Buy the Yielders on Their Way Down

So many stocks are back to their accidentally high-yielding states that it pays to go over where the money might be. The New York Stock Exchange -- meaning NYSE Euronext -- at more than 6% is back to the level where there was plenty of talk about a merger with Deutsche Bourse, something that would be hugely positive. Meanwhile, volume's not awful and potential IPOs are stacked up like planes at O'Hare.

VFC (VFC - commentary - Cramer's Take) is back to 4.55% percent even as we know what the quarter's going to be and we have to like what we have heard. How about BP (BP - commentary - Cramer's Take), which has plenty of cash flow to cover its 8% yield and is solving its problems with the Russians? I think oil has to go to the low $20s before I would worry about this dividend.

Home Depot (HD - commentary - Cramer's Take) and Caterpillar (CAT - commentary - Cramer's Take) are back above 4% and AT&T (T - commentary - Cramer's Take) is back to 6.5%. These can all be bought on a yield basis on the way down.

P&G (PG - commentary - Cramer's Take) is back to 5.33%, another dividend that I don't have much worry about versus Dupont (DD - commentary - Cramer's Take) and Dow (DOW - commentary - Cramer's Take).

Don't forget a company with raw costs that is declining like mad -- ConAgra (CAG - commentary - Cramer's Take), which has a 4.5% yield and collapsing competition. A final one, U.S. Steel (X - commentary - Cramer's Take), is close to 4%, where it bounced huge last time.

The market doesn't look like it is bottoming here, but just the opposite: We will take out 800 on the S&P 500 and 8,000 on the Dow.

But I don't want to miss a bottom based on something that surprises the bank shorts, as the bank stocks are already trading as if the dividends are goners (I am responding to Doug Kass' statements about Summers as well as Robert Marcin's dire forecasts), and leaves us with a rally after the chaos that could be sharp, sudden and allowing us to make some money.

Remember, though, this portfolio is based more on the market going lower, so you can buy on the way down, than the market going higher, or else I would say just go buy 'em. I would buy one-quarter of them here and wait a full half-point in yield before I would buy another quarter, and then another half for three quarters of a percent, putting the final position on when we aren't at a full percent but a percentage and a half to make a real difference.

At the time of publication, Cramer was long VFC.

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