X Marks the Spot

US Steel (X - commentary - Cramer's Take) hits a 52-week high and all is right in the inflationary-boom world! If you want to measure true worldwide demand, you need go no further than this stock. X is the company that is putting through the fastest price increases, several a quarter, and it is the most commonly cited cause for companies missing quarters from Ford (F - commentary - Cramer's Take) and GM (GM - commentary - Cramer's Take) to Bucyrus (BUCY - commentary - Cramer's Take), Erie (ERIE - commentary - Cramer's Take) and Caterpillar (CAT - commentary - Cramer's Take).

This is an industry that just consolidated so much, closed so much capacity and so misjudged demand that it has backed into an amazing scenario of success. It is so ridiculous when you think about it: price increases based on the end of dumping, and the dumping made it so no one other than Nucor (NUE - commentary - Cramer's Take) bothered to expand in the last couple of decades.

Is it sustainable? I think yes. John Surma has said over and over that a weak dollar coupled with reduced capacity has given X an umbrella that is leakproof.

Keep your eye on X. In many ways it is the key to this market, because as long as it can put through price increases, we know the worldwide economy is still strong enough to pull many of our industrial companies right through the U.S. softening.

Random musings: Helene Meisler has a great column about breadth that is nicely cautionary, and I agree with a lot of it for now. ... Funny how coal is so hated by the politicians, but it doesn't matter because we are so desperate. ... The most extended charts in the book are the rails. I would ring the register some. ... Still can't believe that Altria (MO - commentary - Cramer's Take) isn't up huge given the price increase. People are going to regret that they didn't buy this one, as I told Action Alerts PLUS readers earlier.

At the time of publication, Cramer was long Altria.

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