Separating the Bargains From the Justly Punished

Pasting. And the names pasting us the worst? The names that rallied when traders somehow thought that McCain was going to win.

Can someone please tell me why anyone believed that Conoco (COP - commentary - Cramer's Take) and Exxon Mobil (XOM - commentary - Cramer's Take) and Chevron (CVX - commentary - Cramer's Take) were rallying against an anti-big-oil president? Can anyone tell me why the oil futures spiked despite the lack of demand? Can anyone say why we believed that the natural gas stocks had bottomed when Obama has expressed no interest in them?

The second shelled group is the tech group, which had gone up endlessly, supported by yahoo tech analysts who can't resist recommending these stocks. I think that Hewlett-Packard (HPQ - commentary - Cramer's Take), Apple (AAPL - commentary - Cramer's Take) and Cisco (CSCO - commentary - Cramer's Take) represent real value, but that doesn't mean I won't get smoked owning them.

I also believe that Qualcomm (QCOM - commentary - Cramer's Take) will report a miserable quarter, give terrible guidance and then will act like Cisco does today. Down but not out.

Infra is being annihilated. McDermott (MDR - commentary - Cramer's Take) said some really negative things about some Middle East contracts, and that group is being wrecked across the board. As they go lower, I like them more. And I like Caterpillar (CAT - commentary - Cramer's Take) right here because of the accidentally high dividend.

The last group that acts terribly is ag. I don't like the fertilizers other than Terra Nitrogen (TNH - commentary - Cramer's Take) because of that dividend. But I will be darned if I don't want to buy Deere (DE - commentary - Cramer's Take) down to the $20s.

Oddly, retail hangs in, and that makes little sense to me except Costco (COST - commentary - Cramer's Take), where the expectations were low, and Wal-Mart (WMT - commentary - Cramer's Take), which is going to have a great quarter.

Oh, and the banks.

The banks work. They work because Obama will attack the root and branch problem, housing, with much more aggressive tactics -- buying up of homes, letting immigrants in -- than the current regime.

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