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 with what the CAPS community thinks.

Cramer says
Jim Cramer admits to fallibility on his Tenet Healthcare call. It was just too much of a speculative stock for him to want to stay invested in it last month, when he said that at $2 a share, there were better health-care stocks for your money. But now he's saying you need to get back in -- as only Jim can in his inimitable way of changing course on a dime:

Earlier I said that it was too speculative, my friend, buddy, pal [Sheryl Sklolnick] at CRT Capital, corrected me and said listen Jim this is the right time for Tenet... who am I to go against [Sheryl] ... yes, I got you in at $3, got you out at $5, got you out at $2 again, getting you in at $3 again.. I am human... nobody is perfect.

Which Cramer is right? If the hospital operator's current update on guidance is any indication, it may have been the Jimbo who recommended that you avoid the stock. Tenet Healthcare just lowered its guidance for 2009 to a 3% to 5% increase for net operating revenues, down a full percentage point from previous forecasts, because it now sees patient admissions being flat to down 1%. That's also a change for Tenet Healthcare, which had said that admissions would be flat to up 1% year over year. In the current quarter, total admissions are down 0.6% through eight weeks, as the 1.5% growth from patients covered by the government was not enough to outweigh a 7% drop in commercially insured patients.

CAPS says
But with 22% of those rating it believing that Tenet Healthcare will underperform the market, it seems the CAPS community shares the Mad Money host's ambivalence in his most recent recommendation. CAPS member Controverzy noted Cramer's first red thumb, but felt -- like the new Cramer does -- that the hospital operator is on its way up:

This company was on my radar before, Goldman and Sachs upgraded it to a buy from neutral. I then [saw] it on Mad Money from Cramer being asked about from a caller. [Cramer] gave it a thumbs down and said be careful.

I didn't invest now [I'm] missing the rally, but I won't miss the caps. This baby is going on the way up my prediction is $5.00 in 3-5 Months.

The stock closed up 13% on Friday, so it certainly drew closer to that price level. The whole sector got an upgrade today, too, which, coupled with Tenet Healthcare's announcement of a $450 million notes offering, seems to be pushing the stock higher still.

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? Why not head over to CAPS now and sound off with your thoughts on Tenet Healthcare?

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.