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 opinion of more than 140,000 members to assign 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 them to how the CAPS community sees their future.

Cramer says
Therapies for cancer treatment are hot right now and there are plenty of places to find companies to invest in if you want to play their advances. Allos Therapeutics is one of them -- Regeneron Pharmaceuticals is not, according to Cramer:

Alright, I want to say high yield, I want to say high risk ... it is absolutely only as a spec ... this thing has been around forever ... I have been playing it as a spec, I remember when it became public for heavens sake ... do not buy ... I have got many other companies like Targacept that we talked about on Friday ... I like that much better ... Allos, I like that one much more ... I refer you to ... many of the anticancer stories that we had last week ... all of which I regard as superior to Regeneron.

Perhaps he'd want to take back that sentiment, particularly in light of Regeneron's new drug-discovery pact. In Cramer's defense, he did note the pharma company was a speculative play and figuring out the timing of such deals, or even whether they'll take place, is a sketchy endeavor.

CAPS says
The CAPS community agrees with Cramer that Allos Therapeutics would be the better investment as 95% of those rating the biotech believe it will outperform the market. A similar percentage of All-Star members back it as well, but Wall Street is firmly behind the company with all 13 analysts marking it to outperform. Its CAPS rating has steadily marched northward, too, rising from lowly two-star status earlier this year all the way up to a five-star stock today.

CAPS member pprimo says now that it has the imprimatur of the FDA behind its efforts, Allos will be transitioning to a different kind of company:

[b]ecause its got cancer treatments recently approved by the FDA that will hit the market in October. This will go from a development/research company to a revenue producing company. The potential for a partnership with a large drug company is high.

This Fool says
I agree that getting the regulatory agency's stamp of approval was a key milestone in the advance of Allos Therapeutics. Its injectable drug Folotyn treats a rare, aggressive form of lymphatic cancer by reducing its size. While the drug doesn't cure the cancer, Allos has a unique opportunity to generate sizable revenue because there are no other treatments available for peripheral T-cell lymphoma.

Allos shares have fallen sharply after the headiness that followed approval. It is gearing up to begin marketing Folotyn now and with its shares trading for about the same price they did at the depths of this recession, they certainly look to be a bargain.

Your say
While CAPS members may stand with Jim Cramer or on opposite sides of the field, the investor intelligence community is more than what some All-Stars think, even if they are TV personalities. But what do you think? Is Cramer right or off his rocker? No need to hedge your thoughts on CAPS, so why not head off right now to and let us know if Allos Therapeutics is ready to inject a large dosage of growth into its stock.

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.