, accelerated growth despite the competition from the beast that is amazon and a 16 increase in papal subscribers, whats to complain about . Thats impressive. I can understand the frustration. As the stock has been static for a year. A year where papal look alikes like mastercard and visa were up even as they have slower growth. Master card with 1. 2 million card holders growing at 10 traveled from 49 to 82 over that period. Visa with 2. 5 million card holders and 6. 5 growth has gone from 152 to 228. Its important to point out visa has a cap. Its possible paypal will be loved for rapid growth while ebay will get a higher multiple. Whats holding ebay back. They have promised terrific growth and delivered only good growth. The company is viewed as a break up candidate. I suspect ebay would be in the high 40st, down roughly 10 from where it went out. Last night frankly it was over promised and under delivered. Lets talk about the other investments. Icahn bought netflix which was up 55 today, back when it was below 60. Accumulating. Hes now got a 560 dpan in 15 months we know from judge wapners show. How did he hit it out of the park when others missed it . He realized the opportunity was bigger than the market cap and given great Growth Prospects like tesla, solar city netflix is a concept stock and carl icahn got it. The analysts didnt. When will netflix stop . Probably when analysts capitulate. He took 60 a go in hain celestial are recognizing healthier eating. He left it after taking a hefty gain. Leaves apple and haeserbalife. I wish ap ale bought netflix when icahn did. Carl wants value via a buy back. I want growth to accelerate from products and acquisitions. Im agnostic when it comes to how to get the stock higher. Herbalife is a stock people are in because they believe in icahn. Yesterday is the anniversary of the epic show down with wpner. People know carl eye can is in it so they dump it when a politician calls for an investigation though i dont believe that will go hard. The easy money has been made there. Why focus on carl icahn . Hes the stake holder who gets long and loud in an era when corporate boards are more responsive to disgruntled shareholders. Even on a down day there are many ways to win. One is to bank on an activist like carl icahn when he swoops in either to change or conquer. Stick with cramer. You got the bargain kind . You need a bunch of those to clean this mess. Then ill use a bunch of them. Then how is that a bargain . [ sighs ] no, thats too many its not gonna fit whoa cascade kitchen and math counselor. Heres a solution. One pac of cascade complete cleans tough food better than six pacs of the bargain brand combined. So you can tackle tough messes the first time. That is more like it. How are you with taxes . [ laughs ] [ counselor ] and for even more cleaning power, try cascade platin [ laughs ] im bethand im michelle. And we own the paper cottage. Its a stationery and gifts store. Anything we purchase for the paper cottage goes on our ink card. So you can manage your business expenses and access them online instantly with the Game Changing app from ink. We didnt get into business to spend time managing receipts, thats why we have ink. We like being in business because we like being creative, we like interacting with people. So you have time to focus on the things you love. Ink from chase. So you can. I like to say there is always a bull market somewhere. I promise to find it for you on mad money. Im jim cramer. I will see you tomorrow America Succeeds by raising everybody up. It doesnt succeed by tearing anybody down. Its never better to make somebody poorer. Even if they are very rich. Cant beat that. Former obama economic adviser larry somers speaks the truth about income and equality from davos today. Also today a new harvard study shows social mobility hasnt changed in 50 years in this country. So is this going to wreck president obama and the economic message in the state of the union . Dont believe it. I believe they will stay with a redistribution message. Also