Stock Smackdown: Cramer vs. CAPS

There's no denying that Mad Money host Jim Cramer is entertaining, popular, and passionate. On many occasions, he's even right. He's closest thing to a stock market rock star -- but is he smarter than you?

The Fool's free investing community, Motley Fool CAPS, aggregates the opinion of more than 120,000 members to assign ratings for each stock's likelihood of outperforming or underperforming the market. For the first 20 months since we began tracking the CAPS community's collective intelligence in late 2006, the data shows that newly minted five-star stocks offer the best opportunities for investors, while lowest-rated companies fared the worst.

Cramming for Cramer
Below, we look at some top stocks that Cramer picked and panned during last week's "lightning rounds," then compare his prognoses to the CAPS community's collective opinion of their future.

Source: "Mad Money" and CAPS.

Cramer says...
The Dreamliner should have been a masterstroke for Boeing. Instead, it's become a public-relations nightmare for the aircraft builder. In what will be the fourth delay for its unveiling, Boeing is expected to push back delivery of the giant 787 yet again, this time to 2010. It's hard to argue with Jim Cramer's statement that there's little to recommend this stock:

I did an analysis today on RealMoney.com... and I said that [Boeing] is probably the most worrisome stock in the Dow right now... because I think they have absolutely nothing cooking. They had a strike. There isn't anything to recommend on that stock. I say, sell, sell, sell...

CAPS says...
While more than 90% of the members rating Boeing on CAPS think it will outperform the market, it has only garnered a middling three-star rating on our service. That's probably because many of our participants agree with CAPS member Seano67, who argues that the Dreamliner is a failure of "epic" proportions:

The Dreamliner was expected to be the Next Big Thing, the revolutionary design of a carbon-composite plane that promised increased range along with decreased fuel-load, the dream plane for all airlines. [Boeing] hung a great deal of their credibility on this project, and to this point the project's been an utter disaster. On top of all the issues listed above, the plane is weighing in heavier than had been advertised...which is going to make it less fuel efficient and have less range than customers had been led to believe...and would also defeat the purpose of the whole project- that being to design a lighter plane that could fly farther using less fuel.

Meanwhile, back on the pipeline...
Recent moves by Chesapeake Energy have created confusion in the market. Cramer thinks the natural gas producer is transforming from "one of the best to one of the worst natural gas companies." CAPS member skymutt2 would tend to agree, arguing that Chesapeake is doing exactly the wrong thing at the wrong time:

Ugh... has to raise cash at exactly the wrong time! The CEO obviously can't manage his personal finances, so there's little surprise that he's mismanages his company's finances as well.

Massive dilution... shedding assets for pennies on the dollar... I feel for the existing shareholders.

Have your say
While CAPS members may stand with Jim Cramer or on opposite sides of the field, the investor intelligence community is more than the opinions of a handful of All-Stars -- even if they are TV personalities. What do you think? Is Cramer right, or off his rocker? Head over to CAPS and share your thoughts on Boeing, Chesapeake Energy, or any other stock.

Motley Fool CAPS is a great place to start your own research on stocks like these. Read a company's financial reports, scrutinize key data and charts, and examine the comments your fellow investors have made, all from a stock's CAPS page. Best of all, it's free!