What an Awful Moment

No big mergers and acquisitions (although my fingers are crossed about Altria (MO - commentary - Cramer's Take), because MO needs growth and UST's (UST - commentary - Cramer's Take) real good). No initial public offerings of any consequence since Visa (V - commentary - Cramer's Take) despite a huge queue of private-to-go-public deals. No private-equity deals despite incredibly low valuations, valuations so minuscule that deals would have been done at gigantic premiums from here and still be much less expensive than they were. No threatening stakes by swashbuckling hedge funds. No new huge buybacks or dividend boosts, save CenturyTel (CTL - commentary - Cramer's Take), not that anyone cared about that one.

No nothin'.

It is an amazing time. It is the first week of an admittedly almost always bad month, but that's almost always because we are up going into September and funds want to lock in good gains.

Nothing to lock in now.

This market's like the Nasdaq in 2000 except the companies being sold off are great companies with huge cash flow and honest managements and great earnings. But there's nobody around to take advantage of the declines.

For all of the capital raised and the locked-up funds in hedge funds, for all of the trillions on the sidelines there is just nothing to buy. It is like the whole world's been caught out of position, much of it because the marginal buyer of just about every commodity -- China -- has disappeared and the marginal owners of most of the stocks that go down are margined and their investors are disappearing.

I keep thinking, well, where is Fidelity? Aren't there any buyers at T.Rowe? Trust Company? Capital? What happened to all of the money? Does no one have another dime?

It sure as heck looks so.

Everyone, from the mutual fund managers, to the strategic Europeans and the monster big Chinese, has just taken a powder.

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