A Market Victory in Itself: Not Being Down Big

The clock is ticking on killing this market. Unless it gets clocked, even if it's not by margin-selling, between now and the bell, the month-end mark-up faction will be at work tomorrow and can be as aggressive as possible, because I doubt the government will be focused on it.

Now, is the action today "any good"? Well, it's in keeping with Europe's action.

I have some thoughts, though, that are disturbing to both bulls and bears. The bears were taking heart from news that some outfit, Sowood Capital Management, seemed to be going down the drain. But Citadel Investment Group, a much bigger hedge fund, obviously has a ton of capital, because it bought Sowood.

The fact that any hedge fund has the capital to do this, let alone the fact that Sowood could have been left to its own devices if the stuff it owned was that bad, again contributes to whatever meager positive environment there is.

I think that the Foot Locker (FL - commentary - Cramer's Take) earnings news confirms my horrid view of the domestic consumer. But the fact that this retailer can even think of putting itself up for sale without being laughed at is marginally positive.

Obviously, the market favors the bad earnings report over the selling of the company, but I like the fact that the market isn't laughing at the sale. However, if the stock had been up and stayed up, that would have been far more indicative of the Ingersoll-Rand (IR - commentary - Cramer's Take)/Virgin Media (VMED - commentary - Cramer's Take) positive trend.

Of course, any positive action may be for naught if the market decides that American Home Mortgage (AHM - commentary - Cramer's Take) matters. I think the stock's worthless, which will then cause another round of woe for latter in the day or tomorrow. The tote board, all in all, is neutral, and so is the day.

But remember, bears, we were supposed to be down big. Big, big, big. The fact that we aren't is in itself a victory for the bulls.

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

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