What do you do when you know that while the mark-to-market changes, as minimal as they are, might allow banks not to mark down further, the actual nonperforming loans will spike fairly radically?

What do you do when the economy's simply flat-lining, and everyone is excited about it even though all that has happened is that we have left the garden-variety depression and ventured back into recession?

There are a couple of ways to go. First, you can go international. Some countries, notably Brazil and China, have actually bottomed and are going forward out of a recession, and you could argue that China's never been in one, that it was just a well-documented slowdown.

Last Friday we got some amazing Brazilian car numbers that were overlooked by just about everyone: a 36% jump, the best on record. It's pretty darned clear that the worst of Brazil is definitely behind us, and while we were gratified that there might be a bottom in car production in this country because of TALF financing and lower gasoline prices, that's a far cry from having the best March on record.

The iShares MSCI Brazil Index (NYSE: EWZ) (Cramer's Take) might work here, the ETF that has a bunch of Brazilian stocks, but as is so typical of the ETFs, which often do not represent what you want to capture, the ETF is heavily weighted to Petrobras (NYSE: PBR) (Cramer's Take), which is more a play on oil than Brazil, and Vale (NYSE: RIO) (Cramer's Take), which is a play on China. If you like either of those two, just go buy 'em. I would think that Banco Bradesco (NYSE: BBD) (Cramer's Take) at $11 or Banco Itau (NYSE: ITU) (Cramer's Take) at $12 would be better plays, as would CPFL Energia (NYSE: CPL) (Cramer's Take) with its bountiful 7.85% yield.

The ETFs for China are every bit as bad as the ETF for Brazil, with the iShares FTSE/Xinhua China 25 (NYSE: FXI) (Cramer's Take) and the China Fund (NYSE: CHN) (Cramer's Take) being the way to play the rally. I own FXI for Action Alerts PLUS, and while I am up a lot on it, the gain is pathetic vs. the index. Same with CHN. We are playing China with BHP Billiton (NYSE: BHP) (Cramer's Take) because China is a stimulus play concentrated on the consumer spending and on big infrastructure projects.

A second way to play the potential next leg would be the viciously thrown-away drug sector, which has Obama and an end of the Depression cyclical rotation going against it but is experiencing compressed valuations that should be in fashion considering we are still in recession. I bought some Abbott (NYSE: ABT) last week and I think that Celgene's (NASDAQ: CELG) way too beaten up, but so is Johnson & Johnson (NYSE: JNJ). I have ever seen it. Ever. If you think the first-quarter earnings are going to be awful, these could be a refuge. Word of warning: they are totally beleaguering to own if we keep going higher because they have been major sources of funds.

I also think Pepsi (NYSE: PEP), Coke (NYSE: KO) and General Mills (NYSE: GIS) all work because of easier second-half comparisons, but the hedges that left these companies in the dust last quarter will still be with them, as are the claims that they are the worst to own if the economy has bottomed. They are down much less than the overall market year over year, so I can understand the reluctance to own them.

Perhaps the best near-term hope from the group is the out-of-favor Hershey (NYSE: HSY) because raw commodity costs have come down and convenience store sales are way up for this impulse buy considering gasoline's decline.

Finally, one can simply wait for the unforeseen pullback. In many ways this is the most dangerous way to go, simply because what we have seen in these pullbacks is that they are so vicious that if you buy too soon you are crushed and too late could be as early as the second or third day. We have had such spikes that it is easy to see that if we break the momentum we could fall hard but not far enough to make it so you will feel comfortable wading back in.

If we do, I think you buy the banks, particularly JPMorgan (NYSE: JPM) and Goldman Sachs (GS) because they are doing the best of the lot, and have either the most aggressive marks or the best balance sheet.

Or you can go retail and given the possibility of refi madness, which produced a lot of spend, I would return to Yum! Brands (NYSE: YUM), Darden (DRI, Nike (NYSE: NKE) or, most important, Lowe's (NYSE: LOW) and Home Depot (HD) -- direct housing plays without the housing balance sheet risk.

Finally: tech. Given that Corning, Research in Motion, Xilinx and Taiwan Semi are doing better, you can buy anything from Hewlett-Packard (NASDAQ: HPQ) to Qualcomm (NASDAQ: QCOM), but these have moved up huge, and if they don't say, "We are going to see a big turn," you are going to get stung as the momentum money goes elsewhere. Dangerous game up here.

There is one more way to play it, but the earnings risk might overwhelm the safety of it: Verizon (NYSE: VZ) and AT&T (NYSE: T)and the like. The decline will be cushioned but the upside muted.

None of these situations is optimal, but then again, with a market up 24% in a straight line and with people sitting on gains or at least smaller losses, there's profit-taking galore to be had.

I imagine that people will try to draw a ton of conclusions from Alcoa (NYSE: AA) but Alcoa's so problematic -- a poorly run company with little earnings prospects that has already run since the secondary with massive dilution and a hefty recommendation boost from JPMorgan already. Not very extrapolative for me.

I think the best thing to say is, "I missed it" and wait, but is anyone that disciplined? Maybe, but I don't know of anyone.

At the time of publication, Cramer was long JPMorgan, Goldman Sachs, General Mills, Qualcomm, Hewlett-Packard, iShares FTSE/Xinhua China 25 Index ETF, Yum! Brands, Nike, Pepsi, Home Depot, Abbott, Celgene, Johnson & Johnson, BHP Billiton and General Mills. Jim Cramer is co-founder and chairman of TheStreet.com. He contributes daily market commentary for TheStreet.com's sites and serves as an adviser to the company's CEO.