Of decline. It caused the averages to slightly rebound. The dow closing up 46 points, pretty impressive. Call me cynical, but i think we need to be careful about getting too excited about any near term resolution. How many times during the debt ceiling debacle, remember that . Did our leaders insist they could hammer out a deal. Even a huge grand bargain to fix the deficit only to have the negotiations unravel. Until we get a resolution, the fiscal cliff will be the most important issue out there. Tonight as part of my game plan, im going to give the historical prism as long as the cliff is hanging over our heads. As a gristled veteran of the markets, i searched my memory for the perfect analog for this moment and found it in something that happened more than 20 years ago before i give you the investing framework for the next six weeks, lets go over the more time sensitive stuff and game plan for next week. Shortened week because of the holiday. First off on monday morning we hear from lowes. Home depot reported a magnificent number. It promptly fell. It did stabilize today. Its rival will report. Do we expect the same kind of action . Frankly, lowes isnt anywhere near as good as home despot. The only opportunity i see here is if the earnings are so bad i dont think they will be. I think theyll have 1. 5 comp sales. If they knock it down and take home depot with it, buy home depot. Jack in the box reports after the close. Weve been big believers in this turnaround as they remodel the stores. We are more interested in listening to what jack in the box has to say then in taking action about it. Weve got to find out about this incredible weakness of mcdonalds. That put a cloud over the whole group. Cordova is the analog for chipotle. Look for pin action there if they say anything good. I think chipotle bottomed. Best buy comes tuesday morning. While the situation at best buy, im using the term potentially terminal. We heard from sears, consumer hard goods business remains totally cutthroat. We know it was last night. We know this company is in the crosshairs of amazon. Look for a down beat quarter. Heinz reports tuesday. This is the type of company i said is bottoming right here. Its well run, its international. It benefits from lower commodity prices. That is a degree of immunity of the fiscal cliff. Its less than a point off its high which shows you that it is fiscal cliff be damned for this class of stock. If you get weakness off, you know where we are going . Heinz, i bet will be a dynamite corner. Salesforce. Com after the close tuesday. Throughout this difficult period pc dead, cell phone alive but cutthroat. The cloud robust. Sales force. Com is in the heart of the cloud. We think it will be good. That doesnt matter. What matters is, will it be good enough to please the bulls . Ive got the answer. Nothing is good enough in this day. Nothing. Remind ourselves if its good and the cliff is resolved, we can always circle back and do some buying of salesforce. Com. Deere reports wednesday morning. Be careful. This stock gets hit almost after every single Conference Call because the company is cautious and doesnt know how to do a coherent Conference Call. Theres been a run. More than tenpoint increase since we last heard from them. That is too precious to not nail down. Here is what i want you to think of before deere reports. For the fiscal cliff. Whats the best analogy for trying to trade in anticipation of a resolution . Like i said before, i dont think its the debt ceiling last year. We hit declines that ended the moment a deal was struck. Thats not like that. Nor i do think its the european debt talks where we figured mid week European Central bank meeting would bring better news and neither one of thems this perspective. After a day where the president and speaker of the house started the talks to resolve the crisis, i searched and searched and realized, no, youve got to go back 22 years ago to get some perspective. Everything repeats itself in the market eventually. Im going back to 1990. When then president bush the first was asking secretary of state james baker to hold talks with iraq about getting Saddam Hussein to pull his troops out of kuwait not long after they had invaded kuwait. Thats the right analogy for these fiscal cliff talks, believe it or not. At the time we, investors, traders, actually thought could you make a deal with saddam. We believed you could sit down with tariq aziz and halfer out a compromise. For some ridiculous reason we thought it would have to be done over the weekend. Short sellers have been making a killing since saddam invaded kuwait that summer. Dow dropping from 2900 to 2350 as the stalemate dragged on. The shorts feared these aziz bush talks. They didnt want to see the juicy top get obliterated. I would reel in or bring in my short positions friday morning unlike those who came in at the close so i could sleep soundly over the weekend. So i didnt have to wake up to a headline saddam agrees to pull back, u. S. Rebuilds kuwait. You had to believe he would do something rational like that. Did saddam think he could beat the United States in a war . Many thought he was actually a rational human being who would reach the conclusion that couldnt happen. Oops. Fast forward 22 years. Today we saw similar fears by the the current crop of short sellers. You could hear their thoughts like mine in 1990. What happens if they do something rational . S what if they start caring about all the people forced out of work immediately or have to pay far more in taxes . What happens if they actually rise above . Those concerns caused people to cover their short positions betting that the consequences of going over the cliff were unthinkable, as what saddam would face if he had to go to war with the United States. Of course it turns out there never was any deal back then and we had to go to war, we won and that was it. Markets bottomed because the decline compensated for the war already unless we would have lost it. We didnt know the outcome or how long it would take at the time we knew whenever there was a resolution the market would go higher. Why take chances until we knew more . I think we have to be similarly hopeful the two sides reach some deal and some of the shorts who have done well during this 8 decline will feel like they dont want to lose their terrific case. What if both sides negotiations were like saddam . Both believe their principles. What if they dont care we get hurt . Thats what i worry about, that they dont care. They are trying to win so bad they dont care. Its possible we are already where we were 22 years ago at this moment, bottoming as a way to a violent resolution to the matter. That thought occurred to me when we were down 60 dow points at the low of the day. What seems more likely, we are at a friday juncture where we tried and failed to hit a real bottom. Perhaps the one at dow 2748 or dow 2616 or dow 2483, all covering levels that led to a false sense of hope in 1990 along to the true dow bottom 2360. We generally dont know yet which level we are at versus where well be when the fiscal cliff crisis ends, whether violently or peacefully. 1990 teaches us you have to respect the hope that springs eternal, at least till fridays. That same hope gets crushed on sunday night. Realize monday we should have sold not bought into fridays shortcovering rally. Tom in new york, please. Tom. Caller thank you for taking my call. Youre welcome. Caller last night i took my wife and children to see the 10 00 p. M. Showing of the twilight movie. Was it good . Caller it was great. We loved it. We thought it was the best twilight of all. We loved it. Really . Caller the theaters were all packed, sold out. My question for you is lionsgate . Heres the problem. Go back, rewind to hunger games. Stock ran up in anticipation of hunger games. What happened . The trade was made, the stock sold off. I fear the same thing for twilight. I hope my kids will let me go with them. We dont know what levels well be at. Hope may get crushed sunday night. That was the 1990 pattern. Mad money will be right back. Coming up food for thought. A buffet of restaurant stocks made their debut on the street. Just any dish wont do. Cramer is finding the stock with fivestar potential in this serving of shares. Dont miss his pick of the menu. Later wheel and deal . The nations largest auto dealers are slugging it out over show room supremacy. The rumble for roadway dominance between carmax and autonation continues. Which stock has the potential for runaway gains . Cramer is putting you in the drivers seat just ahead. Plus, you stumped him. I cannot opine over something i have not looked at lately. Now hes back with the answers. Stick around, cramer is turning in his homework and this could help your portfolio pass with flying colors. All coming up on mad money. Dont miss a second of mad mad money. Follow jim cramer on twitter. Send jim and email to mad sp mo madmoney cnbc. Com. In moments like this one where everybody is panicked about something horrific like the fiscal cliff. Its more important than ever you have something to keep you interested in investing. Something that will hold your attention so you dont get blown out of investing. Thats why we actually do speculate here on mad money. Playing around with small cap stocks to have high risk and high rewards. Not all tiny little companies are worth speculating. We made mistakes, some are going to win big, some are going to lose big. Tonight we want to take a look at four smaller restaurant specs that came public this past spring. Some of them in the summer. They may have flown under your radar. Talking about ignite Restaurant Group irg, chuy, dell frisco and bloomin brands. So you know which ones are worth chowing down on and which ones should be avoided. Sell, sell, sell i think you need to selig night Restaurant Group. You need to take profits in chuy and bloominbrands. The only one worth owning is dell frisco. Even that i would only buy in the weakness. You always get a swoon at one point in the day. That is whats happening right now. Whats the reason behind these rankings . Ignite Restaurant Group came public may 10th. Rose 22 first day of trading. This is the company that owns and operates joes crab shack as well as Brickhouse Tavern and tap. Ignite had to restate its financial shortly after the ipo which is why the stock has come down 29 in the after market. It becomes public and has to restate its financials is a bad sign. My rule is accounting issues always equal sell, sell, sell thats why i would stay the heck away from ignite. I would rather own lignite drum roll. How about the others . Chuys. Its a holding on the play of the mexican casual dining space. Also serves alcohol which gives it a leg up on chipotle and taco bell. It rose in the aftermarket. Even up here the stock pulled back a lot in recent months, down about six points from its high. Chuys is a fast grower. The company is expected to close the year with 39 locations, most in texas. Do you know that works out to be a Comparable Store growth over 20 . It can be intoxicating. Bay they are opening lots of new locations doesnt mean chuys will be a success. Last quarter the Company Posted a measly 1. 5 increase in samestore sales. I dont care how many new stores they are adding. Im not paying 33 times earnings for a company with comps that low. You are up 64 from the ipo, 39 where it started trading. Its time to ring the register. Anything else . Youre being a pig. How about bloomin brands . It is the Company Behind outback steakhouse, corrabas italian grill, bonefish grill, flemings. They either own are franchise. The average check is just over 20. While its not fancy, bloomin is at the high end. This company has been able to meet expectations. Samestore Sales Numbers were solid up 3 . This stock had a real run. Bloomin popped 13 on its first day of trade. Its gone on to rise another 17 . Given fiscal cliff and Capital Gains taxes could go higher, ive got to take profits. Its too risky. The one recent restaurant ipo that i count in this is del friscos. The company owns 32 upscale restaurants under three brands, double eagle steak house, sullivans and del frisco grill. The highend consumer is in excellent shape. Its been held back by memories of other steak houses that failed as stocks. I want you to think ruths chris, mccormick and schmidts. Those companies 10 growth but none were able to achieve that number. No. Mccormick and mortons were hammered by the great recession. Came public 18 in 2005 rallied up to the mid 220s but came tumbling back down to where its trading at 6 and change. I like going to ruths. I love outback steak but i like del frisco best. This is why it did nothing when it came public. Its hard to do steak places. After spiking up, stock is down to 14. 44 just above the ipo price. I like the other fresh face ipo del frisco hasnt run at all. Compares with all these other steak houses that turned out to be disappointments, it doesnt hold water. The thing they had in khan was a highleveraged Balance Sheet. Lots of debt, tons of it. Del frisco has virtually no debt. It can succeed where others fail because a it has a clean Balance Sheet and with only 32 locations they can put up a lot of these. A lot of room to expand. They recently raised 2012 Sales Guidance to a range of 3. 5 to 4 . Thats not just i love the food and service and dine there whenever i can. Its better and its pretty darn cheap, too. 16 long term growth rate. Sells cheaper than a growth rate thats good. If youre looking to speculate in a fresh face restaurant stock, this is the one to buy. Bottom line, out of the four newly minted restaurant and ipos, sell, selig night Restaurant Group. Take profits in chuys and bloomin brands. Feel like speculating . Pick up del friscos, as long as you limit orders and only buy into weakness. Yes, when i go and i cant finish, i like the doggy bag. Ill try to make you more money. Wheel and deal . The nations largest auto dealers are slugging it out over show room supremacy. The rumble for roadway dominance between car mismax and autonation continues. Having you ship my gifts couldnt be easier. Well, having a ton of locations doesnt hurt. And my daughter loves the santa. Oh, ah sir. That is a customer. Lets not tell mom. [ male announcer ] break from the holiday stress. Fedex office. We believe the more you know, the better you trade. So we have ongoing webinars and interactive learning, plus, inbranch seminars at over 500 locations, where our dedicated support teams help you know more so your money can do more. [ rodger ] at scottrade, seven dollar trades are just the start. Our teams have the information you want when you need it. Its another reason more investors are saying. [ all ] with scottrade. While the fiscal cliff may be looming and Many Companies disappointed in the latest earning season, some delivered better than expected numbers. For example, the auto companies, ford and general motors. They reported spectacular quarters. Showed remarkable improvement in north america. Yes, the auto bull market is very much alive in this country. Hurricane sandy has given a major boost. There are reports thanks to the destruction wrought by sandy, 200,000 cars will need to be purchased. How will they play it . Its difficult to play it with the car makers. Ford and gm have a ton of international exposure, including a big european business. So however phenomenal the results were, these were not pure plays and they could disappoint as europe slips into a deeper recession. If you want to profit from the north American Auto market, we need to look at the companies that actually sell cars. The auto retailers. The best of the bunch are autonation for new cars and carmax for used ones. When it comes down to two stocks, you know what we do here, the mad money method is to have a faceoff. A good oldfashioned stock shootout or if you prefer, a post apocalyptic beyond thunderdome style smackdown where two stocks enter and only one stock leaves. Which is the better buy . Autonation or carmax . This is a curious pair of stocks. They are both up around 10 yeartodate. They are both trading at about 15 times earnings. Long term they each have been fabulous performers over the last decade. Carmax up 300 . Autonation gained 270 . When you look at the last five years autonation left carmax in the dust rallying 148 versus just 50 for kmx. Autonation reported a beat on october 25th, but it sold off. Carmax reported a miss back on september 20th, yet it rallied on the report. Although the stock since then pulled back, about three points from its high. Do we go with the auto retail their sold off on a better than expected number or the used car seller that serves on disappointment . I like both companies right now. I think carmax though is the better stock. The reason . Its simple. For the first time in years, the used car market is poised to start outperforming the new car market and carmax is the one that sells used cars. For the last five odd years selling new cars was a much Better Business than selling used ones. Thats why they made a heck of a lot more money than carmax. New car sales are growing rapidly. We are on track for building more cars than we have the last few years. The margin for new cars are starting to get squeezed. Competition is coming back. During the great recession, tons of Car Dealerships closed down. Now youve got new dealerships popping up again and the business is starting to get more cutthroat and more competitive. Even though autonation has a bright future, they are facing difficulties they didnt have to deal with a year or two ago. The used car business, thats a different story. In recent years, used car retailers struggled against a head wind which is the recession that caused a huge decline. There werent enough new cars built in 2008 and 2009, to the lesser extent 2010 to support a robust car market. The ones they most want to buy are the ones with the least wear and tear. As gary bolder, the supreme retail analyst at Credit Suisse points out, thanks to the recent boom, the supply of used Vehicles Zero to 6 years old are starting to rebound. Next year should accelerate, maybe increasing by as much as 9. 3 . That is great news for carmax. 108 superstores, 53 different markets. Over the last three years, the total number of used cars stayed around