Watch for the Negativity to Build

Where's the darned short base when you need it? That's what's really going on. After a year of straight-up, all but the most steely-eyed hedge funds drifted from the short side. So when you have good news, nobody covers.

In fact, the short base, the collection of people who short, seems to have bordered on extinction right before this selloff began, having been wiped out by the sweeping tides of Lucent (LU - commentary - Cramer's Take), Nortel (NT - commentary - Cramer's Take) and Cisco (CSCO - commentary - Cramer's Take), as well as Centex (CTX - commentary - Cramer's Take), Lennar (LEN - commentary - Cramer's Take) and Toll (TOL - commentary - Cramer's Take).

Worse, the long side populated the cyclicals because the playbook is adamant that they are right. And they've gotten so heavy and so sloppy that people don't even want to hear them mentioned anymore.

Talk about being out of position; how many people were in Procter & Gamble (PG - commentary - Cramer's Take)? Judging by the huge gain after its nice quarter, not many. How many people abandoned the Avons (AVP - commentary - Cramer's Take) of the world at the bottom? Again, many.

It's like watching a football game where the whole defense took the left side gambit and the running back just jukes to the right and is home free for 90 yards and a touchdown.

Except the running back is a bear -- not from Chicago, but from some hedge fund that survived the yearlong debacle.

I'm no different. I'm pining for Pepsi (PEP - commentary - Cramer's Take) instead of Phelps Dodge (PD - commentary - Cramer's Take), yet Phelps Dodge put me in the outperformance room. Avon sure seems to beat Alcoa (AA - commentary - Cramer's Take), yet that's not supposed to be happening one year into the economic expansion.

As usual, my mind drifts to other metaphors, like blackjack. I feel like I am splitting nines with the dealer showing six, only to draw two aces and then watch, painfully, as the dealer flips up a five and lands a king. Where the heck did that come from? That darned five, that darned king -- that's not supposed to happen!

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At the time of publication, Cramer was long Nortel, Phelps Dodge, Alcoa, El Paso and Ingersoll-Rand.

James J. Cramer is a director and co-founder of TheStreet.com. He contributes daily market commentary for TheStreet.com's sites and serves as an adviser to the company's CEO. Outside contributing columnists for TheStreet.com and RealMoney.com, including Cramer, may, from time to time, write about stocks in which they have a position. In such cases, appropriate disclosure is made. To see his personal portfolio and find out what trades Cramer will make before he makes them, sign up for Action Alerts PLUS. While he cannot provide personalized investment advice or recommendations, he invites you to send comments on his column to [e-mail]. Listen to Cramer's RealMoney Radio show on your computer; just click here. Click here to buy Cramer's latest book, "You Got Screwed!" Click here to order Cramer's autobiography, "Confessions of a Street Addict."