athing while sleeping; and blood clots in the legs. common side effects include skin redness or irritation where applied, increased red blood cell count, headache, diarrhea, vomiting and increase in psa. ask your doctor about axiron. my mission is simple. to make you money. i'm here to level the playing field for all investors. there's always a bull market somewhere and i promise to help you find it. "mad money" starts now. >> hey, i'm cramer. welcome to "mad money." welcome to cramerica. other people want to make friends. i'm just trying to save you a little money. my job isn't just to entertain but to teach and coach you. call me at 1-800-743-cnbc. what? the market can go down, too? i mean, the market can get really hammered? with the dow dropping 130

points, s&p declining 1.13% and nasdaq sinking 1.4%. isn't that outrageous? i thought this was only supposed to be an up year, for heaven's sake. look out. we've got a new type of investor in town. the selfish ungrateful short-term player who feels entitled to the point of absurdity. how do i know this? pretty simple. i go on twitter @jimcramer and read about people attacking me for recommending a stock that's dropped a point and a half. a 2% decline to these newbies is a plummet. a 3% drop is disastrous. a 4% decline, who knows? they might not even live to tweet about it. now, at the risk of calling myself a pro, something i'm entitled to do, i think, because i've managed money professionally for more than three decades, let me tell you how you need to view these kinds of, yes, painful declines. first, i'm going to make you a

fly on the wall for a series of conversations both online and then at the office with the co-portfolio manager of my charitable trust cnbc contributor stephanie link on this later this afternoon, these conversations occurred this very morning. they started off as usual. e-mail exchange at 5:00 a.m. where we go back and forth in the early morning research. not much noteworthy. cisco with a sell over at citigroup that came out at the close and i fleshed it out. >> sell, sell, sell. >> nasty. it was devastating. my truth, my trust, it has given up on that tech goliath. let me scrutinize costco. get a wee bit of decline. this morning's release were all very negative. we add the online laugh as the stories continue to get costco wrong. the company is spending to put up stores. nothing wrong with that. it's working as the numbers are still better than everyone else in this space. that doesn't matter.

we saw costco go down. i said when the stock got to 113 we should pull the trigger. she said, dream on. the stock will barely be down by the time they explain the quarter, and the media wises up to it. smart cookie. barely came in. wait a second. spectacular headlines out of home depot this morning based on the boston analyst meeting that is going to lead to big estimate boosts. so do you think the futures can knock it down so we can get back in? hardly, she said. it's not going to be strong enough to climb to sink that one. was she ever right? wow. i mean, as home depot simply scored more touchdowns in that lone analyst meeting than peyton manning has this season as we'll hear later tonight. paying off, the only way to pick up that stock. maybe another day. that is not our style. g3 verified that, calvin klein, because they were incredibly

bullish when he came on the show. she said, good luck. pvh is not coming in. i don't have that kind of flexibility. yeah, that's right, that was the chance. how about starbucks, i said? we've both been put out by a firm we don't know that much about. we were concerned. maybe there will more profit taking. a better price could be had in hand. i pronounced it interesting below 75. alas, starbucks didn't get near that price because the market wasn't as smart to get you that better price to buy it. so i said, ho, how about this? they reported this morning and indicated down big. opportunity, anything good? well, silence on her end. we both reported the release from the mining equipment maker and kepth stumbling on things we didn't like, big drop in orders, declining cash flow, solid forecast. sold to you, adding she wanted to kill herself if the trust was going in today. i said, that's one we can buy all we want of. just what she need, she said

sarcastically. the ones that come down, those are the ones you don't want. at least we had the opportunity to buy joy, maybe even lower than it is now. do you notice the pattern? the professionals with cash on hand, the professionals who are looking to put money to work, they salivate for days like today. we haven't had a 10% correction around here in here in two years. we haven't had a 1% correction since the early spring. shallow and short lasting and given that my charitable trust recently locked in gains, including in facebook. darn it. i just kick myself. give me that kick me sign. looking for a price break in anything, in anything that's not broken as i fear joy global might be, so we can buy merchandise at a price that doesn't seem full tilt. listen. this is the one -- imagine this. the first 1% decline since april in a day? now, you can never have too much cash as an individual in the market is down. anyone walking around fully invested, no cash on the sidelines, you're either brain

dead or greedy. get out of my face. at the same time, though, lately we have felt shut out by this market. the charitable trust is not getting the opportunities to buy stocks at the prices we want. that's why we don't mind these declines one bit. we're chafing at the bit here. for the most part we did. betting on lower prices tomorrow. what we fear, yes. what we really fear is that today's pullback could be as big a sell-off as we could get between now and year end and we want to position the trust by buying stocks at the prices we prefer. not the higher prices that the market gives you. we have a bunch of positions where we have toe holds in the water to stay close to the situation and we're looking to start buying more on a scale down. a technical term meaning every percent or two the trust will buy more stock, take away 50, 100 shares, as we try to build our position. now, lost in all of these expositions that i've just given you is the thing you probably most want to most hear about. why did the market go down to begin with? to me, first. that's an abstraction.

i have my shopping list of stocks at all times for the charitable trust. unless it's directly related to the merchandise i want or interest rates resuming which which as always take into account. decline got the shopping list, the price, go over every single day. here's where we pull the trigger. i waited. i want it. that's where i want to be. i want to be patient. that's how i want you to think about it. you can see why this attitude is so important when you consider what actually happened in the last 24 hours. here are the selling points. first, there might be a budget deal in congress that could keep washington off the front pages for the while, or our pages, the business pages. a small plan can allow washington to avoid any more shutdowns or debt ceiling defaults. 2014 is an election year. what i would like to think that this tentative deal accent on tentative marks a recognition everyone gets hurt when we have such rancor including those who vote. their activities are pernicious to creating wealth in this country. but i think i'm in the minority as this deal was hailed as the whole thing. the deal to end all wars not like world war i.

oh well. why didn't we go higher today? other skeptics, no, i think it's because we've been hearing about this possible deal for days now. therefore, was both anticlimactic and baked in, meaning the stock market anticipated it. that's precisely the kind of profit taking decline that makes me want to put money to work. i didn't see much else out there responsible for this pullback which allows us for the kind of prospecting we were doing. now, i am mindful that some prospecting is done with blasting caps with dynamite. the landscape has to be blown up before they do buying. i'm not that kind of guy. i want to use a discount to give to my charitable trustees. that is the bottom line of today's session. the market threw a sale. it wasn't a big enough sale to attract my charitable trust to spend much of the stock market. that said, it's a couple more sales like today, it will soon lead to a shopping cart filled with items. a lot of happy buyers out there,

paying the discounted price they want, not the very high full price the market tried to entice us into paying. and that's how you need to think about this kind of ugly action. ryan in indiana. ryan? >> hey, jim. >> ryan. >> by selling off two million shares of iep for more potential investors, is icon virtually doing a reverse buyback and saying the stock is too expensive, because with apple they say the stock is cheap so the company should buy back but he's doing the reverse. icahn is a smart guy and he would hold on to the shares if they thought they had upward potential. does iep have no more upward potential? >> i think that's a little too glib. you know, i think that, no, i don't want to think that. i mean, i think that icahn would tell you directly, look, there's huge potential and you may have over capitalized here. but, no, i don't want to draw that conclusion one bit. i think that carl icahn has said over and over again that he

thinks the market is fully priced, but he's a stock picker, therefore the market may not be nearly as relevant as the individual stocks that he likes. by the way, also, besides facebook and the s&p, alliance data, ads, is coming in and one of our least favorites, abercrombie and fitch is coming out. very important. dustin in california. dustin? >> hey, cramer. a big boo-yah from beautiful chico state in california. >> i've been there. nice to have a stuttering boo-yah from the golden state. what's up? >> my question is about lulu lemon. i wanted to know what you thought about the change-up in ceo. >> i'm a believer you ought to wait, give it a chance. see what lurks underneath, so to speak. let's see the quarter, and let's have a couple of quarters under the belt before -- under the yoga anti-stink pants before i would make my move. lisa in washington, d.c. lisa? >> hey, jim, my question is

really whether to sell or maybe even buy more blackberry stock? i mean, as you know, all kinds of lows this year, trading below six. i'm pretty consistent. but i do know that they have some leadership and i would say that their stock is kind of undervalued. so -- >> i don't think it's undervalued. later. now, look, let's talk about, let's say, alcotel lucent, and nokia. they refinanced the balance sheet and able to rally. i have not seen that metamorphosis in blackberry. i don't want to touch it. if it keeps up, there are going to be a lot of happy buyers. forget that naughty and nice list. just focus on your own shopping list. give me some bargains. "mad money" will be right back. >> coming up, hardware holiday. an improving housing market means more money spent fixing

up the homestead. and no one has a better read on that real estate than home depot. tonight, cramer is going one-on-one with the ceo to hear what's selling and whether you can make a home in this stock. and later, the new frontier. since shedding its assets to focus on production, marathon oil has been drilling down into a promising portfolio, doubling its production in america's eco share. energy rich eagle ford shale. can it find the energy to power forward? find out in cramer's exclusive, all coming up on "mad money." don't miss a second of "mad money," follow jim cramer on twitter. have a question, tweet cramer, #madtweets. send jim an e-mail to madmoney@cnbc.com or give us a call at 1-800-743-cnbc. miss something? head to madmoney.cnbc.com.

with interest rates on the rise, what's going to happen to the complex of housing related stocks? nobody gives you a better read on the business than home depot, the incredibly well managed

company. largest home improvement retailer on earth. 2260 stores, north america, puerto rico, guam, u.s. virgin islands.. i call it the despot because it rules. and we like rulers around here. home depot reaffirmed sales in 2014 and same-store sales. not many have that. plus, management gives strong guidance for 2014, a 17% increase in earnings. not only that, if their analyst day a year ago home depot made a called shot. they laid out a long term margin of 12%. the company would hit that number by end of 2015. they're one year ahead. full year ahead of schedule. that's execution. home depot has been -- this stock is up. they blew away numbers in november. we've been behind this stock forever. let's look at the chairman and

ceo to find out more about this company and prospects. mr. blake, welcome first time to "mad money." >> thank you. >> thank you so much. you're a different kind of company. when i read your reports and what you put out today it is very clear that things you attribute your success to, more important the values, top ones on the wheel, customer is right, give back. these are not things we associate necessarily with great profit. how do you do it? >> this is -- this has been part of the culture of the company since bernie marcus and arthur blank founded it 30 years ago, is take care of our associates, take care of our customers, take care of our communities and everything else takes care of itself. let's start with those principles. >> that seems like a simple formula. why are you the only one in your category that has continually done that, and therefore you dominate the category? >> it relates a lot to how excellent a leadership team we have. i have just a fantastic team working at home depot, and we have 325,000 associates. orange-blooded associates who take care of the customer every single day.

>> i think people think of home depot, we all go. home depot is a great place to get things that you need for your house, do-it-yourselfers. what people don't understand is that home depot is selling innovative products. we've left behind innovation when we come to the computer. we have it in the home. >> it's amazing the change that's occurring in the home. >> we've got some things you can show me. >> i would say just taking a step back. >> sure. >> there's a great line, i think i'm stealing it from mark on the sensors are the peace dividend of the phone wars. and cellphone wars. and so -- >> you guys use a lot of quotes from other people. >> yes, we do. >> you always give credit. i've got to hand it to you. >> we give credit to the people we take the quotes from. you see that in the home, more sensors being put in. wi-fi-enabled technology. some of the big moves in batteries, with tools, going to lithium ion.

big change in lighting, probably one of the biggest changes in technology if you go back years, basically the incandescent bulb is going away. >> why don't we go there for a second? this is what you put out today. cree, right here, 22 years of life? >> yes. these bulbs you will put in your will. they are not gonna -- they are not gonna go out. it's basically instead of a filament you've got a computer chip, and the computer chip is incredibly energy efficient, so these use just a fraction of the energy and then they last forever. >> no more twilight zone glow? >> no more twilight zone glow. they have special -- and now they're also adapting special colors, so it's much more realistic colors. i don't know if you can pick this up. but if you can just compare for this new cree bulb, the kind of natural light that they cast versus the old harsh white. incredible strides being made in

l.e.d. technology. >> i want to talk about this because the analysts have a mindset and the mindset is, things peak, we're almost at the peak. isn't this the end? if we have products that can save me money, that are new, that i didn't know about that i've learned, why would we necessarily be able to pinpoint and peak based upon interest rates or, more important, because you guys do a lot of work on this, on home sales, rising prices. >> i think there's so much development, as you say, so much innovation happening in the home, you've got a great example here on the kevo lock from quick set that's wi-fi enabled. you can touch the lock and it opens and closes. you can change lock accessibility with your smartphone. technology here from nest. new ways of doing smoke detectors, c.o. detectors so you don't have that chirping in the middle of the night. >> one that makes it so that i get up at 3:00 as opposed to 3:30. >> that goes away. you can literally just wave your hand at it and it turns off. it alerts you on batteries.

you're exactly right, jim. over and above, and we think the housing market is recovering and has a ways to go on the recovery, but over and above that, there's this exciting new technology coming into the home. >> before we get to overall depiction of where the world is, where the country is and where housing is, you always are so specific about what's doing so well in the aisles. i know in your last report you said that the holiday season, this stuff looks better than ever. what is really blowing the doors out right now? >> right now, as you would say, it's holiday. so we sell more christmas trees than anybody else in the world. we've got a lot of christmas trees going through our garden centers. we do a great holiday season in terms of what we call holiday hook-up. all of the things that you attach to the tree in your home. that's doing extremely well. and then obviously our gift center. this is a great time for all of your viewers to be going out and buying power tools and product like that. and that's being -- that's really driving our business at

the moment. >> and that's for the professional, what is the hottest tool? >> so really we do some great power tool combinations, so one of the things i mentioned was the battery technology now. you have lithium ion. >> my pro friends will never buy the battery because they say it doesn't have the power. that's changing? >> that's absolutely changed. both the power and the durability and the duration, you can now do multiple sets, so the same thing that will do your table saw or your circular saw will do your drill. >> and how about seasonal, winter snow blow? >> so now we're getting a more normal winter than we've had in the past, and clearly the weather has an impact on us. we sell a lot of ice melt. we sell a lot of highway markers, driveway markers, things like that. >> and will i be able to call my home depot and say, listen, i need that stuff.

i need it today. i can't wait. can i go online and get it today, i can't wait? >> yes, you can do buy online, pick up in store now. we have buy online ship to store. buy online return in store. next year we're going to have buy online deliver from store. >> supply chain changes that you announced? is this going to be with drones? >> no, our product, unlike others, our product weighs more than five pounds. so we have a lot of product that weighs a lot more than five pounds. >> frank, if you don't mind i would love you to stay to get a larger sense of where the country is, where homes are, and why you're so optimistic. >> great. >> okay. stick around. this is frank blake, chairman and ceo of home depot. >> coming up, 2,260 stores don't lie. cramer gets an unprecedented look inside the u.s. housing market when his sit-down with home depot's ceo continues just ahead.

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[ male announcer ] get the all-new 2014 cla250 so ally bank has a that won't trap me in a rate. that's correct. cause i'm really nervous about getting trapped. why's that? uh, mark? go get help! i have my reasons. look, you don't have to feel trapped with our raise your rate cd. if our rate on this cd goes up, yours can too. oh that sounds nice. don't feel trapped with the ally raise your rate cd. ally bank. your money needs an ally. we're back with frank blake. he's the chairman and ceo of home depot. we just discussed the exciting technologies flying off the store shelves. you should get some.

now we're going to take a deeper dive into housing. frank, in your presentations you made it very clear there's a big comeback happening in the country. a lot of it has to do, tell me if i'm wrong, but people are investing in their home. is it going up in value? >> that's exactly right. the way we look at our consumer, we went through a period of time where homeowners in the united states lost half their home equity in the space of three or four years. $7 trillion were wiped out, home equity. now that's starting to come back. and the basic principle we see is people are willing to spend in their house. they want to make sure though that it's an investment, not an expense. and as their house appreciates in value, which is what we're seeing across the country, they're more willing to spend, because that's an investment. they're going to get that spend back eventually. >> how about people whose homes go from being underwater to being above water, what do you do? >> it just stands to reason when your house is under water you spend less on your house than

when it's above. and now we're seeing increasingly as home prices appreciate, that people are getting out of that underwater situation. and that's helping drive this bend. >> a lot of people feel that the cycle's always the ninth inning, that we're over, that greatness is passing, include for home depot. where do you think we are, what quarter, what inning? >> so one of the statistics that we use a lot is we look at what's called private fixed residential investment, a percent of growth is gdp. and if you look at it, straight statistics, 60 years worth of numbers. we went down in the downturn as low as 2.4%. the previous 60-year low was 3.2%. the average is 4.6%. right now with the recovery, we're just back to the previous 60-year low. we're still well below the 60-year average. >> what do you think turned in the psychology? we read the papers, washington's bad. a lot of unemployed. if i had been in your position,

i would have thought that we're nowhere near and wouldn't have believed in the turn. what made you believe ahead of time, because you clearly did because you had the right inventory, and what makes you think it's sustainable? >> first off, our supply chain is fairly flexible. that's one of the things we pride ourselves on and we can respond quickly as the market returns. but it was this logic of, as asset prices appreciate, homes are one of the core assets that appreciate along with stock values, housing prices are appreciating, and with that comes the spend on the home. >> other than mexico, principally, you're huge -- you are america. you are a big user. you put up eight new stores. you're not flooding the country with stores. why are you so bullish on our country? >> so we just see the huge recovery potential in the united states. one of the interesting statistics, our cfo carol talked about it. >> so smart. >> she's awesome. our whole team is awesome. one of the interesting statistics she referenced this morning was the number of

multi-generational households. people between the ages of 22 and 35 who are living with their parents. that's at an all-time high. we don't think the children are with their parents because either really wants that situation. they're waiting for the economy to thaw, and that's one of the things that's going to drive increased household formation. and therefore increased housing demand. >> great demo. i know you're not necessarily into new housing starts but do you think you ever get to 2 million homes again in the bill? we're building homes right now like we did in 1960. twice as many people in the country. >> we're clearly below the replacement rate. i don't know if we will get to two million housing starts but we're clearly well below that replacement right now. >> how about the actual volume of transactions? >> the turnover, one of the things that we've seen in improvement in turnover, there is still a bit of a drag on that with credit availability. so that's probably a bit of a break. but we're still seeing turnover increase.

>> these are all signs that say that the move -- you kept setting the bar and then beating the bar. but that's not necessarily something that has to end right now, despite what i see in a lot of the research. >> no, we're projecting and we talked about this morning at our analyst and investor conference. we think next year, 2014, we're going to have approximately about a 5% positive comp, which for a company our size, that's enormous growth. >> let me ask you this because you're a leader, and you're respected as a great leader both in merchandising but also in larger issues, retail, and in corporations. 300,000 people work for you. 2260 stores. how many stores do you visit, how many people do you know? >> how many people do i know? >> yeah. how many, because there are people employee number one in store number 80. >> i visit stores all the time. that is one of the dominant things i do with my time. of the 2,200 plus stores i've visited now about 1400. so i'm on the road all the time.

in terms of our store associates, this is something we have such great associates. i spend time every week writing notes to store associates who have done great things on customer service. and we -- i get a lot of e-mails from our associates and try to respond to every single one of them. >> do you think that you will ever be in a position from demand to actually start accelerating building again, or do you just, you know, the money should be spent online because online has such great technology? >> our big opportunity used to be our big opportunity was the geography outside our store, where are we going to put new stores. our big opportunity now is the geography inside our stores. how do we make that more efficient? how do we use online to make it more efficient? how do we improve the productivity of every square foot in the store? 2,200 plus stores, really most of the new store opportunities, you know, they're going to be there. we're opening a new store in

minot, north dakota. >> i like that. >> we're continuing to open new stores in mexico. six next year. we'll open a store in canada. but those are fairly modest on a base of over 2,000 stores. >> last question. you have to take share. you have to take it from lowe's. you have to take it from the mom and pops. lowe's has gotten better. is it now just mom and pops that you're going after? are you trying to go after wal mart? who are you enemies right now? >> across our store, the interesting thing about our businesses across our store, we got a whole range of different competitors, so we've got a lumber and building material business. those are local lumber and building material yards. local flooring business, local flooring stores. paint stores, all different kinds of competitors across the entire scope of our store. >> frank, you've done a remarkable job for shareholders.

it's been a terrific run. it's not nearly over. it's reinventing itself. that's frank blake, chairman and ceo of home depot. you know that if this stock comes in, it's a terrific place to start buying. stay with cramer. every day we're working to be an even better company - and to keep our commitments. and we've made a big commitment to america. bp supports nearly 250,000 jobs here. through all of our energy operations, we invest more in the u.s. than any other place in the world. in fact, we've invested over $55 billion here

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it is time, it is time for the lightning round. rapid fire calls. play to this sound and then the lightning round is over. are you ready ski daddy? let's start with angelo in new mexico. >> jim, ski daddy. >> yo-yo. >> i'm in santa fe. >> i love santa fe. >> looking at avery dennis. >> i don't blame you for looking at it. it's a good combination.

i do believe on weakness you should be a buyer. bird in connecticut. >> i want to give you a warm connecticut boo-yah, jim. >> boo-yah back at you. how i can help? >> i have a question about tenet health care, thc. they're taking a presence here in connecticut. what are you thoughts on it? >> i don't want to buy it. >> don't buy. >> huge, huge run off of obama care. time to go elsewhere. okay? let's go to dave in hawaii, dave. >> bucknell bison boo-yah from paradise. >> you bet that's true. how can i help? >> we get hertz global based upon your recommendation. >> i like hertz. i know it had some lower pricing problems. inexpensive stock. cory in massachusetts. cory. >> jim, thanks for having me on.

big boo-yah from tewksbury, massachusetts. how are you doing? >> i like that. i just wish it was on a better day, then we could meet each other. what's happening? >> yes. i got this company, you know, that is fibrosis. it's a good buying opportunity, et cetera low. what do you think about adjourn. >> i got a good wrap on it, which you just outlined. i will bless it. not my favorite stock. i understand and accept the right for people to speculate. let's go to dallas in arkansas, didn't know it was there. dallas. >> jim, thank you very much for taking my call. >> go razorbacks. what's up? >> i'm in a small investor group here that's involved with this stock. it's malco crown entertainment. the symbol is mpel. >> i like your group and i want to salute you. anybody who is in a group, you should get more affiliated with what we do in this show. i like las vegas sands more. you've got a winner but i think

you ought to trade up to an even bigger winner, lvs. one day wynn will go back to take that mantle. let's go to brad in north carolina. brad? >> hey, jim, duke blue devil greetings from north carolina. >> i like that freshman. that guy has game. >> absolutely. alxn, alexion pharmaceuticals. >> we looked at that many times and think the stock is good. maybe give it some room but i like alexion. how about carol in new jersey? carol? >> hi. happy holidays, merry christmas, jim cramer. i was wondering about ntsb. >> you know we like it. we think they've got beat. francois has been on the show a number of times and has convinced me he's got a long-term growth path. i trust him and i don't want to leave the stock. he's from new jersey, by the way. let's go to gene in new mexico. >> boo-yah, jim. this is gene in new mexico. my question concerns go-go.

>> it's the second call from new mexico. i got to tell you, gene. we liked the stock in the early '20s. it then moved up to 32. it got overheated to me. i think it's pulled back in the mid '20s. approval in 777. a lot of different planes. keeps driving the stock. i want to wait. let's go to marvin in new jersey. marvin? >> hey, cramer, big boo-yah from newark, new jersey. >> right here, yeah. >> yeah. i have a question about advanced microdevices, amd. >> it's tough here because it almost doubled and then it came back down. the quarter was really bad. i still believe in it. that, ladies and gentlemen, is the conclusion of the lightning round. ♪ ♪ ♪ [ tires screech ] chewley's finds itself in a sticky situation today

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hundreds of dollars switching to geico? ronny:i'd say happier than the pillsbury doughboy on his way to a baking convention. get happy. get geico. fifteen minutes could save you fifteen percent or more. on days like today where the averages get clubbed pretty much across the board, you can get incredible opportunities. marathon oil, the independent oil and gas production company has assets all over the world. libya, kurdistan, ethiopia, kenya, norway, the uk and, of course, some incredibly important domestic plays here in the united states.

eagle ford, bakken, woodford shales. we talk about these all the time. today marathon analysts told us positive things. if this had happened on any other day it would have went higher rather than barely budging. next year they're increasing by 20%. doubling the recounted in oklahoma's woodford shale. second, marathon told us it plans to sell off the cash cow north sea assets, the ones off the coast of the uk and norway. and third, the company announced a massive increases in buyback, raising it from 1 billion to 2.5. that's a meaningful buyback. i think it's undervalued. solid 2% yield. the stock is just 11.8 times next year's earnings. it's got 10% growth rate. don't take it from me. let's check in with lee tillman, president and ceo of marathon oil and learn more about how his

company is doing. welcome to "mad money." >> thank you, jim. >> thank you so much. >> thank you. >> you're obviously bullish on america more than any other oil person i've been dealing with. you're shifting your assets dramatically. >> i would say we're bullish toward profitability. and the reason being, in moving to the u.s. gives us the opportunity to take advantage of these three very high quality resource plays that we're in. you enumerated them, the eagle ford, bakken and woodford. we're excited about that. >> ceo of great slide and on all line. relentless pursuit of operational efficiency. it's dropped dramatically over the years. in your plays, not everywhere. technology, how are you doing it? >> it's hard work. the numerator and the denominator. you have to work your expense management but you also have to keep your barrels online. when you make those capital investments, our most economical barrels are getting those ones that we've already invested in and keeping the facilities up and running. >> i think it may be difficult for people to understand.

you're bifurcating a company. you've got these international assets. you're selling off somewhat what i would think profitable assets in order to explore and produce. could the assets you're selling off be worth far more than let's say half of the companies' valuation of 24 billion? >> i won't speculate on valuation. >> that's my job. >> absolutely. but what i will say is these are extremely high quality assets in the north sea. as we look at potential marketing of those assets can do to our company is pretty remarkable. you already hit upon a few of those. simplifies and concentrates our portfolio to the cash margins in the u.s. it allows us to really reset our compound annual growth rate from what we communicated today from 5% to 7%, 12% to 17%, now, 8% to 12%. >> we've got a bit of a dichotomy going on on our show. we have mark papa, the man who

runs eog. we have scott sheffield from pioneer. pioneer has some weather problems right now. quarter not as strong as we would like. that's understandable. one mr. sheffield really believes that we're at the beginning, that price is going to go higher. it's just much more oil. mr. papa is much more subdued now, saying that maybe we peak in production. and you know, maybe pricing is not so good. where do you fall on that spectrum? >> maybe start with the resource side first. from a resource perspective, since 2011 we have doubled our 2p resource in the resource plays. as we talked about in our press release, we're looking at 2.4 billion oil equivalent barrels in just the three resource plays. we're now looking at opportunities in the eagle ford and bakken to codevelop not just the main horizons, but also some of these secondary horizons like the three forks in the bakken. a lot of running room left on the resource side for sure.

>> marathon refining, the refining vision is actually now bigger in market cap. >> i was hoping you weren't going to bring that up. >> i know. ever think that maybe given the goal of how much you can sell that at brent prices, but it's west texas, that business would have that level of profitability? >> i'll ask you to talk to mr. helpinger on that. >> i want him to come on. >> he is clearly -- that's almost a very well-run business. i think going back to 2011 when we made the split, it made absolute sense for the enp business and for the downstream business. i think we're reaping the benefits of that since 2011. we've been on a growth track. we've been able to focus explicitly on the enp business. >> your background is interesting because you actually got started laying pipe. we've been saying that the greatest job creator in this country can be energy, laying pipe, all of the way to detroit. where are we in that? is this the greatest driver of jobs in the economy in the united states right now? >> there is no doubt that as we look at the energy space, it is the bright spot in the u.s.

economy. it's a driving force. when we look at our operations in the u.s., it's a great creator of jobs and economic prosperity in those areas. and that's going to continue. i mean, this is just -- for the first time we can talk about energy being an asset for our country, and how we now leverage that is going to be the next question. >> energy independence on the continent in 2020? >> well, you know, i don't like energy independence. i like to talk about energy security because i think the consumer always benefits from being in the world open market, right? that's always going to drive the best price, the best availability. but i do think we're moving to a time when we do have energy security and it really has fundamentally impacted the geopolitics of the world. >> i like the way you're moving. i think you're in all the right plays and you just continue to be able to increase that production, which is what we want. thank you so much. that's lee tillman, president and ceo of marathon oil. because the market was so bad

today, i think this one got overlooked but it is very cheap. stay with cramer. of marathon oil. i think this one got overlooked but it is very cheap. stay with cramer.

when we look back at 2013 we will be able to celebrate many happy returns in the stock market even after a bad day like today. none other than the return of the single digit midgets. we've had so many lazarus stories this year that's almost too difficult to count them all. my favorite is three, rite-aid,

alcatel, lucent. these three stocks were truly written off and left for dead going into the year. rallied 308% for heaven's sake. nokia has risen 96%. these are total year makers if you're a portfolio manager, and a total testament of the importance to stay open minded but not pathetic of stocks and companies. unlike everyone else i know in this business, i am totally in favor of speculation, betting on names like these. you can put as much as 20% of mad money portfolio and others nonretirement money in stocks. they can give you spectacular returns to pick the right companies and they're the ones that, well, what is described as the right companies, ones that have changed management, changed culture, and fixed their balance sheets. recipe for success. this had been an entirely unusual year. the stocks were fannie mae and

freddie mac all made you excellent money in to 2013 as congress told you that the stocks from freddie and fannie are worthless, and american airlines is a very rare instance of a company getting bought by u.s. airways that created tremendous synergies and success instantaneously unlike the stocks in fannie and freddie which i don't trust. the new american airlines group is fantastic. it soared. it was up more than 6% today. third, let's be real clear about this. vast majority of single digit stocks have not come back before. they've been total jokes. i mean no stock ever trades down to single digits because management has been doing something right. no one wants the stock down here, which brings me to rite-aid, alcatel, lucent, and nokia. they have all been victims of defeatist cultures. rite aid because of powerful competitors. alcatel, lucent, and nokia were

one-time dominance of cisco. embraced high margin private label items and used ultralow interest rates to fix the balance sheet. nokia and alcatel and lucent also availed themselves of cheap financing. alcatel and lucent took some tough medicine while getting that balance sheet fixed. nokia got out of the handset business and became a fabulous play on the infrastructure. both companies are winning back business that they used to lose as a matter of course to cisco. it wasn't supposed to be this way, people. these stocks weren't supposed to come back, but they have, and they have done so terrifically. the best news, massive so far, it looks like 2014 should be a darn good year, too. stay with cramer.

after the close, athn, very highly valued stock.

software as a service for medical records business blew up, so to speak. when i've been following these blow-ups, do not buy the first day even if you're crazy about it. look at alta. first day down, huge. second day down, big again. promise how to find it. just here on "mad money." i'm jim cramer and i'll see you tomorrow! >> madoff. it is a name that will live in infamy. it's a tough name to live with. >> it sure is. >> in the first interview since bernie madoff's arrest, his wife ruth... >> i trusted him. >> and son andrew... >> that's who i am. my name is madoff. and i'll live with that for the rest of my life. >> speak out about crime, guilt, suicide... >> mr. madoff, what do you have to say for yourself? >> and the day bernie admitted to committing the largest financial fraud in history. >> and he said, "i have a confession to make. i've been running a ponzi scheme." [ticking]