TheStreet.com's Jim Cramer says the weak dollar is benefiting U.S. corporations and no longer going against them.

Why have the industrials been so red-hot? Why do they seem to levitate? One reason, of course, is that people think the economy's getting better. A second reason is that even if the economy stands still vs. last year the comparisons will be amazing and nothing gets the juices going more rapidly than easy comparisons.

Why will they be so glaring? First, the layoffs have been brutal, the cost-cutting immense and it hasn't hurt at all ... yet. It is totally and unequivocally positive.

Here are some highlights from last week's earnings coverage from BloggingStocks:

• AK Steel Holding Corp. (NYSE: AKS) posted a smaller-than-expected Q2 net loss as steel prices rise.
• Boston Scientific Corp. (NYSE: BSX) posted a better-than-expected Q2 profit on strong overseas sales.
• Caterpillar Inc. (NYSE: CAT) shares jumped after it beat earnings, missed revenues, and offered guidance.
• DuPont (NYSE: DD) shares declined after it posted a higher-than-expected profit but lower revenue.
• Eaton Corp. (NYSE: ETN) disappointing results were a sign that the bulls are in charge, said Jim Cramer.
• General Electric Co. (NYSE: GE) Q2 earnings and sales declined, dragged down by finance and NBC units.

Ingersoll Rand (NYSE: IR - option chain) shares are up more than 10% today after the company reported second-quarter earnings of $122.1 million, or 38 cents per share. Excluding restructuring costs, IR earned 50 cents per share, beating analysts' forecasts of 39 cents per share, which could signal a full-fledged economic recovery is underway. If you think that the stock won't fall by too much in the coming months, then now could be a good time to look at a bullish hedged trade on IR.

IR opened this morning at $25.35. So far today the stock has hit a low of $25.35 and a high of $27.21. As of 11:40, IR is trading at $26.98 up $2.90 (12.4%). The chart for IR looks bullish and S&P gives IR a positive 4 STARS (out of 5) buy ranking.

TheStreet.com's Jim Cramer says if we let some banks give it back, others may rush to do so unnecessarily.

Breather day? Or does this monster ever breathe?

We are seeing stress levels coming down: the magic VIX going under 40?, money coming in, industrials bouncing -- I watch International Paper (NYSE: IP) (Cramer's Take), Du Pont (NYSE: DD) (Cramer's Take), Packaging Corp. (NYSE: PKG) (Cramer's Take) and Ingersoll Rand (NYSE: IR) (Cramer's Take) for true industrial bounces. We are seeing the rails and the fertilizers -- two 2008 sectors -- regaining life and lifetime moves in a session.

But it was and is and always will be about the banks, and no matter what we do it will come back to them. They are the reason we got in trouble, and they are the reason we got out of trouble.

TheStreet.com's Jim Cramer says the economics are still dire, but stocks aren't even flinching on huge warnings.

Preannouncement after preannouncement after preannouncement. Yawn after yawn after yawn.

I've never seen anything like it. Worst ever. But, did anyone really think Ingersoll Rand (NYSE: IR) (Cramer's Take), cut in half here, would make the quarter? How about Nucor (NYSE: NUE) (Cramer's Take)? Stanley Works (NYSE: SWK) (Cramer's Take)? ITT (NYSE: ITT) (Cramer's Take)? Eaton (NYSE: ETN) (Cramer's Take)? Pentair (NYSE: PNR) (Cramer's Take)? I figured they would all miss. I bet the ones that preannounced last night hardly go down. Why should they? ITT's up nicely. Eaton's unchanged. Not even glancing blows. Nucor's up 10! Ten from a preannouncement.

Most glaring: the 10% miss by Joy Global (NASDAQ: JOYG) (Cramer's Take) with the almost 15% rally! Now that's gigantic.

That's why people feel better about this tape. In the end of that big run up, stocks failed to react to even the biggest beats. Now they fail to react to the biggest misses.

This post is part of a series in which TheStockAdvisors.com asked financial experts to name their top stock pick if McCain or if Obama wins the election.

"Obama is expected to create a national infrastructure reinvestment bank to expand and enhance existing federal transportation investments; our pick to benefit is Ingersoll Rand (NYSE: IR)," says Thomas Vass in The Technology Stock Advisor.

"The national infrastructure reinvestment bank will receive an infusion of federal money, $60 billion over 10 years, to provide financing to transportation infrastructure projects across the nation.

"These projects will create up to two million new direct and indirect jobs per year and stimulate approximately $35 billion per year in new economic activity.

"The one area in particular that will benefit the most from the new national infrastructure reinvestment bank is the the industrial machinery and distribution equipment value chain.

"This sector has the potential income and employment multiplier effects to create the jobs Obama is promising as a result of this policy.

"Within that sector, Ingersoll Rand has the best prospects for stock price appreciation. It is rated an A stock by S & P for quality. Our target buy price on the stock is $37. The target sell price is $56."

Steven Halpern's TheStockAdvisors.com offers a daily look at the latest market commentary and favorite stock picks and investment ideas from the nation's leading financial newsletter advisors.

This post is part of a series in which TheStockAdvisors.com asked financial experts to name their top stock pick if McCain or if Obama wins the election.

Which stocks would benefit from a victory by either Senator John McCain or Senator Barack Obama? To help investors sort through the sectors and stocks best positioned to benefit in a post-election environment, we posed this question to some of the nation's leading financial newsletter advisors.

Importantly, this is not a partisan report; each participating advisor has provided a favorite stock for both candidates, focused not on political preferences but unbiased stock analysis. Below we feature those stocks and ETFs that the advisors believe will be the winners depending on which candidate prevails.

McCain Stocks:

Roger Conrad - Comcast (NYSE: CCW)
Gregg Early - Elbit Systems (NASDAQ: ESLT)
Elliott Gue - Paladin Resources (Toronto: PDN)
Doug Fabian - Market Vectors Nuclear Energy (NYSE: NLR)
Vivian Lewis - Barclays (NYSE: BCS)
Bill Martin - CGG Veritas (NYSE: CGV)'
Yiannis Mostrous - Lonking Holdings (OTC: CIMHF)
Carla Pasternak - Eaton Vance Tax-Advantaged Dividend Income Fund (NYSE: EVT)
Nate Pile - SPDR Gold Trust (NYSE: GLD)
John Reese - General Dynamics (NYSE: GD)
Nathan Slaughter - USEC (NYSE: USU)
Paul Tracy - Shaw Group (NYSE: SGR)
Kelley Wright - CenturyTel (NYSE: CTL)
Tom Vass - Molex (NASDAQ: MOLX)
Martin Hutchinson - Northrop Grumman (NYSE: NOC), Merck & Co. (NYSE: MRK), EOG Resources (NYSE: EOG)

Obama Stocks:

Roger Conrad - SunPower (NASDAQ: SPWR)
Gregg Early - AeroVironment (NASDAQ: AVAV)
Elliott Gue - SunPower (NASDAQ: SPWR)
Doug Fabian - Industrial Select Sector SPDR (NYSE: XLI)
Vivian Lewis - Cosan (NYSE: CZZ)
Bill Martin - Geron (NASDAQ: GERN)
Yiannis Mostrous - Dr. Reddy's (NYSE: RDY)
Carla Pasternak - Kinder Morgan Energy Partners (NYSE: KMP)
Nate Pile - Apple (NASDAQ: AAPL)
John Reese - American Eagle (NYSE: AEO)
Nathan Slaughter - Fluor (NYSE: FLR)
Paul Tracy - Market Vectors Global Alternative Energy (NYSE: GEX)
Kelley Wright - Cardinal Health (NYSE: CAH)
Tom Vass - Ingersoll Rand (NYSE: IR)
Martin Hutchinson - Microsoft (NASDAQ: MSFT), Time Warner Inc. (NYSE: TWX), First Solar (NASDAQ: FSLR)

MOST NOTEWORTHY: Vale, Allos Therapeutics and Torchmark were today's noteworthy initiations:

• Lehman believes Vale (NYSE:RIO) is well-positioned to benefit from rising steel demand in emerging economies. The firm started shares with an Overweight rating and $45 target.
  
• Citigroup initiated Allos Therapeutics (NASDAQ:ALTH) with a Buy rating and $11 target and believes the company's lead drug PDX is likely to be the first FDA approved agent for peripheral T cell lymphoma.
  
• Friedman Billings expects Torchmark's (NYSE:TMK) sales to get back on track given increased recruiting, ongoing management initiatives, and the potential demise of Medicare Advantage. Shares were assumed with an Outperform rating and $72 target.

OTHER INITIATIONS:

• Baird initiated Navigant Consulting (NYSE:NCI) with an Outperform rating and $24 target.
  
• KeyBanc assumed Ingersoll-Rand (NYSE:IR) with a Buy rating and $49 target.
  
• Mindray Medical (NYSE:MR) and China Medical (NASDAQ:CMED) were initiated with Overweight ratings and targets of $50 and $54, respectively, at Morgan Stanley.

"We like to invest in the strongest sectors and we think Industrials are on their way to the top," note Ron Rowland and Brandon Clay in All Star Investor.

The advisors explain, "Surveying the horizon of industrial companies, the most promising is Bermuda-based, Ingersoll-Rand (NYSE: IR). This is a stock you want for the next 12 months."

"The stock market is a leading indicator; it starts to decline before the economy slows down, and it starts to advance well before the economy improves. These lags often results in a stock market that starts moving up just when the public becomes 'convinced' that the problems are serious.

"Economic reports are likely to get worse. Housing foreclosures are likely to increase. Many more employees are likely to be let go. These are the perceptions that currently haunt investors.

"However, these are often the very same perceptions that create bottoms in the stock market. It is hard to see how the economy will crawl out of this mess, but eventually it will. The groundwork is now being laid.

"It may seem counter-intuitive, but investors should start planning for the next expansionary cycle. Markets move well ahead of facts, and it's time to invest accordingly. And indeed, industrials have risen in our rankings in recent weeks.

"A global leader of broad-based equipment offerings, Ingersoll-Rand is positioned to capitalize on the next phase of development like no other company in its sector. Here's why.

With the credit crunch and the cooling of private equity, the M&A space has been fairly meager lately. But today, we got some good news (at least for deal junkies) -- Ingersoll-Rand (NYSE: IR) has agreed to pay $10.1 billion for Trane (NYSE: TT).

Ingersoll-Rand, founded in 1871, is a major diversified industrial company, with brands like Club Car golf cars, Hussmann stationary refrigeration equipment, and Schlage locks. And with the Trane deal, the company will boost its large climate control business, making it the #2 player behind United Technologies.

Funny enough, it seems that Trane was trying to market itself to private equity buyers by selling off divisions and streamlining divisions. But of course, such a company can also be attractive to a strategic buyer – especially as global markets remain highly competitive.

With the Trane deal, Ingersoll-Rand will have $17 billion in revenues and $2 billion in EBIT (earnings before interest and taxes).

Yet, Wall Street is a bit skeptical, with Ingersoll-Rand's stock price down 7%. Trane's stock, on the other hand, is up 23%.

Tom Taulli is the author of various books, including The Complete M&A Handbook and The Edgar Online Guide to Decoding Financial Statements. He also operates DealProfiles.com.

Stock futures indicated yet another lower open for U.S. stocks Monday morning as investors still digested recent data that suggests not only an economic slowdown, perhaps even a recession, at the same time as it suggested prices are increasing and higher inflation looms bright.

Not helping the mood this morning were former Federal Reserve Chairman Alan Greenspan, who spoke on ABC's This Week, voicing his own concerns about the economy stands a higher chance these days to go into stagflation where economic growth is stagnant while prices are pressured upward. Greenspan also called for the government to give homeowners who have problems paying their mortgage, some sort of financial aid.

Meanwhile, the holiday shopping season isn't going too well at both brick-and-mortar as well as online retailers. The weather has kept many from shopping the past weekend, as did economic concerns. Despite the weather not being a factor, it seems that web stores have also struggled.

These concerns may stop the Fed's current easing mode of the past three meetings as it attempts to juggle the economy falling into a recession, easing the pressures in the credit market, while keeping inflation in check.

Stock index futures pointed to a higher opening Friday on Wall Street, amid speculation that technology stocks would rise on Microsoft (NASDAQ: MSFT)'s strong earnings report late Thursday. Optimism was tempered on expectations that the monthly consumer confidence survey due Friday morning will show a declining economic outlook.

Yesterday, the Dow Jones Industrial Average lost just 3.33, ending a volatile trading session that saw the index swing as low as far as 100 points down. The Nasdaq Composite Index fared worse, falling 23.90, or 0.86%, to 2,750.86, while the S&P slipped 1.48 to 1,514.40.

The University of Michigan will release final consumer confidence figures for October at 10 this morning. The monthly survey is expected to show Americans more pessimistic about the nation's economic future.

Troubled Countrywide Financial (NYSE: CFC) will report third-quarter results this morning. Analysts expect the top mortgage lender to post losses of $1.26 per share, though expectations vary widely.

Trucking group Arkansas Best Corp. (NASDAQ: ABFS) and industrial conglomerate Ingersoll-Rand (NYSE: IR) are among other companies reporting earnings Friday.

Abroad, stocks headed higher in Asia, with Japan's Nikkei and Hong Kong's Hang Seng indexes rising. Stocks were flat in early European trading.

Microsoft reported first-quarter earnings after the market close Thursday, posting a 23 percent rise that exceeding analysts' expectations. The software giant raised its forecasts for the year, citing sales of Windows Vista and its new Xbox 360 game Halo 3.

Merrill Lynch (NYSE: MER) shares advanced overseas on reports that Merrill Lynch CEO Stanley O'Neal discussed merger potential with Wachovia (NYSE: WB) without consulting Merrill's board of directors.

Ingersoll-Rand Co. Ltd. (NYSE: IR) stock is falling today after economic data was released that showed growth in the service sector is slowing but still positive. On top of that, a quick look at insider trading for IR over the past three months shows that insider selling has picked up over the past few weeks, indicating a bearish attitude from within the company. If you think this stock won't be rising too far in the coming months, then it could be a good time to look at a bearish hedged play on IR.

After hitting a one-year high of $56.66 in July, the stock has struggled against resistance in the mid-$50's. This morning, IR opened at $54.03. So far today the stock has hit a low of $51.79 and a high of $54.15. As of 11:05, IR is trading at $52.89, down $1.40 (-2.6%). The chart for IR looks neutral but improving, while S&P gives the stock a neutral 3 STARS (out of 5) hold rating.

For a bearish hedged play on this stock, I would consider a November bear-call credit spread above the $60 range. A bear-call credit spread is an options position that combines the purchase and sale of call options to hedge risk in case the stock doesn't do what you think but still leverage nice returns. For this particular trade, we will make a 4.2% return in 7 weeks as long as IR is below $60 at November expiration. Ingersoll-Rand would have to rise by more than 14% before we would start to lose money.

MOST NOTEWORTHY: The machinery industry, Sohu.com (SOHU), Intuit (INTU), Priceline.com (PCLN) and Expedia (EXPE) were today's noteworthy initiations:

• JP Morgan assumed coverage of 5 machinery stocks: The firm assumed Eaton (NYSE: ETN) and Illinois Tool Works (NYSE: ITW) with Overweight ratings and Ingersoll-Rand (NYSE: IR), Parker Hannifin (NYSE: PH) and Kennametal (NYSE: KMT) with Neutral ratings. JP Morgan's top picks in the group are Illinois Tool Works and Eaton.

• Pali initiated Sohu.com (NASDAQ: SOHU) with a Buy rating and $41 target and believes the Olympic Games represent the biggest growth catalyst for the company.

• Jefferies started shares of Intuit (NASDAQ: INTU) with a Buy rating and $34 target, likes the momentum in TurboTax and QuickBooks and sees potential upside fo FY08 expectations.

• Banc of America initiated Priceline.com (NASDAQ: PCLN) with a Buy rating and $96 target and is positive on the company's European positioning given expectations for top line growth and margin expansion. The firm also started shares of Expedia (NASDAQ: EXPE) with a Buy rating and $35 target, positive on the company's strong management, solid competitive positioning and improving fundamentals.

OTHER INITIATIONS:

• First Albany assumed coverage of Cougar Biotechnology (OTC: CGRB) with a Buy rating and $29 target.

• Oppenheimer started shares of Virginia Commerce (NASDAQ: VCBI) with a Neutral rating.

• Omega Financial (NASDAQ: OMEF) was initiated at Keefe Bruyette with a Market Perform rating and $25 target.

• Merrill Lynch initiated shares of Insulet (NASDAQ: PODD) with a Buy rating.

Analyst summaries provided by TheFlyOnTheWall.com (subscription required).

MOST NOTEWORTHY: American Home Mortgage (AHM), Biogen Idec (BIIB), Bebe Stores (BEBE), Ingersoll-Rand (IR) and SK Telecom (SKM) were today's more noteworthy downgrades:

• RBC Capital cut American Home Mortgage (NYSE: AHM) to Sector Perform from Outperform citing the deterioration in the global debt markets for the downgrade.

• Morgan Stanley downgraded shares of Biogen Idec (NASDAQ: BIIB) to Underweight from Equal Weight citing risk to Rituxan growth.

• Merriman downgraded Bebe Stores (NASDAQ: BEBE) to Neutral from Buy as they believe new fall merchandise is not performing well enough to improve sales trends.

• Robert W. Baird downgraded shares of Ingersoll-Rand (NYSE: IR) to Neutral from Outperform citing higher risk premium due to the IRS challenge and tighter credit markets that could impact the Bobcat divestiture.

OTHER DOWNGRADES:

• Children's Place (NASDAQ: PLCE) was cut to Neutral from Positive at Susquehanna.

• Thomas Weisel downgraded LoopNet (NASDAQ: LOOP) to Market Weight from Overweight.

• ThinkEquity cut Kyphon (NASDAQ: KYPH) to Accumulate from Buy.

• Needham downgraded QLogic (NASDAQ: QLGC) to Hold from Buy.

• JMP Securities downgraded ValueClick (NASDAQ: VCLK) to Market Perform from Outperform.

Analyst summaries provided by TheFlyOnTheWall.com (subscription required)