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 130,000 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 …
If you want to invest in a solar company today, Cramer recommends that you go with one that has shown respectable if not remarkable performance. And for Cramer, that would be First Solar -- not Yingli Green Energy, which Cramer considers to be speculation because it's a Chinese company and he doesn't recommend investing in any individual Chinese stocks.

Why are you speculating with Yingli, when we just had that unbelievable quarter from First Solar, which was down? I know First Solar is up 50 straight points. I frankly don't care. I think First Solar had a remarkable quarter. And I want to say that First Solar would have broken out if it weren't in the Nasdaq, and the Nasdaq had a bearish week. I say stay long ... go long First Solar, sell yours ... sell, sell, sell! ... Sell the individual China stocks!

CAPS says …
Industry analysts figure that with the changes in the solar industry, low-cost panel producers such as Yingli will have the advantage. With 97% of the members rating the company believing Yingli Green Energy will outperform the market, it seems the CAPS community would beg to differ with the Mad Money host. CAPS All-Star TSIF says the solar company has been one of the few companies making money the past few years.

Solar companies have been going for a roller coaster ride up and down, and down....and up...all year. The Obama fire is starting to catch hold along with incentives in many countries. China's recent announcement to expand [their] own use of solar has given the Chinese companies a boost.... Yingli in particular, unlike others, has been making money for the last two years. Expansion caught them with a surplus and their buying a silicon producer so they could be vertically integrated was not well received.... Yingli also has several large customers in Europe and [an] excellent reputation. Solar will continue with erratic stock behavior, but Yingli was one of the first stocks I purchased when I went "on my own" and one I will keep.

Indeed, Cramer's preferred way of exploiting growth in Chinese markets, the iShares FTSE/Xinhua China 25 Index exchange-traded fund, might be the wrong way to invest in the country, because it doesn't allow for the entrepreneurial spirit that has been unleashed there.

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? Why not go to CAPS and sound off with your thoughts on whether Yingli Green Energy will light up the market?

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.