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 145,000 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
All that glitters is gold, according to Cramer. It doesn't matter whether it's gold producer Gold Fields, Junior Gold Miners exchange-traded fund, or gold bullion trust SPDR Gold Shares. It's all the same to him, and pretty much all worth buying:

You know what? ... Gold's working ... Wow, [Gold Fields] ... the volume's out of control there. Um, I have to tell you ... this is one that I was always afraid would eventually run out of gold ... and I mean that ... that it was just too hard to find gold after ... I like the gold stocks. I do reiterate once again ... I like, in order, I like the SPDR Gold ETF, I like gold coins, I like gold bullion, if you have a place to store it, and I like the new Junior Gold Miners ETF that my friend, Don Dyon's been writing about at TheStreet.com, where I'm chairman ... and, only then, do I like the individual gold stocks, of which Gold Fields is interesting.

CAPS says
The overwhelming majority of CAPS members would tend to agree with Cramer's assessment of the SPDR gold trust, with 90% of those rating it indicating they think it will outperform the broader market. Yet despite the bears being in the minority, they would likely agree with highly rated CAPS All-Star Lituus, who thinks the company's price is approaching bubble status. baselineace, however, sees the price having diverged from historical norms, with a correction in the offing:

The gold price has been proportionally consistent with the price of oil for the past 60 years. Since oil is trading at a smaller percentage of the gold price than it has historically, gold must be overvalued by at least $400. It's not a question of if the gold bubble is going to burst, it is a question of when.

This Fool says
I find myself more in agreement with the bulls who see this country's debt and spending levels soaring to such heights that we've witnessed only the beginning of gold's surge north. Further, it seems as though the U.S. Mint is running out of gold. Late last month, the gold repository temporarily suspended sales of 2009 American eagle 1-ounce gold coins because it had depleted its supplies. It followed that up with an announcement that sales of 2010 1-ounce American buffalo gold coins are being postponed because of an inventory shortage.

It underscores the value investors are putting in physical assets as this country's economic policies steer us toward potential wrack and ruin. Simple supply and demand forces will push gold prices higher.

Your say
Whether CAPS members 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? There's no need to hedge your thoughts, so why not head off right now to SPDR Gold Trust's CAPS page and let us know if there's still gold in them thar hills.

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.