Loosen Up! If You Do, You'll Find Solid Stocks

Revaluations everywhere. This morning CVC Capital Partners bought Univar. You probably don't know Univar, a Dutch chemical distributor. You probably don't know CVC. Nevertheless, CVC just laid out $2 billion for this nothing middleman.

Meanwhile, Basell Holdings, another Dutch company you've probably never heard of, is involved in a wild bidding war with Apollo, a private-equity firm, over Huntsman (HUN - commentary - Cramer's Take), a nothing, commodity chemical company. Apollo just raised its bid over by 75 cents, a price that still might not get Huntsman. Considering that Huntsman was trading at $18 less than a month ago and is now trading at $28, that's quite a big premium for a company that's been publicly traded for just two years.

These are side shows, I know.

We spend most of our time worrying about the collapse of the collateralized debt obligations (CDO) market on the dramatic rise in interest rates from 4.80% to 5.18%. We fret that the Fed might keep rates on hold or that housing prices "only" went up 3% nationwide.

Hmmm. A stock that goes up 3% after going up 10% is considered stalled but OK, yet in housing it's considered catastrophic.

I say, "Excuse me, if you're worried about Bear Stearns (BSC - commentary - Cramer's Take) or the crushing of CDOs or the housing debacle, how can you catch a Univar or a Huntsman? How can you see that there is a wholesale revaluation of some boring, old-fashioned group?"

If you are concerned that Blackstone (BX - commentary - Cramer's Take) opened too high -- even though it was an obvious stampede by the media -- how can you keep an eye on two Dutch chemical companies paying billions of dollars for companies that you could own?

I believe that these kinds of takeovers are extraordinary: gigantic premiums (Univar is up 30% today) in an industry that is simply not in our faces and is not top-of-mind. We could go for years in that market without this level of bidding. Now it is happening -- and people yawn. It doesn't even make the news.

When I look at how many things are happening right at this moment -- tech flying, ag flying, oil and gas flying, aerospace flying, minerals flying, machinery stocks flying -- I can't help but feel that most media people and most on-air guests are more worried about a percentage of the economy that has gotten so overheated that it deserved to get blasted. They're on that instead of focusing on all the money that can be made following some industry that's pretty easy to understand and is in a massive consolidation mode, for anyone to own.

How do we know that PPG (PPG - commentary - Cramer's Take) or Rohm & Haas (ROH - commentary - Cramer's Take) don't get bids? Aren't Lyondell (LYO - commentary - Cramer's Take) and Celanese (CE - commentary - Cramer's Take) worth a cursory examination based on these bids?

I think so. But not if you are worried about some $400 million hedge fund blowing up somewhere.

Don't take your eyes off the ball, companies are disappearing left and right. Stay focused. The gains are there to be had as long as you are not worried about the Fed or minuscule interest rate moves, even though they are always front and center because they are almost always bad.

The rest of the market isn't nearly as focused. Maybe you shouldn't be, either.

At the time of publication, Cramer had no positions in stocks mentioned.

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Jim 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. Watch Cramer on "Mad Money" weeknights on CNBC. Click here to order Cramer's latest book, "Mad Money: Watch TV, Get Rich," click here to order his book, "Real Money: Sane Investing in an Insane World," click here to get his second book, "You Got Screwed!" and click here to order Cramer's autobiography, "Confessions of a Street Addict." While he cannot provide personalized investment advice or recommendations, he invites you to send comments on his column by clicking here.

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