For better or for worse, Mad Money host Jim Cramer is the face of the financial markets for many retail traders and investors. With his penchant for bright lights and shouting, Cramer’s doesn’t appeal to everyone, but there’s no denying that he has introduced innumerable TV watchers to the wide world of equities.
Granted, Cramer is not universally beloved among sophisticated traders. There’s even an Inverse Cramer exchange-traded fund (ETF) trading under the ticker “SJIM,” suggesting that consistently trading against his market calls could be a viable strategy.
While you can love him or hate him, it’s nearly impossible to ignore Jim Cramer. At the very least, when he seemingly suggests that a stock-market bottom is near, there’s bound to be a vigorous discussion about what’s coming next. Let’s delve into Cramer’s bullish-sounding commentary and consider its merits — or lack thereof.
“Plenty of tinder” for a rally?
Evidently, Cramer sees multiple potential bullish catalysts on the horizon for stocks. At least, that’s how I interpreted this declaration: “We certainly have plenty of tinder for a rally — there are some Kingsfords lying around, maybe even a Duraflame or two.”
Irrespective of his colorful metaphors, Cramer’s audience may have sought more clarification on these putative “Kingsfords” and “Duraflame.”
However, he did cite tomorrow’s eagerly anticipated labor report as a possible tailwind for equities: “[If] you get a weak payroll number on Friday, then I think we can get a narrow repeat of the rebound we saw in March.”
I can’t argue with Cramer’s contention here. At a time when liquidity and interest-rate policy largely control the financial markets, weakness in the economy leads to strength in stocks. It’s bizarre, but it is what it is.
Whether the data actually helps or harms the market remains to be seen. On Thursday morning, the Labor Department reported that initial filings for unemployment benefits sequentially ticked up 2,000 to 207,000 in the final week of September. This figure fell short of the Dow Jones consensus estimate of 210,000 initial filings, so Friday’s more comprehensive labor report may disappoint eager investors.
Cramer is positive about the negativity
Along with the “tinder” commentary, Cramer questioned whether the “uniform negativity” on Wall Street, especially the talk of declining bond prices, means that a bottom in stocks is here or at least imminent. However, it’s debatable whether “uniform negativity” truly prevails in the market now.
After all, there hasn’t been a bona fide S&P 500 correction this year, with “correction” defined as a peak-to-bottom pullback of at least 10%. Sure, there’s been a recent 5% dip, but does this signify “uniform” pessimism?
As usual, the answer depends on the gauge one chooses to monitor. If that gauge is CNN’s Fear & Greed Index, then Cramer may be spot-on, as the needle has moved into “Extreme Fear”:
Furthermore, the NDR Daily Trading Sentiment Composite is in “Extreme Pessimism” territory, which has apparently marked some market bottoms in the past:
On the other hand, strong ETF flows into large-cap and mid-cap equity funds suggest that the overriding sentiment might not be so negative after all:
Frankly, it’s difficult to get a reading on this market, and it seems that investors are as divided as ever. So what’s an enterprising investor to do?
Picking the pockets of value
Perhaps inadvertently, Cramer indicated a possible solution for the confusion. He contends that, once the “frantic bond sellers… slow the pace of their sales,” investors “can finally focus on the myriad stocks that’ve been crushed for weeks now, many of which don’t deserve it.”
I’m not sure if the correlation between a bond-selling cessation and a stock-market rally will hold up, but I do concur with the implication that there are pockets of value to be found among beaten-down names that “don’t deserve it.” For example, safety-seeking investors have rotated out of utilities stocks and into supposedly risk-free Treasury bonds for yield. Hence, your local electric company might actually offer a strong value proposition at the moment:
There’s also been an mass exodus out of small caps as bandwagon jumpers pile into the high-flying “Magnificent Seven” (to borrow Cramer’s phrase) tech stocks. Could the smallies soon be the ones to stage a big comeback?
Among not-so-small caps, some famous names like 3M (NYSE:MMM), Bank of America (NYSE:BAC) and General Mills (NYSE:GIS) recently touched their 52-week lows:
Let’s also not forget about Walt Disney (NYSE:DIS), as the House of Mouse has fallen out of favor on the Street:
Thus, I’m not sure if there’s “plenty of tinder” for an equities rally or not, but I will concur that there are “crushed” stocks to be found for anyone willing to seek them out. As for the perceived negativity in the market, I’m not fully convinced that it’s “uniform,” but it’s certainly concentrated in certain sectors, and that’s a call to action for contrarians everywhere.
