Cramer's latest..(its Cramer, I know, I know!)
The Big Bad Event Looms Large
By James J. Cramer
6/1/00 1:17 PM ET
Click here for the latest from James J. Cramer.
What happens if the employment number is strong tomorrow? People keep emailing me about that. To which I say that such worries are classic "Big Bad Event" thinking. Remember how that works. Everybody worries and frets that the number will be strong. So it if is strong then the worries are requited and the market gets hit. Then people come in anyway because the Big Bad Event is over.
But what happens if unemployment actually ticks up? What happens if payrolls have pealed? I have heard from enough of you in all walks of life to believe that things have gotten softer around the country for employment. Construction, autos, retail, banking have all slowed hiring. (I know this because I get hundreds of emails from readers about this stuff and the anecdotes are just too strong to be wrong.)
If you get a soft number you won't be able to get in.
So, let's look at this dichotomy. If you get a soft number people will come in and buy the market aggressively. If you get a strong number the people who have been waiting for the Big Bad Event will come in and buy on any weakness for fear they are missing the last chance to get in.
That's why we are hoping that they sell them off today as they did yesterday so we can buy more.
I don't think they will let us in though. Too easy.
The Bullish Will vs. Trader's Inertia
By James J. Cramer
6/1/00 2:09 PM ET
Click here for the latest from James J. Cramer.
"When you see slow data are you going to come up with a new reason to be negative, or are you going to be willing to pull the trigger like you should?"
It is that question, posed by my wife over the weekend, that got me to my core. When you get cautious, your tendency is to want to stay cautious. You get comfortable with it.
But what if what made you cautious, an economy expanding too fast for the Fed's liking, changes. For the better. Are you going to be like the Barton Biggses of the world and come up with new excuses to stay negative? Are you going to dismiss the data as aberrant and wait for some "all clear" sign to be posted by someone else?
That's what my wife, Karen, was worried about. She was worried that I would become like countless other middle-aged fund managers who got cautious and then never, ever, got bullish again, even though the reasons they got cautious had changed.
That's what I thought of when I saw the data this morning. I began to believe that, well, nobody is going to issue an "all clear," least of all the bears. So I had to become more bullish.
(Right now as I write, a hawkish governor is NOT saying something hawkish. Better get used to that, too.)
I gotta answer to my wife when I get home. I didn't want to have to foment some new reason to stay cautious. Especially when I don't have one
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