Without Financials, We're Stuck

Apple (AAPL - commentary - Cramer's Take), Google (GOOG - commentary - Cramer's Take), Exxon Mobil (XOM - commentary - Cramer's Take) and Research In Motion (RIMM - commentary - Cramer's Take) usually can be the basis of a rally. These are the stocks that have led all rallies.

Bank of America (BAC - commentary - Cramer's Take), JPMorgan Chase (JPM - commentary - Cramer's Take), Citigroup (C - commentary - Cramer's Take) and Goldman Sachs (GS - commentary - Cramer's Take) -- these are the stocks that have led all declines.

Today they duked it out, and as always, it made me very uncomfortable, because Apple, RIMM and Google stand for nothing other than themselves. They are zero-sum plays. Apple wins? Everyone else in the category loses. RIMM wins? Sell Motorola (MOT - commentary - Cramer's Take) and Nokia (NOK - commentary - Cramer's Take). Google? The ultimate zero-sum play: As long as Google's winning, I don't want to touch anyone in the space.

Exxon's the worst. I see people buying Exxon's stock and shorting all of the oil ETFs, as Exxon has become an S&P 500 name and not an oil name. I keep hoping that someone will come forward and admit that they are doing some operating on these stocks -- maybe Eric Oberg knows what the strategy is?

But without the financials, what the heck do we really have? You need to see some growth in the economy, but it is the credit side of the ledger that won't let it happen. That means the financials have to rally to give us a serious industrial rally.

When we consider the yin and yang of these two, I am always going to go with the destruction of the financials over the rallying in the tech/XOM. The powerful pull-down of financials always makes it so you can't make a big bet on this market. And that was pretty much today's story...

Random musings: Fueling fire that we are near a bottom, according to Bizjournals, Florida's existing home sales rose!

At the time of publication, Cramer was long Goldman Sachs and JPMorgan Chase.

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