'Stop Trading!': The Real Economy's Back

"Coming out of the great crash of '87, we were looking at signs that the actual economy was getting better," said Jim Cramer on CNBC's "Stop Trading!" segment on Wednesday. Indicators he looked at then and is looking at again now include caustic soda, polyvinyl chloride and chlorine.

"All of those are steaming," he said. "We've got a bunch of positive chatter and upgrades on PPG(PPG Quote)," a stock Cramer owns for his Action Alerts PLUS charitable trust.

"We are at last to the point where even those products are moving up," he said. "That's a sign that the real economy is back."

As for commercial real estate, Cramer noted that that the tax code has changed. "My friend buddy pal Tim Geithner the other day changed the rules," he said. "A lot of the guys who are caught up in bad real estate deals" can now use the tax code to undo some of the contracts "that have been unbelievably difficult to undo."

Some are playing this with Annaly(NLY Quote) and Capstead(CMO Quote), he said, but he likes heavily shorted ETF iShares Dow Jones U.S. Real Estate(IYR Quote).