First day might portend a negative year because it hasnt happened in ages. Please. Im saying todays action where the dow ended up gaining 29 points, although it was higher in the afternoon, nasdaq declined. 27 . Shows the whole idea of any one session meaning anything is uninformed. Downright foolish even. Wall street gibberish. Days alone do not set precedents. However, im a big believer that a year matters. A plus 20 or more year like 2013 has almost always been followed by another good year. Thats right, in 14 of the last 17 years when the market was up better than 20 , the next year we had an average gain of 15 . And even if you count the three clunker years, youve got about 11 gain. Thats not too shabby. Still, i respect this is a clearly what have you done for me lately market. And well find out next week when we get the first earnings reports of 2014. And the first nonfarm payroll report next friday. Let me Say Something right off the bat about Quarterly Earnings and next fridays unemployment report. As i write in get rich carefully, these are the two things that move stocks more than anything else in the book. They are the fundament of why stocks go up or down, we must never minimize them. For me, earnings season means find out whats happening in the economy. My edge, the edge i bring to you, the edge i spend a whole chapter explaining in my new book, how to read and dissect a Conference Call. How to get down to it. What you need to listen to, the metrics, the key pieces of information, the parts of the call that really matter. Most people think the headlines tell all. Thats lazy thinking, people. The headlines generally tell you nothing. Without the real context that comes from the Conference Call, youre almost always going to get it wrong. Thats why i dont like to talk to ceos without hearing the Conference Call first. Where i havent had a chance to listen to the call yet. So what exactly am i looking for . What am i listening for . Whats in there . What are the nuggets . In every single call i wait and wait again for that one brief moment that that bit of info that comes between the longwinded statement at the beginning and the actual q a, thats where if guidance comes in. And as i stress over and over again in get rich carefully for a stock to go higher, you have to hear about better than expected sales and earnings, better than the analyst who has the highestest ma its on the street. Then you need to hear an outlook. Its an outlook that must be better than people are anticipating. You get better earnings, thats good. Stock probably wont go down. But if you get better than expected earnings, sales and outlook, then you have a trifecta that will almost always produce higher prices. Because analysts, all analysts including the high demand will have to raise numbers and many will be forced to upgrade. That, my friends is the holy grail of investing around earnings. Lets take a look at next weeks game plan. We have a key number were going to get monday morning, were going to see it when we walk in. Its the hsbc China Services pmi. A reading that better show some acceleration soon or were going to have to deal with another round of who lost china. Now, you know im u. S. Centric, but other than yesterday, the industrials have been the leaders in this market. And these stocks rely on Stronger Economic numbers, not just from the united states, but also from europe, which is stronger and china. Lately, ive liked the european numbers very much. But chinas gone tepid again. If we get a strong pmi, then mondays going to be a terrific day for the industrials. They are going to rip. If not, they probably tread water until we see some earnings. Tuesday, we hear from two companies with very different key metrics that need to be followed closely. We have the first report from the newly minted Container Store, a place that my executive producer never stops telling me is so fabulous. Had to throw that in. Anyway, were going to be looking at samestore sales. Given how expensive the stock is, we need to see mid single l digit same store sales growth, management intends to accelerate the new store sales growth in 2014, that sends the Container Store higher then theres micron, mu, which is all about what you dont hear from management. For this semiconductor company, we need to hear the questions about new capacity coming aligned. T all youve got to do is look at the price of dram and flash memory chips. New Semiconductor Foundries being built will tip the scales of supply and demand making supply softer. I believe if analysts repeatedly ask if theres more capacity coming on somewhere around the globe, it wont matter what micron reports. Stock will go lower. Wednesday, we hear from two stocks that often react violently to earnings, often violently wrong bed, bath beyond, best buy, and monsanto, anyway, the latters numbers on the surface are often not what you want to hear. And the stock got clocked only for it to go much higher a few weeks later. Thats the nature of monsanto, a biotech in agricultural clothing. This time, the Conference Call could get more poignant. Why . Because General Mills announced today that its stopping the use of genetically modified organisms. Yes, thats what gmo stands for, in cheerios. Is this a beginning of a trend that could hurt monsanto . I want to hear what they have to say. Bed bath is a stock that seems to get crushed on the cryptic outlook. They do a truncated Conference Call. Go read the chapter in get rich carefully where i totally blew it in the quarter and youll know how hard this one is to trade. No trading at bbby. Thursday is my first day of earnings season, which is a shame because there are Conference Calls after it that arent as informative or entertaining. Im talking about alcoa, aa, whe well learn whether he sees commercial construction getting stronger, whether the december auto numbers we get today are an aberration, power play and construction and airplane production. There isnt a piece of commerce that alcoa doesnt touch. I cant wait for this call. I urge you to listen to it and read the presentation that goes with it. Im sure itll refute the Deutsche Bank analyst that at 8 says its a sell. I think so much of alcoa and the call i devoted a whole section of get rich carefully to show you how to parse the numbers. Finally, friday, the employment number. I didnt mean to bury the lead. This number will create the prism it will appear to as we prognosticate about how the rest of the quarter is going. I promise to be with there with you as we puzzle over the number. Let me give you the bottom line, i care more about you knowing how to interpret a Conference Call than i care about all the headline numbers in the world. Lets listen in, lets figure them out, make judgments and modify them by fridays employment number so we can capitalize on the opportunities, earnings season always brings for the astute investor. I want to go to dave in florida. Dave dave in florida, dave . Caller yes. Yo, how are you . Caller i am just doing great, jim. Thank you for taking my call. And thank you for your fresh pragmatic outlook for stocks, which i take to mean for a company sound financials plus a sound management, plus a sound Business Plan just generally equates to a sound investment. I see this pragmatic outlook you talk about is similar to that of the late lewis roucouser. Thank you. First of all, i wouldnt have gotten in this business if it werent for him. Hes up here, im glad to even be around here. Xerox has not executed as well as id like, frankly. I think that the Business Plan is a good one, as you just mentioned, but the stock has had a big run here. I need to see this quarter, sir. Its just had a monster run without having monster results. Maybe this will be the quarter that verifies why it went up to begin with. Because i sure havent seen one yet you do that. As Earnings Seasons upon us, its key to listen to these calls before making judgments. Were going to keep our powder dry but get through it together. Oh, man, i cant wait until the matinee alcoa. Mad money will be right back. Coming up best of the bunch, from flix to flying, you dont need to be a wall street insider to spot the stocks that became 2013s top performance. But will these winners take a victory lap . Or could new names take up the charge . And later, web war, you search, you shop, they are two of the hottest growth stories wall street has to offer. Tonight, cramer compares tech heavy weights amazon and google to see whether droids or drones could help you profit in 2014. Plus, looking ahead, 2013 saw record highs and help boost the bottom line of many investors. Can this year follow suit . Tonight, cramer uses the technicals to check if theres still room to rally when he goes off the charts. All coming up on mad money. Dont miss a second of mad money. Follow jimcramer on twitter. Have a question . Tweet cramer madtweets. Send jim an email to madmoney cnbc. Com. Or give us a call at 1800743cnbc. Miss something . Head to madmoney. Cnbc. Com. Aflac aflac got em. Yeah, hes clean, boss. Now listen to me, duck. I have an associate that met with, uh, an unfortunate accident. While hes been incapacitated, somebodys been paying him cash. Now, is this your doing . Aflac . Now, if i met with some such accident, would aflac pay me . Nice. This is your stop. [ male announcer ] find out what aflac can do for you and your family. Aflac . [ male announcer ]. At aflac. Com. Over the pizza place on Chestnut Street the modest first floor bedroom in tallinn, estonia and the southbound bus barreling down i95. This magic moment it is the story of where every great idea begins. And of those who believed they had the power to do more. Dell is honored to be part of some of the worlds great stories. That began much the same way ours did. In a little dorm room 2713. This magic moment you know whats bizarre about the five best and five worst performing stocks in the s p 500 last year . After tremendous advances in the winners, i still like most of them. And after horrific declines in the losers, i still hate most of them. One of the most important exercises in investing is to force yourself to question your own assumptions about your favorite stocks. And 2013s crop of beauties and beast is no different. Its time like this you have to play your on contrarian, go against yourself to see if you can find an unloved Ugly Duckling that could turn into a beautiful swan or discover which beautiful swan may turn into a black one, obliterating your gains. Today, i just want to look at the s ps five biggest winners from 2013. Well save the losers for next week and examine those winners through a jaundiced eye. Im hearing a lot of feedback on twitter. Monster beverage. First up, netflix, heres the stock thats rallied 297 last year from 92 to 368. Hey, now its got a market cap. Netflix is phenomenal, one of the cult stocks along with solar city, twitter and amazon. Those are cult stocks, although i say i do like amazon. Im still recommending people own netflix. Why . Because i like to do market cap analysis and thats what drew me to netflix in the first place. When it was trading much lower, it was a tremendous number to satisfy users that attracted me. By the way, of which i count myself a member. My kids taught me about netflix before the 300 gain and showed me how to stream video over my wifi so i never had to mail in a disk again. Were not alone in loving netflix, more than 31 million americans use it along with 9 million abroad. When the stock was lower, i urged apple, microsoft, yahoo, or facebook to buy it. Using some of their cash for growth as netflix represented a real chip in a new tech game thats working, the holy trinity of mobile, social and cloud that identify in get rich carefully as the most important multiyear trend out there. You know what . There is a simple dirty truth about netflix, im afraid to say it on air. Its true. We hate to admit it out loud, but we would be willing to pay more for the service and thats how much we love it and thats the key to me, that means theres no way its worth merely 22 billion. Its a concept too big for the market cap. I think it goes higher until the subscriber growth peak. I say you should own it, maybe a switch deep in the money call options, protect yourself from the downside. The second best performer last year was micron, symbol m. U. And it was up from 6. 21. I still like micron because its part of that slap happy oligopoly. After it bought a giant semiconductor that had gone bust. And i like the exposure to flash, an amazing memory chip with ever expanding uses. But, would i buy micron . First, theres no doubt youre coming in late with this one. The fact is, makes commodity chips, so when pricing gets as strong as it is now, someone always blinks and decides to put up more factories to take advantage of higher prices, and the average selling price plummets and remember, that is the key metric for chip makers as i explain in get rich carefully. And thats where we are right now. Were at the precipice right now because were hearing rumbles of new factory additions. Hence why this stock trades at ten times earnings. People expect those earnings to collapse imminently. The saving grace is the skeptics have been saying the same thing about disk drives, Western Digital and cgate, and theyve maintained excellent price discipline. At 22 billion in market cap, i think it might be too late to stay long this gem, because it would make it oversupplied. And when you hear a whiff of plans for new foundry, youll be shadow boxing with bears. Well hear lots of analysts about new capacity coming on and despite the denials, i expect management to say that its not going to happen. The questions will speak louder than the answers. Third, best buy, oh, we sold this stock 236 last year back from the dead. Came back to life, why . Renewed management and vigor. I always wondered, why dont they close the bad stores . They did. Offered competitive prices and the only game in town for those who need help buying and installing hard goods that cant be done alone or even lifted for that matter theres only one problem, the stock has pretty much won everyone who has been a skeptic. The big analysts bashers are now big analyst backers. When that happens, its better to have one foot out the door than in. I think best buy will have to come down to recharge. But when it does, the economys strong enough, im going to tell you to pull the trigger, buy it on weakness only like i told you to do rite aid. Fourth is delta airlines, its one of the top five winners of the s p. One that must be bought right here, even though it was up today because its benefitting from the fantastically positive acquisition of American Airlines by u. S. Airways. The Airlines Just a couple of years have gone from being totally uninvestable to being among the best stocks out there, and even though delta was up 131 last year, can still fly higher as the stock roared on news of passenger and revenue numbers. Now, i do prefer the new American Airlines because of the synergies with u. S. Air and i think the integrations going to go smoothly. Some are worried about that. Deltas transformed from a servant to the bond mark to being a cash spewer and i think its got a lot of room to run. Delta is one of the stocks that shouldnt be allowed to make as much as it can now. Thats given this company a multiyear runway to make a ton of money. Buy it. And buy american every time theyre hit. Rounding out the top five winners is etrade, as the company made a major comeback at the same time that the individual investor seems to be tepidly returning to the market. I think even after the run, the stocks cheap, but at this point, i would prefer you to own kgc, thats the old Knight Capital group kcg. Knight capital group. Because the knight, players that benefit when individuals return to investing and get to increase in trading, something i think will happen in 2014, it has a terrible Balance Sheet. Why would i like that . Well, it can benefit from multiple refinancings like you may have if you have a high mortgage and that may still occur if rates remain dramatically low. It, too, has had a big run, but its only worth 1. 3 billion, much too small given the opportunity. Remember, im using opportunity analysis here. Of all of the 2013 winners, i have to say my favorite is delta. The main reason, as part of this exercise, you have to ask yourself, is the stock overly loved . I can tell from twitt twitter jimcramer that theres massive interest here. Netflix has to be one of the most popular stocks with the possible exception of fb or facebook. Etrades going to need the fed to start raising the rates on the credit balances. But delta, i dont know a soul who believes in it, sadly, even the people who have already read get rich carefully where i praised the Airline Stocks to high heaven, they dont believe. The bottom line, deltas my favorite of the top five performers of the s p 500. Stay tuned next week for the worst performers in the s p. Maybe theres nuggets of gold in there. After the break, ill try to make you more money. Coming up, growth spurt, augmented reality or autonomist delivery . To find a winner between amazon and google. Plus, new year, new highs . After nearly tripling since the generational bottom in 2009, can the market keep up its rally in the new year . Dont go anywhere. There should always be a place in your portfolio for at least one turbo charged growth stock. And in the early days of 2014, its worth thinking about what that growth stock should be for the rest of the year. How their valuations can be justified and perhaps more important, how you choose between great Growth Companies how you decide which one is the better stock. Tonight were having a clash of the growth stock titans. Its a Battle Royale between two of the best performing names. Google and amazon up 58 and 59 last year respectively. These are two superbly managed best of Breed Companies that are both within strik