Semis Keep On Truckin'

Growth funds love semiconductor leadership. When they see the National Semiconductors (NSM - commentary - Trade Now) and the Texas Instruments (TXN - commentary - Trade Now) or the Advanced Micro Devices (AMD - commentary - Trade Now), Microns (MU - commentary - Trade Now) and Teradynes (TER - commentary - Trade Now), as well as the twins of semi growth, Altera (ALTR - commentary - Trade Now) and Xilinx (XLNX - commentary - Trade Now), rolling up, they get excited to take a lot of stocks that are affiliated with the group.

I search for other bull markets that are as good as this one, and I come back to the one in the mid 1980s that was led by Motorola (MOT - commentary - Trade Now) and Texas Instruments, when these stocks set the pace for so many other growth companies and created an atmosphere where you felt like you were missing something if you didn't own just one.

Now, I know that today's across-the-board rally comes from aggressive buying of the ETFs and that a rising tide is lifting the group, but you can't look through it. If you are on the sidelines, you look at these stocks, and while you know they have come up a lot from the bottom, they are nowhere in terms of their long-term histories.

The rally's also reigniting some left behind of late, names like Skyworks (SWKS - commentary - Trade Now) and Cypress (CY - commentary - Trade Now) are now coming back up. I just bought some Qualcomm (QCOM - commentary - Trade Now) because it is down almost 20% on some number shades for 2009 when I think 2010's going to be great. It's the right level.

The rally's extended into capital equipment as semi shortages can only be cured by more equipment because if this is how much demand there is when things are bad, you can only imagine what the demand will look like when the economy turns.

When the chips are down, the market usually goes sideways to down. When the chips are up, well, it's tough to clobber the tape -- too much buoyancy.

At the time of publication, Cramer was long Qualcomm.

ALL JIM CRAMER BLOG ENTRIES | POST A COMMENT | READ COMMENTS  

---

At the time of publication, Cramer was long Qualcomm.

Jim Cramer is co-founder and chairman of TheStreet.com. He contributes daily market commentary for TheStreet.com's sites and serves as an adviser to the company's CEO. Outside contributing columnists for TheStreet.com and RealMoney.com, including Cramer, may, from time to time, write about stocks in which they have a position. In such cases, appropriate disclosure is made. To see his personal portfolio and find out what trades Cramer will make before he makes them, sign up for Action Alerts PLUS. Watch Cramer on "Mad Money" weeknights on CNBC. To order Cramer's newest book -- "Jim Cramer's Stay Mad for Life: Get Rich, Stay Rich (Make Your Kids Even Richer)," click here. Click here to order "Mad Money: Watch TV, Get Rich," click here to order "Real Money: Sane Investing in an Insane World," click here to get "You Got Screwed!" and click here for Cramer's autobiography, "Confessions of a Street Addict." While he cannot provide personalized investment advice or recommendations, he appreciates your feedback and invites you to send comments by clicking here.

TheStreet.com has a revenue-sharing relationship with Amazon.com under which it receives a portion of the revenue from Amazon.com purchases by customers directed there from TheStreet.com.