In Cramer’s May 15 Sell Block segment, “The Newest Mortgage Offenders,” why did the Mad Money guru slam IndyMac?

IndyMac’s bad loans are skyrocketing, the company keeps diluting shareholders as shares outstanding continue to build up. And it isn’t even saying it can be profitable this year as it remains heavily exposed to the worst areas of the California market, which make up nearly 50% of its holdings.

At one time, IndyMac (IMB) made my Small Cap Watch List (Track at Marketocracy). But that was a long time ago. These days it doesn’t even make it past my initial screens.

On Friday, Rebecca Darst said options traders are looking at chips. What reason(s) did she cite?

Here’s the video.  It seems to me like she mentions Infineon’s (IFX) guidance cut, a recent Barron’s article and TI’s (TXN - Annual Report) lukewarm share price. In other words, all of the above.

Infineon doesn’t show up on my screens and Texas Instruments ranks pretty neutrally. I personally think the semiconductor industry should do well, and own the Semiconductor HOLDRs (SMH) and Maxim Integrated Products (MXIM.PK) - though the latter position is a little stub spun out from the SMH when the company was delisted.

Disclosure: William Trent has a long position in SMH.

On May 28, homeland security analyst Brian Ruttenbur praised which firm for its fingerprint-verification tech?

Ruttenbur’s first pick among homeland security companies is AuthenTec (AUTH), a maker of fingerptint-authentication sensors .

“They’re growing roughly 45-50 percent a year, and they’re going on laptops and cell phones,” he said.  “You’ll see the first cell phones [with fingerprint sensors] in the U.S. this year.”

Authentec doesn’t show up on my screens because it doesn’t make any money yet.