Cramer on BloggingStocks: The pain of being rational

Then I would throw something at someone in disgust, and wonder, "Guy told me he hated Wells yesterday, now he loves it? How can that be?"

Yep, how can that be? How can everyone who hated everything now love everything? How can Bank of America (NYSE: BAC) (Cramer's Take) be a nationalized basket case one day and a strong buy the next -- something I expect will happen soon? How can Microsoft (NASDAQ: MSFT) (Cramer's Take) go from being expensive at $18 to cheap at $20, and how can Apple (NASDAQ: AAPL) (Cramer's Take) be downgraded at $90 on Steve Jobs' health and upgraded at $130, even if he isn't better?

Because that's what happens when things turn in this business -- lots of irrationality. You want to fight it because, alas, it is irrational, and you are, of course, rational. But the pain of being rational is overwhelming, particularly when your clients demand irrationality. The pain of betting that things aren't going to get better after a 53% decline in the averages and the most stimulus ever produced is just too cruel and inhuman.

So you capitulate. You buy the UPS (NYSE: UPS) (Cramer's Take) that you just sold on that bad quarter. You go back into Transocean (NYSE: RIG) (Cramer's Take) after you sold it 10 points ago. You decide that coal is good after all and you buy Freeport-McMoRan (NYSE: FCX) (Cramer's Take) at twice the price that you sold it.

And those, oddly, are disciplined, smart moves.

You are not alone. So afraid of a dividend cut from Black & Decker (NYSE: BDK) (Cramer's Take) was I that I jettisoned it 9 points ago. The cut came, the stock went up. When U.S. Steel (NYSE: X) (Cramer's Take) got downgraded in the low $20s by an analyst who said they had to cut the dividend and do an equity offering, it looked like such a smart thing to do.

Except the dividend cut and equity offering came 4 points above where he said it would happen and the stock is now up 10 from the sell recommendation. He was rational, at least for the time.

We are in max-pain territory for the disciplined negativists. Can they hold out for a bad Cisco (NASDAQ: CSCO) (Cramer's Take) quarter? How about some worse-than-expected same-store sales, albeit unlikely because of the retail calendar shift? How about a week employment number?

You can hold out for anything. The week before expiration has always had one horror-show day. But here's the issue: The higher we go, the less likely we will get back to levels where you first hated it anyway. At a certain point your discipline will choke the living daylights out of your portfolio or your profit-and-loss statement.

If I weren't in yet, I would still be looking for the remaining 4% yielders. When they are gone, you have wait for that pullback.

But when it comes, don't start thinking, "OK, that was the 'V' part of the 'W' and now we are going back down."

Just be glad for a chance to get back in.

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. At the time of publication, Cramer was long Wells Fargo, Freeport-McMoRan and Cisco Systems.