Competition is cutthroat. And today we let the economy play out once again as we have pretty much every day since this Earnings Period began. Dow gained 22 points, s p backsliding. 19 . Nasdaq declining. Theres a debate going on oddly which im in the center stage of of how anemic business in this country this quarter. The press, notably the wall street journal, is trying to make a case that business after all this quantitative easing, all this help from the federal reserve, is still depressed. I dont know. I see it another way. Many companies are doing extraordinarily well, particularly the Big Multinational Companies and the banks, the ones that dont have much competition. In fact, theres the fulcrum issue. If there isnt a lot of competition, the stock has been soaring if there is, then the storys been pretty soso. If its that simple, why doesnt everybody see it my way . First, they arent looking at the same thing i am. Im gauging the results of stock prices. Im measuring what the market has to say about the earnings. In the end im innately a capitalist. My mission is to help you make money. Thats my prism. Whats not my prism . Hiring. Im not focused on hiring because guess what im not a politician. I dont work at the fed. Frankly, its worse now. I dont want to sound like a cutthroat capitalist here, but the companies that are doing the best are the ones who are making money with fewer people than they used to. When revenues arent totally robust you need bottom line growth. Its pretty easy to figure out how to get there. You lay off people and you get machines to replace them. Or you just make the other people work harder. Thats how its done. Do i want that to happen . Am i some kind of sadist who gets kicks out of layoffs . No, of course not. But then again, from the perspective of an investor, well, thats the perspective of the show, it doesnt matter. My job is to figure out how companies are doing and because competition is slack in Many Industries the fact remains youre getting some really good numbers from a lot of different places. Let me show you what i mean using just today. So United Technologies led the dow and it put up spectacular numbers. Why . Because it makes aircraft components and aerospace is in total bull market mode. There simply arent enough parts out there to meet the demand from the Big Aerospace companies, so United Technologies is able to raise prices on its products and have bigger margins because the raw costs for its materials are going in the right direction. Talk about a virtuous circle. But what wasnt working today in the dow . What was the worst . Travelers. The fabulous insurance company. This ones a textbook case of the perils of competition. The stock was soaring all morning after that great number was reported until our own Mary Thompson broke in on squawk on the street and said hold it, travelers needs to compete on price to get business, particularly car insurance. The house of pain. Talk about what i dont want to hear. Competition is the bane of profits. I like bountiful oligopolies like the airlines, the rental car companies, and of course the rails all aboard. I like beautiful duopolies like airbus and boeing. But cutthroat competition to get business. Are you kidding . No, thank you. You can use this prism to analyze all the big capitalization stocks that have reported so far. Honeywell and General Electric have backed away from really competitive markets and again, theyre doing a ton of business in aerospace. The oil and gas business seeing little competition on price. Oil service King Schlumberger had an amazing quarter. They have higher revenues and higher margins because they have so little competition. Gross margins are going up. In fact, some of these big dogs have really killed off the little guy competition. Both companies have sizable defense businesses while defense orders in the future may be slowing, theres very little competition for these contracts. Hey, we know that from lockheed martin, which reported a marvelous number, and it has a stock that simply wont quit. Or Northrup Grumman like we promoted last night on off the charts. Going higher. The defense names are the strongest stocks in this market this year. Sequester . No competition. How about the railroads like csx and Union Pacific . Monster good numbers. The rails, they dont compete. They raise prices routinely when contracts roll over. That is a fantastic business. Lets talk health care. United Health Groups dazzled the dow. Why . Because these Health Maintenance companies have to well, to look i think they stopped competing on price. Its like they carved up the whole country. Johnson johnson posted terrific numbers. Patent protection made that possible. No competition. But do you know who has the least competitive marketplace versus the old days . Wow, is this a change. And it happened because some companies took advantage of the great recession. Im talking about the banks. Outfits like jpmorgan and wells fargo are tallying incredible earnings because the competition in banking has diminished so radically. No bank has more than 10 market share but because of the financial crisis that was thrown out of the window. The wells fargo and jpmorgans, they bought a lot of banks and wells fargo has 30 of the mortgage market. I mean, thats phenomenal. No more cutthroat competition. Banking is no longer a dog eat dog world. And you want to know whos simply not competing on price at all . The mortgage insurers. Today mgic, one of the biggest, down in profit. To me that means you need to keep buying radian and genworth, my favorite specs for 2013, the two companies doing the best in business because mortgage insurance has become a slaphappy oligopoly. Now lets take a look at the supermarkets for some of the big disappointments. There are some really incredible things here. Alcoa kicked off earnings season with a dud. Is anything more competitive than aluminum . Not that i know of. Theyre constantly cutting prices in that business other than when Goldman Sachs is tacking a little or at least what the press says. Cocacola reported disappointing numbers. I think thats because few markets are more competitive than the drink market. There are constant price wars. If youve gone to the supermarket, a lot of these hotshot analysts probably never go to the supermarket. I go to the supermarket. I mean, like soda, geez, they give that stuff away. As competitive as drinks are, how about fast food . Oh, my. Did you see that wendys pretzel burger today . The darn things beloved. That could give any burger joint a run for its money including mcdonalds. Fast foods competing on price at the same time commodities are going higher and thats a nightmare. No wonder mcdonalds missed. Sure if im a customer i want a value meal but if im a shareholder i want chipotles margins. Panera and dominos which well hear from tonight, they did seem to succumb to intense competition this quarter. Tech is filled with price wars. Microsofts surface is getting its butt kicked by the competition. Intel, the personal Computer Market newly reinvigorated amd will come underneath them. Worries about the internet drove googles earnings below what the street was looking for. Then theres apple where everyone has gotten so used to the way competition has squeezed its business and its margins that the Company Reported better than expected revenue tonight with the earnings and revenue coming in above the analysts were looking for causing the stock to roar in after hours traders. But make no mistake about it, this quarter is a testament to the power of lowered expectations. Yes. You see, including estimates that were slashed this very week that were in retrospect wrong to do as apple is simply making a lot less money than it was a year ago. Yahoo. It finally went up. How important is it that Companies Avoid competition wherever it can be found . Look no further than what fell off my desk. Look no further than oh. Alas, poor yorick. Look no further than dupont, which today announced a gigantic restructuring. Huge. Whats happened here . Ceo alan coleman wants to get out of the biggest commodity business, the one that produces the quintessential commodity tio2, or titanium dioxide, which is a whitener, something made all over the world. To emphasize du ponts businesses theyre about proprietary science, and yes, enzymes. Seeds, foods, and safety. Its a brilliant strategy, and it has moved the stock up far beyond where it would be if there were still a world where it competed on price. So heres the bottom line. You want to know whos doing well this Earnings Period . Just look at where theres little or no competition. And when there is competition, the markets saying ill take a pass. That, not anything the fed is doing or how much higher its whatever the journal is talking about as defining earnings season. When youre about to buy something, think first. Is the company in question going at it hammer and tongs and tooth and nail with the other players . If yes i say take a rain check. There could be much better parties elsewhere. Why dont we start with andrew in pennsylvania . Andrew caller booyah, jim. This is andrew from pennsylvania. Yo, andrew, how are you doing . Youre from the west coast . West part of pennsylvania . Doing well . Or east part and just getting crushed like me . Caller east part. Just getting crushed. Sorry to hear that. Caller well, but jim, i do agree that genos is better than pats. But is mastercard better than visa after its price target was increased and it was affirmed as a buy . I have to tell you, mastercard had been more controversial. I like both these stocks. I know one of the things that happens is a lot of times they get hit right after they report. But that has been a buying opportunity literally from the day they came public. And i bet you its going to be that again. So even though were hardsuffering phillies fans and genos eaters, lets wait for the quarters and then do some buying. Chris in minnesota. Chris caller hello from the land of ten thousand booyahs. Well, hey. Ill give you a land from supplements, too. Whats up there . Caller peabody energy. They beat the earnings estimates, reduced costs and theyre rallying as of late. Do i keep this lump of coal in my stocking . I think that every dog has its day and i think that peabody can go a little bit higher. Now, the old super cycle of commodities didnt pan out. But i do think coal has been oversold. I want to listen to Norfolk Southern tonight, though, because coal is Norfolk Southern and vice versa and they will tell me more. Dog eat dog . Well, this markets a kitten. It just doesnt want anything to do with competition this earnings season. Look where theres no competition, and then pull the trigger. Mad money will be right back. Coming up, wireless war. After a recent run, shares of sprint have stumbled, falling 15 in the last month alone. But after clearing a few hurdles, is it ready to get back up again . Cramers mobile matchup is next. And later, meal ticket . Dominos pizza has been increasing its slice of the pie. But after reporting earnings, the stock appears to be cooling off. Can you count on the company to deliver more, or is hanging on here just pigging out . Stick around for cramers exclusive. Plus, service with a smile. Timeless toolmaker snapon made reporting an earnings beat look like, well, a snap. But can its continued push into new markets cause its shares to find another gear, or will the stock break down . Cramer has the exclusive just ahead. 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. Diarrhea, gas, bloating . Constipation, yes one Phillips Colon Health probiotic cap each day helps defend against these digestive issues. With three strains of good bacteria. 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What the heck are we supposed to do with this spring . Sell, sell buy, buy last year the single best performing on the s p 500, rallying 180 . Thanks to a terrific turnaround followed by a fabulous takeover bid from softbank, the japanese tech titan. But the sprint nextel, the specter of the stock to be good, it made us a fortune, no longer exists. Now we have a new sprint. Two weeks ago sprint closed on its acquisition of clearwire, giving the company complete control of a massive amount of wireless spectrum, which is the coveted commodity in this business. And then on july 10th the soft bank deal closed. Soft bank paid 21. 6 billion for a 78 stake in sprint soft bank. And soft bank gets control of the company. Sprint gets a ton of cash to help pay for its big 4g infrastructure rollout. Remember, thats what happens right now. You have to have 4g across the country. And sprint shareholders got 5. 50 per share, plus 26 shares of the new sprint that we see traded for every 100 shares of the old sprint that they owned. However, Something Else happened when the soft bank deal closed. The new sprint became controversial. As a matter of fact, this stock is now a total battleground on july 11th, the day after soft bank bought most of the company, citigroup came out and downgraded the stock sell sell sell from buy to neutral. At the same time Deutsche Bank reinstated its coverage of sprint with a buy. Then a week ago on the 15th bank of america reinstated coverage with an underperform. A day later ubs raises the price target on sprint from 6 to 7. Buy buy buy holy cow. This isnt just your typical analyst duel. Its a wall street shootout. This stock is the equivalent of the gun fight at the ok corral so whos right . Whos wrong . First lets give the bears their due. Sprint reports a week from today, july 30th, and pretty much everyone thinks the earnings will be a disaster. The reason . Sprint is still in the process of building out its next generation ultra highspeed 4g lte Wireless Network. Theres a mouthful. It will be 3 to 12 months before they can roll out a competitive product nationwide that can fend off att and verizon. Beyond that sprint always had a lot of moving parts and now youve got even more. So its possible the real quarter, it could be a mess. The house of pain. But like i said, nobody expects this quarter to be good. And i think if sprint gets banged down on lousylooking earnings, that could be a fabulous opportunity to buy buy buy and yes, i do think that sprint is a buy. It might just be the best longterm Investment Opportunity in the whole Wireless Industry right now. You just have to be patient enough to let the story play out. Why dont we be bullish analysts and be right about sprint . Lets think this through. Before soft bank came along and injected the company with boatloads of cash sprint was already doing pretty darn good. Bangup job of turning itself around under the topnotch leadership of ceo dan hesse. The old sprint was aggressively winding down the legacy of nextel business while convincing nextel customers to migrate to sprints core network, also cleaning up its by the way, that migration push, hesse did a great job with that. With the new sprint hesses still at the helm although he reports to some incredibly smart people at soft bank now. More important right now, theres nothing more important to the Wireless Industry right now than electromagnetic spectrum. Thats why at t offered to buy leap wireless for an almost absurdly huge 88 premium. Everybody in this space needs spectrum if they want to offer highspeed service with lots of bandwidth to more customers, think netflix, because theyre squeezing all the bandwidth they can out of their existing spectrum. Guess what with its clearwire acquisition sprint has 200 megahertz of spectrum, double of at t. More available for its 4g lte network than all of their National Competitors combined and sprints spectrum is also better quality than the competitions. So once sprint finishes its 4g buildout the companys going to have a decisive edge over the competition given that at t or verizon has half as much spectrum to service twice as many customers. And by the way, those are both good companies, but ive got to tell you, spectrum is what counts. The bullish analysts at Deutsche Bank believes sprint can grow earnings before interest, taxes appreciation and amortization, thats ebitda at a 25 annual clip and thats a conservative estimate that only includes the cost savings from the wind down of the old nextel network and a modest increase in Wireless Service revenue. Right now sprint has the lowest margins in the industry thanks to the costs associated with running that parallel network for the nextel legacy customers. But as the Company Finally finishes shutting down nextel hallelujah their earnings before interest taxes depreciation amortization, ebitda margin could easily rise from 17. 2 this year to nearly 30 by 2016. The house of pleasure. And were just talking about cleaning up the old sprint here. If you factor in the synergies from the soft bank mer