TheStreet.com's Jim Cramer highlights the latest example of how people were scared out of the market at exactly the wrong time so you won't get spooked next time.When Sowood and the Bear Stearns (NYSE: BSC) (Cramer's Take) leveraged investment funds blew up this summer we were supposed to get ready for a wave of redemptions that would buckle the market.
"Just wait until October" became a familiar refrain as hedge funds were expected to get shelled, causing tons of stocks not to trade the way they should as unnatural margined selling took its toll.
But here we are in the first week of October and spreads for arbitrage, a pure tell for fund redemptions, are tightening, not loosening. The averages are at or are close to hitting new highs and we haven't heard of any funds about to go belly-up. The only ones that would fail, I believe, would be short funds.
I bring up this sore but positive topic because when things were really bad at the end of August yet redemptions hadn't overwhelmed the market, we figured it might just be a September phenomenon. Making things a little more likely, too, were the funds that were exposed to all of these exotic instruments based on mortgages.
So far it looks like the huge hedge fund redemptions and failures aren't going to happen, perhaps courtesy of the Fed's rate cuts that now do seem to have bailed out a lot of managers who have made wrong moves. That's the "moral hazard" that everyone was fretting about so much before the Fed acted.
But I think that instead, you should let this memory of "redemption worry" be a reminder of the phantoms that freak people out and make them leave the market at what now represents 1,000 points on the Dow.
Oddly, there are still some stocks that seem pressured down more by fear than by fundamentals. Genesis Lease (NYSE: GLS) (Cramer's Take) and Aircastle (NYSE: AYR) (Cramer's Take) both have terrific yields, a function of the decline in the stocks of aircraft lessors. Some of these are owned from hedge funds believed to be struggling. The other is Enterprise Product Partners (NYSE: EPD) (Cramer's Take), also with a good yield, that is in the energy transport business.
Neither industry is hurting but the stocks had some really weak hedge fund hands as shareholders.
These could be payoffs from the distressed period and redemption fears that drove them down.
RELATED LINKS: 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 was long Citigroup.
.gif){kind=logo}
Why do we have a weak dollar?
Holiday hiring slow for retailers
Closing Bell: What sell-off? (AIG, ABK, EPR, MBI, JAVA, ORCL, ERTS)
