To not cut back on the Federal Reserves quantitative easing. This chatter permeated almost every single moment of todays session. So in the interest of trying to help you make money, did you hear that, make money, as opposed to trying to force feed you some political nonsense about what bernanke should have done if he had half a brain and, yes, the commentary at that time, at many points today was that ugly. Boo let me give you a check list of what matters to the stock market and what doesnt because thats what were about. First of all what matters is the future, not the past. One of the chief criticisms i heard today was that given how strong the data has been today, hiring, very good housing statistics, what the heck is bernanke doing by not trying to get the Federal Reserve out of this ridiculous bond buying program. This is an unacceptable and foolish, lacking in rigor, line of thought. I want you to ponder for a moment, just ponder the notion that ben bernanke, instead of running the fed, runs a huge retailer. I want you to thin like a retail analyst for a moment. Try to figure out how ben bernanke is doing. Would you after listening to him yesterday raise numbers for the quarter or lower them . I think the answer is pretty darn easy. I think you would slash retail numbers in the Fourth Quarter. Why . Because suddenly the future has become worrisome with the impending Government Shutdown, it will get worse. I kid you not. The government default and downgrade could be creeping into the vernacular. Bernanke is a student of history. He doesnt care who will cause the shutdown. Hes not political. He just knows that the economy folded during the 199596 shutdown as all Government Services were cut back instantly. So he knows Speaker Boehner has adopted the policy of the president and theres no doubt about it. We will reprise, enduring a war similar to the Clinton Gingrich debacle the market diminished. As he headed slowly back to academia would be, what was that bozo the clown thinking . How could he have tapered knowing what lay ahead . Many people tell me that bernanke has misjudged how strong the economy is and that the stock market which is hitting new highs yesterday knew much more than he does. Why should we believe that, people . Weve had severe declines going to every single one of these government fiascos. The debt downgrade, fiscal cliff, sequester. In every case no one thought they would be as bad or as paralyzing as they were. In every single case people told us to start buying stocks right when they started. I did not because i think these are hideous things. I bet the collective market is as naive now as those other times. I think it would be nice to know that the fed had our backs in the next couple of weeks. He knows the shutdown could destroy confidence and shut down businesses. He did not put them at risk or anything like that gibberish i heard all day. He simply saved housing from rolling over which is what looked to be happening at the end of august when the last of the low Mortgage Interest Rate opportunities occurred. He doesnt want to end it when were still only building a third of the homes that we were building before the great recession. Isnt that incredible, people . I think it is amazing that with a few words bernanke was able to knock off a quarter percent of the mortgage rate. Isnt that what we want . I regard that as a win, not a loss. Where is the problem with that . More important, theres this no credibility issue here. That was another canard. Just the opposite. If the fed had no credibility, the rates wouldnt have had their biggest one day drop in two years courtesy of a couple of comments from this man. You know what that is . Thats huge credibility. Talk to the Hedge Fund Managers that were short bonds right into this magnificent rally, betting against bernanke. Oh, yeah. They now know that bernanke has both power and credibility. They lost their whole year yesterday, slapped them upside the head by the mean whamma jamma that is the fed chief, although they probably didnt call him that when he was the head of princeton. You heard that rap. The fed will never stop bond buying. Well never stop quantitative easing. These people, what script is that . Send me that script. Is it from the office . Let me tell you how stupid it is. Weve heard that same, the feds reckless, cant stop and its risking the republic. I heard that. The republic is on the line. One republic. These people who express this view, they took you out of the market thousands and thousands of dow points ago. Remember where im coming from. Im trying to help you make money. Those people have lost you money. If the fed were trying to pull the plug, you know what . It could do it. The dow would drop 2,000, maybe 3,000 points. Youd still be ahead of where these jokers pulled you out because of politics. Finally, we had good data. The data is anything but firm, frankly. Whats the point of tapering when walmart, target, macys, nordstroms, pvh, ralph lauren, and now pier one say things have gotten rocky of late. How is that reassuring . Pier one actually says its our fault. The other guys, they all said the same thing. It was the economy. It is true that overseas is strong and getting stronger. Companies that deal with International Markets like the Big Industrials that we hear more about later in the show, they arent getting their tailwind from the United States. Theyre getting it from china, brazil, russia, mexico, and canada. Theyre coming back. Remember its always about earnings on mad money. Think about home depot. The company does very well when the domestic, not international, but domestic economy is humming. Home depot has been soaring ever since the bottom of the great recession, but it ran into a brick wall when it reported a month ago. The stock dropped almost 10 because smart investors were able to see that this was the last good quarter for home depot, given the sudden and sickening climb in rates. You need to know what the fed had to do to take action like that. The fed needed to reverse the course of that stuff. It is the barometer of the course of spending. The fact that he was able to get them back from 78 to 72 is a sign that he got a chance to get the sector going. Im being proverbial, not literal. Thats the impact of what hes saying on the stock. Its really remember, we could have the possibility of a really ugly Government Shutdown, youre not going to be shopping at home depot. That could shave millions and millions in the upcoming quarter including home depot. Should tesla have soared on comments from analysts . Thats the sort of bubble action not to be frowned upon. I told you its a cold stock. That means it could go up for a long time. Should pandora have gone up 7 points in the last week to week and a half . Thats more super bullish activity as could of course the giant run in gold which i constantly say should be your partnership. But the bottom line is this, complainers, the grousers, they think with political hats on, not financial hats. They want to wax on how the fed is wrong, to do this or that, and it should be tougher, less accomodating. Me, i have a simple litmus test. Do i have a different following . Do i think things will improve because of bernankes actions . You bet i do. But then again, im not trying to win you over to my point of view. Im not trying to lose you money. I am simply trying to help you make money. Jonathan in florida, please, jonathan. Caller booyah. Hows it going, jim . Real good, jonathan. How about you . Caller im doing really well. I was just wondering about sony. Im wondering if you think theyre starting a big turnaround. I happen to like the japanese market. I dont want to single out sony although i know dan loeb says its worth a lot. My trust has a position in a japanese etf, thats what i want you to play if you think japan is turning as i think i do. Mark in ohio. Caller we just got through our day of atonement. Have you atoned for all the sins you made with your incorrect any incorrect picks you might have made from last year . Im the only one that does the atonement show so i dont know about the other guys. Caller okay. Mcdonalds just raised their dividend. Would i be better off buying mcdonalds, or since they went into the chicken wing business should i buy into that . No, thats grain cost issue, tyson foods. Mcdonalds is just doing it as a promotion. We dont know if theyre going to stick with it. Sally smith of Buffalo Wild Wings said theyre not really the mover in chicken wings. Put on your financial hat. Youll feel better. Mad money will be right back. Coming up, peer pressure. Shares of retailer pier one are under water today after a weak report caused a steep sale on wall street. Is this your chance to buy at a discount before the holiday season, or should it be left on clearance . Find out in cramers exclusive. And later, best for the rest. Cramers been offering up the best stocks for the rest of 2013 all week, and tonight hes taking to the skies. Its a group of stocks thats been flying this year. But which ones will continue to the stratosphere . Plus, changing the game. New jersey is breaking new ground in the Online Gambling arena. As the odds are tipped in the favor of new companies, which players could hit the jackpot . Cramer checks in with the ceo of International Game technology, just ahead. All coming up on mad money. How tough has the huge spike in Mortgage Rates been for the housingrelated retail names . Hey, come on. Thats one of the Big Questions weve been opining all day on mad money. Pier one with over a thousand stores has gone through a monumental turn around since the financial crisis thanks to the ceo alex smith. Just this morning they reported and this well run Company Reported a rare miss, 4 cents lower than expected. To make things even tougher, pier one lowered its guidance 13 . Weve got to figure out whats going on. How much is decelerated housing . They didnt say anything about that. They said, no, its all on us. So lets check in with alex smith, the president and ceo of pier 1 imports and someone who has made a lot of money and find out whats going on with his company and whats going to happen next. Welcome back to mad money. Jim, thank you for asking me back. Glad to be here. When i saw the number, i, unlike you, wanted to say some of this had to be because of regional weaknesses in the economy because of the spike in rates. Youre just not that bad, man. Thanks for saying that, jim. Heres the thing. When we looked at how we executed our store business in the quarter, were really not very happy and we know we made some mistakes, and until i can say that we executed flawlessly, im not about to blame outside forces. So thats really just how we think of pier 1 imports. Weve got to get our own house in order here. Well, some of the best merchants said the same thing to me, without blaming themselves, that traffic was soft in july. Why cant you just say that in the country traffic was soft, because i know you say its a fragmented industry, but the truth is, sir, that no one we had the Largest Shopping Center guy in here yesterday. No one had good traffic in july. Why should you have had good traffic . Its back to this whole sort of market share conversation, jim, that you and i have had before. We are such a small percentage of a very large and fragmented industry that we believe in our hearts of hearts that even when the external environment is tough, we should be able to transcend that somewhat, so thats my only point in all of this. We see the numbers the way everybody else does. We know whats going on. As i say, our mindset is just weve got to fix what we can fix. Alex, why did you cut back in retrospect, obviously wrong, why did you cut back on ad spend . Were you that confident that things were better in the country or your lineup was better . You know, jim, i think what happened is we got really very overexcited and overenamored with where we were going with our Online Business and we were all very focused with building out that business, and so our marketing was more geared toward branding traffic to our website real estate than driving it to our stores. In the cold gray light of morning that seems like not a smart decision. Youre increasing your tv presence by a rather remarkable percent. As you mentioned, tv spots. Will this do it . Well, we starting tv at the beginning of september. It runs all the way through christmas with increasing rates as we get near to the holiday season. So some new holiday ads to come on in november. So were pretty optimistic that that increased tv waiting is that increased tv waiting is going to help, and as i said on the call this morning for the first time in many years were going to be back on network tv which is great for us. Now, you did mention that there were some regional areas that were better and soft. What was going on in that part of the country . We were very disappointed in the northeast. Its a huge, huge market for us. Weve certainly seen traffic in that part of the world incrementally less strong than in other parts of the country. The northeast. See, i would have i know you did some remodeling in boston. I mean is it the look and feel of those stores any different from the rest of the country, or is that just some sort of funk that you can identify . I cant give you any finite reasons without starting to blame outside influences. One last question. You know i go to your store every halloween. Thats where we get all your stuff. Was there anything with your actual merchandise selection and is this merchandise selection meeting what the public wants right now . Oh, were really, really comfortable in our assortments and im sure youve seen our halloween and harvest. Its certainly resonating. We think were really good at the whole holiday seasonal piece, and so were confident about those. So, no. The other thing i would say is that although the traffic has been light, jim, the customers who have been into our stores, our Conversion Rates on our average ticket and units per transaction rates all have been very strong. So its not a question of any rejection of what were putting in front of the customers. Its just not enough people in the stores in this second quarter. Well, look. Thank you for your candor. There were many people who i felt did miss the market, didnt have the right merchandise and just said it was Interest Rates. Youre a candid man and thats one of the reasons youve made so much money for people. Alex smith, president and ceo of pier 1 imports. Thanks for coming on the show. Thanks for having me. When you realize youve got it wrong and you change, we should change our minds and not be so negative about the stocks. Pier 1, think its right. Stay with us. Coming up, best for the rest. Cramer has been offering up the best stocks for all of 2013. And tonight hes taking to the skies. Its a group of stocks thats been flying this year, but which ones will continue to the stratosphere . Huh. Fifteen minutes could save you fifteen percent or more on car insurance. Mmmhmmm. 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Even after the market hit a new alltime high yesterday, you know that i think we could be in for a rough time, as the focus now switches to washington, theres a possibility of a Government Shutdown in a few short weeks. Were about to head into one of these tougher periods for stocks that really has been looks like it, by the way. Its usually objective. Were also heading toward the end of 2013. That means weve just about reached the moment when the best performing stocks out there are anointed by wall street money managers. Its a concept ive been talking about all week. Its about the mechanics of money management. At the end of every year, every Hedge Fund Manager wants to show their investors what they own. They dont want those investors to ask for the money back, these managers have to make sure their clients like what they see. Thats why every Fourth Quarter they take any opportunities to buy the best performing stocks into weakness so that their investors will see that theyre winners and think that theyre geniuses and when they want to buy the stock it tends to drive that stock that much higher, supply and demand. So now since any decent hedge fund or mutual fund has to be diversified, ive been doing this by analysis, sector, sector. On monday i told you about the consumer names that i think will become anointed. These included netflix, best buy, game stop, did you see grand theft auto today . Trip advisor. Tuesday we did biotech, celgene, regeneron. Yesterday we covered the nationals. Now, its time to look at the industrials. This is my favorite of the four, people. Its a group thats up. When you look at the top five performers in this space you can see this is sort of a catchall category as there really isnt a single classic industrial in the group. The best is really a transport. Its delta air lines. Thats up 8 year to date. Isnt that remarkable . Pitney bowes. Back from the dead Mail Processing play. Then theres boeing. Quintessential aerospace and defense play that we like so much. Then theres Northrop Grumman which is up big and Lockheed Martin. P