Get the latest Age of Conan news and views at Massively!

AOL Money & Finance

Features

Subscribe
Subscribe to feed
Add to My AOL
Sub with Bloglines

In The News

BloggingStocks bloggers (30 days)

#BloggerPostsCmts
1Douglas McIntyre1680
2Joseph Lazzaro1330
3Paul Foster970
4Tom Taulli830
5Eric Buscemi770
6Brent Archer650
7Zac Bissonnette620
8Melly Alazraki621
9Steven Mallas570
10Brian White501
11Steven Halpern490
12Larry Schutts460
13Richard Driver380
14Trey Thoelcke330
15Peter Cohan320
16Jon Ogg290
17Sheldon Liber290
18Jim Cramer230
19Laurie Pasternack230
20Jonathan Berr200
Powered by Blogsmith

Cramer on BloggingStocks: Play this week with a steady hand

TheStreet.com's Jim Cramer says there's some reason for caution, but no reason to get out of the market here.

There all right there. Don't you feel it? Hundreds of stocks at resistance. Hundreds have formed a nice base. The Transports and the Dow are moving in synch. The earnings period surprisingly great, with so many companies not stung by the raw costs. Three straight up weeks, with all the commodity stocks showing signs of rolling over; most at crucial "must hold" levels except for gold, which has already crashed, making the inflation case much dimmer in the eyes of the traders.

Yet, you simply can't read the papers. They are too awful. The cost to the consumers for everything from food to gasoline is humongous and going higher, according to all the food execs I had on last week. We are getting nowhere near a bottom in housing. The layoffs, while not significant in the Labor Report on Friday, sure seem endless. The two major presidential candidates from the Democratic side want to tax the oil companies into oblivion, the leaders of the last year. Exxon (NYSE: XOM) (Cramer's Take) blew the quarter. So did GE (NYSE: GE) (Cramer's Take).

Too far, too fast, based on those grim items.

To me, this is the first week since the Bear Stearns (NYSE: BSC) (Cramer's Take) bottom that I think seems aimless.

But perhaps there's a "split the difference" way to approach this week: options expiration.

I expect the bias, once again, to be upward. I have been noting that there's money coming in for some time. The talk about Deutsche Telekom (NYSE: DT) (Cramer's Take) buying ne'er-do-well Sprint (NYSE: S) (Cramer's Take) fits that picture. Strong-currency Europeans and Asians have stepped up their buying. Sovereign funds quietly taking up positions, like the odd building up of BP (NYSE: BP) (Cramer's Take) right at what looked like levels that could not be supported. I expect more of both.

But one of the days this week will be a big down day. We will hear plenty of reasons why it happened, yet it will probably really be caused by option balancing.

I would wait for that day to buy if you aren't in. If you are in, I think you just sit tight. I think the rally's real, and I believe if the cost inputs simply level off -- and I think they will -- we will be in fine shape to move forward. Food and energy can't go up much more from here without severe supply interruptions, as we seem to have reached some sort of price equilibrium. The possibility of the ethanol mandate going away could be huge.

That's why it seems wrong to cash out. Too much upside. Too many stocks selling at low multiples that are doing well. Too many Honeywells (NYSE: HON) (Cramer's Take) and Eatons (NYSE: ETN) (Cramer's Take) and Parker Hannifins (NYSE: PH) (Cramer's Take) and United Technologies (NYSE: UTX) (Cramer's Take). Too many 4%-5% yielders still. You get a break in oil, or even a stabilization, and you get the end of the mandate of ethanol and every transport and food company soars. Plus, other than Fannie Mae (NYSE: FNM) (Cramer's Take) and Freddie Mac (NYSE: FRE) (Cramer's Take), the financials have all refinanced and seem ready to run. Remember, all commodity costs have to do is stay here and that can trigger a further rally.

Lot to like; too little to give up on.

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 BP.

Recent Posts

Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)

Add your comments

Please keep your comments relevant to this blog entry. Email addresses are never displayed, but they are required to confirm your comments.

When you enter your name and email address, you'll be sent a link to confirm your comment, and a password. To leave another comment, just use that password.

To create a live link, simply type the URL (including http://) or email address and we will make it a live link for you. You can put up to 3 URLs in your comments. Line breaks and paragraphs are automatically converted — no need to use <p> or <br> tags.

New Users

Current Users

Symbol Lookup
IndexesChangePrice
DJIA+73.0311,288.54
NASDAQ-6.082,245.38
S&P 500+1.381,262.90

Last updated: July 03, 2008: 07:49 PM

Hot Stocks

%st.n% %st.p% %st.c% (%st.pc%%)

Competitors

Sponsored Links

BloggingStocks Partners

More from AOL Money & Finance

Weblogs, Inc. Network

Other Weblogs Inc. Network blogs you might be interested in: