The Silent Recovery

Even in the newfound gloom, caused by a so-called big run-up in yields and mortgage rates, I see some nascent recoveries in stocks that have been hammered, recoveries that are only subtly being derailed by the selloff. Stocks that "missed" are climbing back even in this suddenly tough tape. You can see them. Hewlett-Packard (HPQ - commentary - Trade Now) allegedly missed its estimates and is within a dollar of where it missed. Or Abercrombie (ANF - commentary - Trade Now), which missed numbers badly and is climbing today. Remarkable rally there. No one cared for National Oilwell Varco's (NOV - commentary - Trade Now) quarter. But now that negative looks like a think of the past.

The most glaring of all: Wal-Mart (WMT - commentary - Trade Now). This company was written off again by the cognoscenti when it reported, and it just made no sense to me. It is being buoyed by a rare positive article in the Journal (though you could argue that it was no more than a backhanded slap at Target (TGT - commentary - Trade Now)).

The reluctance of people to own Wal-Mart here has to do with the cohort that says the recession is already over. I don't get that at all. While I am willing to suspend dwelling on a lot of what's negative, as I described in my first piece today, I certainly don't think the consumer is robust.

In all of these cases, the decline is turning out to be a buying opportunity as the bears forget why they badmouthed the stock and the bulls forget why they sold it.

Par for the course in a very confused market that now wants to go lower off of a five-year Treasury auction with rates I would have killed to have -- if I were the Treasury secretary -- just a decade ago.

Random musings: Yes, Doug's not saying there's no complacency; he's betting against the market in part because of that. He's saying the permabears aren't in the game so they don't feel the pain!

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

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