TheStreet.com's Jim Cramer says this commodity collapse is giving the Fed room to cut. As the Fed meets and the credit crisis still roars, it is worth assessing all of the chatter that the Fed can't do a thing and that every aspect of everything is all bad. I put it like that because it is hard to read anything without concluding that there will be high-double-digit defaults and that the credit markets haven been crushed and are not useful and the world is, well, coming to an end.
Funny thing: when the world comes to an end, you get a collapse in commodities, which is what is happening right now; it is something the Fed should keep an eye on. That's because there is suddenly more room to cut if necessary, and that matters because the banks need it -- they need more room to make money on net interest margins and playing the curve, because we all know that they need capital, and this is a good way to raise capital. It is the way that capital was raised for BankBoston and Bank of America (NYSE: BAC) (Cramer's Take) and Chase and Citigroup (NYSE: C) (Cramer's Take) in the old days, and it would be the same again if the Fed needs to help.
In other words, caught in all the gloom is the fact that the Fed is winning, and with winning comes flexibility. I expect nothing from the Fed, nothing, but I also want to remind people that the "Fed will raise soon" talk makes no sense whatsoever now, even though the drumbeat was really loud just a couple of months ago.
Look, it is so easy to think that everything is awful. In fact, everything is pretty awful. I view it, though, as part of my job to focus on what could go right, and one of the things that could go right is going right -- a commodity collapse. We can't have it both ways, an inflation decline and worries of inflation increasing. We can't have inflation and deflation. They can't exist, although the media seems to think that they are going to increase and get worse. I have trouble fathoming that. Maybe others do too, although I don't read them or see them. We can't have oil crashing -- and it is crashing -- and have it be bad both for those who use oil (because there isn't enough business out there for them, which is what oil weakness is saying) and also bad for oil. It's clearly good for the former, and it allows the Fed room to maneuver if things get worse.
Maybe the Fed doesn't matter at all. Maybe nothing matters. Maybe it is pure anarchy out there. But maybe with commodity prices easing, we can get back to where it doesn't cost a fortune to leave the house, let alone build one.
Random musings: USA Today had a good article yesterday about how we have repealed about 44% of the gains we once had and that the bears should take back 62%. Not that much between 44 and 62 ...
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RELATED LINKS:
Fed Minutes Signal Extended Rate Pause
Cramer's 'Mad Money' Recap: Cramer 1, Bernanke 0
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Jim Cramer is a director and co-founder of TheStreet.com. He contributes daily market commentary for TheStreet.com's sites and serves as an adviser to the company's CEO. At the time of publication, Cramer had no positions in the stocks mentioned.
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Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)
8-05-2008 @ 10:02AM
Joseph said...
What we need is stability. All these fancy brokers make money on the immediate swings in the market .. This makes the long term investor the infamous bag-holder. By Keeping rates stable we could begin to stabilize the economy. This makes investing a lot easier and less problematic. Stability is the key. Raising or lowering rates only jerks around the common good old american investor..Lets move to stabilize rates and stop supporting the banks. They only know how to charge you more anyway.
8-05-2008 @ 9:14PM
J Escudero said...
Who's is getting the benefit with low interest rates?? Maybe somebody within the Federal Resrve have an answer for this one.
8-05-2008 @ 11:31PM
Bob said...
http://www.cnn.com/2008/HEALTH/conditions/08/05/robotic.prostate.surgery/index.html
While this article and the report by Gupta did not specifically mention the company the machine that they were talking about is produced and sold by Intitutive Surgical (ISRG). I think that as people read the story and do research on the Divinci they will realize that it is a ISRG product.