Mad Money: Avnet CEO makes Jim Cramer ‘feel better’

Did anyone catch Avnet CEO Roy Vallee’s appearance on Mad Money with Jim Cramer last week? I’m not regular viewer of the show. Cramer’s style is a little over the top for my taste. But after seeing a tweet from an Avnet rep on Twitter about the segment and receiving the link from the rep’s partner, I’ve since reviewed the show several times, sending the link off to some naysayers in our industry.

Cramer, known for telling it how it is without so much as the slightest sugar coating, likes to tear into souring companies and stocks. Not so when he featured a nine-minute segment on January 28 on distributor Avnet after the company’s earnings report.

He calls Avnet “a company you’ve probably never heard of but that I am determined to get on your radar” and one that he uses to gauge the health of tech overall, just before he goes into Avnet’s numbers, which showed revenue gains and a guidance calling for March quarter growth opposed to the typical seasonal decline. Yet, Avnet’s stock, AVT, got hit anyway and slipped after the positive results. Cramer, puzzled by that and seemingly without an obnoxious sound affect or graphic to explain his puzzlement, called on Vallee for an explanation.

As Vallee sees it, there’s “pent up demand” and corporations are now spending. The 37-year distribution-industry veteran says that it’s “very wrong to pull down the whole tech sector,” as the SOX (semiconductor stock index) had taken a fall, because there is growth everywhere he looks.* Echoing comments Vallee made to EDN at the end of last year, he told Cramer “technology is leading this recovery. … There is pent up demand for technology and we are seeing it.”

And it’s not just Avnet seeing it. Arrow, Avnet’s closets competitor, also reported good quarterly results, offering more proof that tech’s overall health is stable. Various researchers have also recently reported that the electronics supply chain and its inventories are in good shape, a key to 2010 recovery.

Cramer and Vallee go on to discuss the “mobile tsunami” and the possibility of it being a larger growth force for tech than the PC was before Cramer sums up the segment.

“I like tech and I’m going to keep pushing it. I feel better; tech is leading us,” Cramer says as to the overall economic situation.

View the Mad Money clip just a few lines down and share your thoughts on Vallee’s words. Do you agree that there is pent up demand ready to drive 2010 sales? Is tech’s overall health stable? Voice your opinion below.

*Editor’s note: As an editor, it is considered unethical to own stock in the companies I report on. As such, I do not own any stock in Avnet or Arrow.