Cramer says sell!
Use Benign Moment to Brace for Storm
By James J. Cramer
RealMoney.com Columnist
10/4/2004 8:47 AM EDT
URL: thestreet.com
Market Analysis
The market seems invincible now because there are no possible negatives on the week's calendar.
But something unforeseen always rocks the boat that makes profit-taking seem like the only logical course.
That causes profit-taking, at lower levels -- so enjoy the moment while bracing for worse.
Nothing knocks it down. Nothing. It's never going down again. That's how I used to feel after runs like this, when the market seems downright invincible. You can't think of anything that would turn it down because it has survived a Kerry comeback and $50 oil. "What could possibly knock it down if those can't?," you ask yourself as you begin to tremble about your shorts. "What if the market's simply physically incapable of declining?"
It's usually at moments like this that this feeling comes, when there's nothing on the calendar. No earnings to derail the reports. No Federal Reserve meeting. No new issues to fail, no secondaries to go below the offering price. That, of course, is where we are today: a few days ahead of earnings season with its myriad disappointments, a month ahead of a Fed meeting, with no serious data on the horizon until Friday.
Plus, this time, oil's extended, up big, big enough that it could go down to levels that a year ago would have been regarded as ignominiously bearish, and now, instead just seem like relief. Iraq's mind-numbing, with car bombings galore, but we've had car bombings galore before so the comparisons simply aren't odious enough to make things go down.
Yes, it is an oddly pleasant time, as odd as one of those moments where all it does is go down, no matter who or what happens, and you say to yourself, "I guess nothing can ever turn it around." Soon the bandwagon will be joined by bears-turned-bulls who have been scorched on their endlessly profitable SOX shorts that now seem, well, just downright dangerous.
Yet something always does rock the boat, something unforeseen, something that makes profit-taking seem like the only logical course -- except that profit-taking will occur in a down market, with crummier prices than we have now.
So enjoy the data-free moment. And, at the same time, brace yourself for a bucketful of data that, from these levels, can't possibly be interpreted as positive
******************
Nasdaq is at 1942. We will check back at the end of the month. I hate sell recs without any basis other than his gut. |
