Withstanding the Bears' Barrage

What an amazing attempt by the bears to take this market down with just a few minutes left. But they couldn't, although the effort was spectacular. The reason they failed was that the market's back in troika mode -- plus the drugs.

The Nasdaq has shrugged off the selling and now the market's back in troika mode plus the drugs. That's right -- we have oil, led by Chevron (CVX - commentary - Trade Now), Devon (DVN - commentary - Trade Now) and Schlumberger (SLB - commentary - Trade Now) on a total bustout; banks, powered by Bank of America, of course; and tech, being gunned higher by Research In Motion (RIMM - commentary - Trade Now). And how enjoyable is this 24-hour respite from selling in the likes of Bristol Myers (BMY - commentary - Trade Now), Merck (MRK - commentary - Trade Now) and Johnson & Johnson (JNJ - commentary - Trade Now) as the living dead actually climb out of the crypt and do some stomping around?

I had this day pegged for a nothing day, with the 30-year Treasury auction (bad) counteracting the RIMM upgrade, the Qualcomm (QCOM - commentary - Trade Now) preannouncement (stock hung in there, but not a great performance) the Morgan Stanley (MS - commentary - Trade Now) number bump of BofA -- huge -- and the charge higher in the energy futures.

But this market's got more power than that, even as it seems to gain haters by the hour -- particularly the last one! Once again, I urge the bears to recognize the power of the move and its ability to withstand a late-day onslaught. This market -- despite the 3:45 p.m. carpet bombing -- will likely gain acolytes and adherents as we run into the end of the quarter. We certainly didn't finish at our highs -- far from it -- and you sure weren't a champ if you bought intraday, but you weren't exactly a chump either.

I don't know what would have happened if there had been another 10 minutes before the bell, but I do know the attempt to have this market roll over did not succeed, even though my fave tell Qualcomm did finish in the red. I continue to believe that as long as you have the troika going higher -- even if we lose Apple (AAPL - commentary - Trade Now) and Google (GOOG - commentary - Trade Now) for a couple of days of profit-taking -- you will have decent tape to contend with.

Close, bears, but no cigar.

Random musings: No confirmation of new levels by the transports, so I suspect the bears will be right back in there raiding tomorrow... Getting really psyched about RealMoney with Charles Norton back in, superior stuff by Don Dion from the ETF trenches and a great bond call by Doug Kass.

At the time of publication, Cramer was long Qualcomm, Bristol Myers, Bank of America, Chevron and Devon.

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