Cramer on BloggingStocks: Irrational energy moves


Why does the market just go straight down whenever the oil futures go lower? TheStreet.com's Jim Cramer says.

A market driven by the price of oil -- good when it goes up and bad when it goes down -- is way too binary to profit from. Yet that's where we find ourselves and it is so counterintuitive as to be unnerving.

I think the fact that oil is struggling and failing to take out $60 is a good sign. The purchasing power of Americans is dependent upon jobs, expenses, psyche, interest rates and the stock market. We know that the stock market isn't our friend or our enemy, interest rates are still our friend, jobs are awful, and psyche seems like a push because the love for President Obama is still in the air.

But the expenses have been pretty good given the lower cost of housing and the lower cost of gasoline. The latter -- gasoline -- is directly correlated with retail and restaurants as we know from the previous decline in fuel.

So how in heck can this market just go straight down whenever the oil futures go down?

The simple setup should be short the Oil Service HOLDRs (NYSE: OIH) (Cramer's Take) exchange-traded fund, short the Oil Services Index and go long everything else. We should be able to short Transocean (NYSE: RIG) (Cramer's Take) and Schlumberger (NYSE: SLB) (Cramer's Take), and Occidental Petroleum (NYSE: OXY) (Cramer's Take), and Anadarko Petroleum (NYSE: APC) (Cramer's Take) and do just fine.

But it doesn't work out like that.

Frankly, until it does, I think I have to doubt this market's ability to get through this range. It's just too difficult to have gasoline go much higher and not expect to lose something that's been of great support to the retailers and the restaurants. It made sense when oil was in the $30s going to the $40s as that was the depression going to a recession. It made sense when oil was in the $40s going to the $50s. It even made some sense when oil was in the $50s going to the $60s.

But the S&P 500 futures should be rejoicing with the push back from $60, not going down. Until the market is a tad more rational on higher energy costs, you can't be as thrilled as you might otherwise be at this moment.

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 had no positions in the stocks mentioned.

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Last updated: February 10, 2012: 06:05 AM

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