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Jim Cramer (0:48)
My mission is simple to make you money. I'm here to level the playing field for all investors. There's always a bull market somewhere and I promise to help you find it. Man, money starts. Hey, I'm Kramer. Welcome to Mad Money. Welcome to Kramerica. I'll be with my friends. I'm just trying to save you a little money. My job is not just to entertain, but to explain about what happens in days like today. So call me at 1-800-743- CNBC. Tweet me at Jim Cramer. Rates 1 stocks 0. That was the score of today's game and it terrified the bulls. Because if people are going to sell stocks every time long rates creep higher as they did, we could be in for a world of hurt. The House of pain. And that's what today's session sure looked like. Where The Dow dipped 178 points, the S&P lost 1.11% in the Nasdaq plunged 1.89%. It's really nasty in that NASDAQ land. And it crushed lots of well known stocks. But the selling finally got to all those speculative nuke and quantum computing stocks that I've warned you and told you to sell. It's not too late to do so. I repeat, it's not too late to dump what you and I know are garbage stocks. Why did higher rates pulverize so much of the good part of the market today? And why do some stocks escape the gravitational pull? The laggards that came to lead today? First, the cause of the decline in bonds and that dastardly rise in yields wasn't anything catastrophic, thank heavens. We get a lot of surveys thrown at us all the time. One of them canvases service providers. And this survey showed surprising strength. So much strength that it makes you think that the Fed might not give us more rate cuts anytime soon. Right now a ton of investors believe that the Fed needs to put through a bunch of rate cuts in order to revive the economy. Lots of those polls are counting on those cuts. That seems wrong today. They are rocked to the core because not only they've been wrong, they're starting to question the Fed's credibility. Nothing. These investors were shocked to see a survey that spits out a number that is as high as it was in April of last year when rates were running high and the economy is running too high. They're presuming that long rates are going to go back to where we were when we had such a hot survey. And that's exactly what happened today. The decline in bond prices, rise in yields gained more steam as the Treasury Department sold 10 year bonds at a sizable discount. That also is not a good sign. All right, now let's stop the catastrophizing for a moment. In the 90s, long rates were much higher than these mean level north of 6%. And the stock market still rocketed higher almost the entire time. You can't just say that today's score is the final score of the year. If rates drop a bit to say, I don't know, how about the 4.5% from 4.68% on the 10 year? That's not an impossibility. We will kick ourselves for not buying this pullback. Rates went down soon after we got that hot survey report last April. It sure can happen again. Don't count it out. Keep in mind we get the Labor Department's nonfarm payroll numbers on Friday. Now this report shows that unemployment is creeping higher or wages are stabilizing, then those long rates are going to come down. This labor report is the single most important set of numbers out there. They are authoritative, they control the dialogue. But what is the dialogue about? I think it's about some investors losing faith in the Fed. These traders are wondering why the heck the Fed cut short rates by 50 basis points. September, they can give me another 25 in November, another 25 in December. What the heck did they see that made them so aggressive? Judging by the data, nothing. The credibility issue. If you claim your data dependent and the data is strong, then why the heck are you cutting so aggressively? And I have to admit, as a huge backer of Jay Powell, I myself am mystified when long term interest rates that are set by the bond market actually went higher after the rate cuts. That was a verdict. It was a nasty verdict. It Was a mean verdict. It said that inflation's coming back, business is too strong, stop cutting. At the very least, the bond guys think the Fed got it backwards. And that's where we are now. We know the Fed can't raise rates here. That would make them look like total idiots. But every time we get a hot survey or report and long term interest rates go higher. There are plenty of people who say that stocks have gotten ahead of themselves. There are others who know only one thing. If rates are going higher, then we're headed for a burst of inflation that will send stocks lower. So sell, sell, sell, sell, sell. And that's exactly what happened today. Now let's go full circle. When interest rates go to levels where they were when stocks were a lot lower last year, two things can happen. Either rates repeal their climb or stocks repeal their gains. And today we got the latter. But this is an unpredictable market. Usually all stocks go down when interest rates shoot up like they did today. Instead, we actually had a hideous decline in our leaders, the best performers tech and actual gains of some stocks that are really beaten up. Like the drugs, the oils, the transports. Then there are other stocks the bank's been pretty good for pretty good again today. Of course, sometimes the market just gets it wrong. The drug stocks, maybe they shouldn't be rallied, but they've been beaten down so badly that they're due for bounce. I think they represent value. However, they should not have gone up on higher rates. I'm betting this rally only a staying power. If we get a soft employment number on Friday followed by good news out of JP Morgan's health care conference in San Francisco. I will bring you that news. I will be there. The transports game again makes no sense. Random oils, okay, oil went up a dollar. Banks. Hey, you know what? That actually makes sense as they actually do better with slower rate cuts. And the survey numbers, well, they say that we got today. They say that's about slower rate cuts if there are going to be rate cuts. That said, the real action today was the decline in the tax, especially the Magnificent seven. You heard about that all day. Now I find that people are quick to bow out of these stocks when inflation works. But can I just say this? Lately over the long term they actually do well in precisely this kind of environment. As their growth is so spectacular they can outrun a rise in interest rates. So don't give up the ship. Does it mean you can buy this decline? Well, is it an opportunity? I would love to say that you should just start buying all the tech stocks that got crushed today. But I know that we are two sessions away from the non farm payroll report and I don't want to step in front of that freight train. The risk reward is terrible because if wages go up or employment goes up and the President Elect picks that day to say that we need to get rolling on the deportations, I mean, he's run the country already. I mean, I don't know, something that will cause major wage inflation, then the market's going to get crushed again, especially tech. I want to step back for a moment. Does any of this really matter long term or is it all just inside baseball? The answer is it does matter. We have too much inflation in the system. The Fed can't do anything about it because it just cut rates. The Fed's in a bind, it can't help us. So we're at the mercy of the macro numbers that are going in the wrong direction. Or put it another way, we need to be lucky. I don't like that. That's not a good place to be. I don't want to be a bear, but I've been talking about how much of this market has been in bear territory for some time. The really hard hit sectors during this period got a nice little bump today. But the big techs, like the Nvidia is the tesl, which I'm now branding a tech. And Palantir, the hottest of the hot, got clobbered today. And these former market leaders will go even lower if the labor department comes in too hot. That report has got to come in. Cool luck. The flimsy garbage stocks sold to you stops. Just stop with those. Blow them out tomorrow morning or you won't be watching me by next week because you'll be gone too. I don't want to make too much out of one session. That's two day traders. But to set up a big employment number coupled with earnings next week does not favor the bulls. We need some signal, some sign that the Fed did the right thing when it cut rates. Or else we'll have more days like today when long rates go up and a lot of stocks go down. We want stocks to represent the fundamentals, not the S and P futures, but an overheated set of macro numbers and some weak earnings aren't going to get order restored. The bottom line, remember, we need real reasons to buy stocks, not a dead cat bounce. And valuations are being attractive. The number one thing we need, we need long rates to go lower. Otherwise it's going to be a long way. And it's long Away game stretch for the bond market and I'd rather us be in the friendly confines of our home stadium watching rates go down and stocks go higher. Lance and Maryland. Lance.
