Wheat vs. Chaff

Wow, what a men-from-the-boys moment this is. You've got Terex (TEX - commentary - Cramer's Take) just falling apart on orders, a gigantic slowdown in America joined by Europe. Ugly.

But then you have United Technologies (UTX - commentary - Cramer's Take) yesterday reaffirming its numbers. And you had Caterpillar (CAT - commentary - Cramer's Take) saying things are just fine at the conference the company spoke at just last week. Terex simply is not best of breed and is less in control of its destiny than UTX and CAT.

Then there is Ciena (CIEN - commentary - Cramer's Take). Here's a company that's already been cut in half, and what does it say? Orders are bad, guidance is bad, and the big telephone companies say they are cutting back, specifically AT&T (T - commentary - Cramer's Take).

Meanwhile, Cisco (CSCO - commentary - Cramer's Take) said the opposite a few weeks ago.

Dell (DELL - commentary - Cramer's Take) just gets crushed. Hewlett-Packard (HPQ - commentary - Cramer's Take) says things are good.

Now, we know that everyone who's saying that things are good could have collapsed in the last few weeks or are just blowing smoke. But it is no coincidence that Terex, Ciena and Dell have had execution problems in the past and that when the going gets tough, they do not get going.

These muffs are not like Corning (GLW - commentary - Cramer's Take), where there was an inventory glut.

But it is worth keeping in mind as everything gets thrown away here, that sometimes there is share-take and sometimes there is just terrible execution.

That's how I felt, by the way, last night after interviewing Michael Sutherlin, the CEO of Joy Global (JOYG - commentary - Cramer's Take), which at this stage in the cycle should have been blowing away the numbers given its orders and the coal shortage in the world. If they couldn't execute this past quarter, they just aren't going to be able to exceed the next quarter given the coal price slippage and the absence of the Chinese, something that has continued post-Olympics.

In a recession, you get some companies that take share and demonstrate strength, and you get others that fall by the wayside. That's what's happening now, and while it takes down everything, some will come back earlier than others, and those are the ones that are standing out now as economies falter.

At the time of publication, Cramer was long Cisco and Hewlett-Packard.

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