On Tuesday I wanted to shoot myself, as always when I woke up and went online to see what was going on. Here's a partial list of the beautiful data points that were in my purview in the first hour of looking over the market:
1. A trenchant note from a major strategist at a bank I trust who is talking about why the market must be avoided because private-equity valuations are collapsing, so what's the point of owning equities.
2. Brutal reports from the middle-class front: People losing their homes to foreclosure because they simply are losing their jobs. Not deadbeats, it's the unemployed not being able to pay their mortgages.
3. A Far Eastern guru everyone seems to love and respect for heaven knows what reason spouting on TV that the U.S. is about to experience hyperinflation that will destroy equities and all purchasing power.
4. General Motors (NYSE: GM) (Cramer's Take) bondholders getting stuck holding next to nothing as the unions do pretty well considering that they are the most highly paid factory workers in the world.
5. North Korea threatening to destroy the Western and Eastern world or, if you look at that Dear Leader, maybe Kirby's "Fourth World."
When you read these, come on, don't you want to crawl under the bed? Don't you want to say that the stock market is a gigantic charade, a joke, something that belongs at zero or not even worth opening?
Don't you want to say that you are buying German stocks going into the Weimar Republic or Russian equities as Lenin stormed the winter palace? Doesn't it seem like a total exercise in foolishness?
Why bother, right?
And what happens? We catch one of the greatest rallies of the year, one that is so broad-based that many stocks that haven't gone up in weeks, like the apparel stocks or even some of the biotechs and foods, actually make you money.
It's a mockery of the data and the outlook and the worldview. It is a travesty of a rally based on what we know.
Sure, we can point to the Richmond Federal Reserve's manufacturing report, a glowing one, or a Dallas Fed report that says the world isn't ending. Or a couple thousand people in the Michigan consumer confidence survey -- is it even that big? -- who are feeling a little better.
But it is a totally intellectually dishonest rally, one based on nothing when you consider all the bankruptcies and capital destruction that must face us, right? Right? Right?
I mean, isn't everything that has happened that is bad totally irreversible? Aren't we being told that every house that is for sale is just going to be for sale again because no one can afford them and the Fed is just printing money, which has to destabilize things mightily in the out years?
Isn't every point advance a colossal joke on the poor people who are trying to catch that advance?
It's all a fraud, right?
Except it happened. Every bit of that rally. Apple (NASDAQ: AAPL) (Cramer's Take) did go up 8 and then go up another 2 because China will soon have the iPhone. Google (NASDAQ: GOOG) (Cramer's Take) did go up 10 because the quarter is tracking better.
VF Corp. (NYSE: VFC) (Cramer's Take) did go up 2 because if retail is doing better, they are doing better. Nike (NYSE: NKE) (Cramer's Take) did go up 2 because if the sales remain constant and the job cuts go through, the earnings estimates are probably too low.
BHP Billiton (NYSE: BHP) (Cramer's Take) and Freeport-McMoRan (NYSE: FCX) (Cramer's Take) did go up because China demand for copper is increasing. The restaurant stocks did go up because business hasn't fallen off a cliff.
The banks did go up because they made money when they turned the lights on and because they are not all idiots. Research In Motion (NASDAQ: RIMM) (Cramer's Take) rallied huge because BlackBerry sales remain strong. Qualcomm's (NASDAQ: QCOM) (Cramer's Take) stock did leap 2 because numbers are better than expected and estimates are too low.
These things did happen.
The advances did occur.
What do you do if you are intellectually honest and you see these gains and you aren't getting them?
I will tell you what I did every time I was intellectually honest. I found reasons to hate it, and dismiss it: light volume, short-covering, foolish public buying of mutual funds, end-of-month mark-up, stupid foreign buyers, uninformed hedge fund managers trying to catch up to the averages. I would say, "Go take those points, they aren't worth it." I would stomp my feet and clap my hands and bang the desk and throw water bottles at those who wanted to grab those points.
FOOLS!
But you know what? No matter how hard I tried, I couldn't wish those gains for others away.
And I realized that all my arguments -- all of them -- were just as valid at some lower level than they are now.
Of course, we can get to levels where all of the buying simply is nothing but courting danger. But you can sell when that happens. You can get out.
That is not intellectually dishonest. It is flexibility. It is dexterity. It is being nimble.
It is called "making money."
And it is what we are supposed to do.
So, stomp your feet. Clap your hands. Close your eyes. Pronounce today as absurd as the day before and the day before that and go all the way back to March 6 when Wells Fargo (NYSE: WFC) (Cramer's Take) and Citigroup (NYSE: C) (Cramer's Take) told you they were making money and dismiss those ridiculous claims.
Decide that everything that has happened is bogus. Do it! You've got the macro data on your side. You have the facts on your side. The big picture: It's all yours.
I just want the money, the dishonest, intellectually dismissed money, the money that shouldn't be made, the money that doesn't deserve to be made.
We will both go to the bank together. You can deposit the rigor; I'll deposit the money.
I like my bank account better.
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 VF Corp., Nike, BHP Billiton, Qualcomm and Wells Fargo.




Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)
5-27-2009 @ 2:50PM
Ben said...
lol why is Cramer posting almost daily about why everybody and their mom should be buying stocks now? How much is he being paid to do this much pumping?
5-27-2009 @ 5:43PM
beachpaul said...
Woe, settle down dude. The 199 pts. you got yesterday, 173 disappeared today. Was that you shorting today, Cramer? Is that why you are so wound up? DOW goes up one day and gives all but a pittance back the next day? You don't think that is crazy? You think everyone should jump into that insanity? No wonder GE is such a mess.