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. So he's smart, funny, and the closest thing to a stock market rock star -- but is he smarter than you?

Cramming for Cramer
The Fool's free investing community, Motley Fool CAPS, aggregates the opinions of more than 140,000 members, assigning ratings for each stock's likelihood of outperforming or underperforming the market.

Below, we look at some top stocks that Cramer picked and panned during last week's "lightning rounds," and compare Cramer's judgments to the CAPS community's opinions of their future:

Cramer says …
It often takes a crisis or a breaking point before a troubled company can make positive changes. Jim Cramer believes the new management team at online auctioneer eBay, coupled with its new turnaround plan, is just such a promising development:

eBay... 52 week high... I own it for my charitable trust... I think that the thing is going to have big momentum... they have made a lot of changes.. the management is really good... I think that eBay goes to $30... buy, buy, buy.

CAPS says …
A lot of investors are also eBay-ers; some would probably fall into the category of "Power Seller." Needless to say, they also feel they've been burned by the auction house in the past. CAPS user ssbb123 thinks that eBay's laundry list of fees ends up killing sellers' motivation:

Ebay used to be the place to go for everything I couldn't find anywhere cheaper about 5 years ago. Now everywhere is cheaper as sellers are struggling to turn a profit. As a seller I sell on Craigslist all cash, you get a better price for what you do sell and there are NO FEES. More and more people are doing this so more and more buyers and sellers are moving away from Feebay. Eventually with no sellers there will obviously be no buyers and as a result no Ebay. UNLESS they turn things around stop being so greedy and turn it back into what it used to be! A place were you could earn some part time or even full time money rather than busting your hump to make a grand total of $1 on something that sold for $1000.

This Fool says …
While I've had favorable experiences as a seller and buyer on eBay, that could be because I'm just a casual user, not a Power Seller. While "buying what you know" is good advice, I think the auction site's renewed focus on its core competencies is the most compelling argument that eBay is a good investment.

Selling a majority stake in Skype allows eBay to still benefit from the online communication service's growth -- revenue was up 25% in the most recent quarter -- without being distracted by attempts to integrate a service that never seemed like a logical fit. PayPal, on the other hand, is a natural extension of eBay's auction business. The electronic payment network will require management's full attention in its increasingly competitive field. With PayPal enjoying double-digit revenue growth, eBay can't afford to falter here.

If a leaner, trimmer eBay focuses on its key constituents, its sellers, and its core competency, the auction website could make a successful bid for more respect from Wall Street.

Your say
CAPS members may stand with Jim Cramer or on the opposite side of the field. But the investor intelligence community is more than the musings of a handful of All-Stars, even if they are TV personalities. What do you think? Is Cramer right, or off his rocker? No need to hedge your thoughts on CAPS -- why not head off right now to sound off on Cramer's bid to bolster eBay's chances?

Motley Fool CAPS is a great place to start your own research on these stocks. 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.