Cramer Likens Sirius-XM To Lotto Ticket (SIRI, XMSR)

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By Douglas A. McIntyre Updated Published
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Cramer_picJim Cramer came out tonight on CNBC’s MAD MONEY discussing his trade idea for the satellite radio merger approval.  This is to focus on the current situation and pitfalls for shares of Sirius Satellite Radio Inc. (NASDAQ: SIRI) and XM Satellite Radio Inc. (NASDAQ: XMSR).  Earlier this year his call was for the stock to go to $5.00.

Unlike Cramer’s big stance where he thought the combined company was worth a shot, he has a different way he wants to play the success of this merger tonight.

If you have been a Sirius-XM stock bull you aren’t going to like whatJimbo said.  In fact, he said that the combined Sirius-XM common stockis about as safe of an investment return as buying a lotto ticket.  Buthe does have one way he’d like to play it.  Cramer noted that therecent debt offerings were the safer way to play because the combinedoperation is going to be losing money and is beholden unto the debtowners.

He noted that these had a combined loss of $668 million while thecompanies were awaiting the merger approval and the companies areextremely far behind profitability targets that were already expected ifyou go back and review research reports.

The good news for the common stock shareholders is that Cramer did notehe doesn’t think that the company will go bankrupt.  But he’s ratherhold the debt which will get to inherit the company if that occursrather than investing in lotto tickets.

Sirius closed down 16% at $1.88 today on major volume, and shares were down almost 8% at $1.73 after the Cramer-pan.  XM shares closed down almost 12% at $8.17 today on active volume, and shares were down over 7% more at $7.55 in after-hours after the Cramer-pan.

Jon C. Ogg
July 28, 2008

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About the Author Douglas A. McIntyre →

Douglas A. McIntyre is the co-founder, chief executive officer and editor in chief of 24/7 Wall St. and 24/7 Tempo. He has held these jobs since 2006.

McIntyre has written thousands of articles for 24/7 Wall St. He is an expert on corporate finance, the automotive industry, media companies and international finance. He has edited articles on national demographics, sports, personal income and travel.

His work has been quoted or mentioned in The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, Los Angeles Times, The Washington Post, NBC News, Time, The New Yorker, HuffPost USA Today, Business Insider, Yahoo, AOL, MarketWatch, The Atlantic, Bloomberg, New York Post, Chicago Tribune, Forbes, The Guardian and many other major publications. McIntyre has been a guest on CNBC, the BBC and television and radio stations across the country.

A magna cum laude graduate of Harvard College, McIntyre also was president of The Harvard Advocate. Founded in 1866, the Advocate is the oldest college publication in the United States.

TheStreet.com, Comps.com and Edgar Online are some of the public companies for which McIntyre served on the board of directors. He was a Vicinity Corporation board member when the company was sold to Microsoft in 2002. He served on the audit committees of some of these companies.

McIntyre has been the CEO of FutureSource, a provider of trading terminals and news to commodities and futures traders. He was president of Switchboard, the online phone directory company. He served as chairman and CEO of On2 Technologies, the video compression company that provided video compression software for Adobe’s Flash. Google bought On2 in 2009.

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