You Make the (Commodities) Play

Alcoa (AA - commentary - Cramer's Take) -- you make the call. Remember that great commercial series from the NFL and Alcoa in the 1970s and '80s? I actually watched so much NFL and ESPN that I had the entire series memorized and often knew the plays from new scenarios.

What's the call to make with Alcoa? It sure wasn't a disaster. But did anyone expect it to be? Is Alcoa a good "tell" for the broader economy? Alcoa and the other commodity vendors, including energy, in the U.S. depend on the price of the commodity they sell for their earnings. Conceptually, where aluminum goes, so goes Alcoa's earnings prospects.

Because most commodities are back to gaining value against the dollar (that is they're in bull mode), most of these commodity vendors and their suppliers are still going to show some great fundamentals. And if we're in a "typical" 17-year-long commodity bull market, something I've argued against before on Fox News with Jim Rogers, on whose research that theory is based, then Alcoa and these other commodity plays are still screaming buys.

I believe this commodity cycle will be much accelerated by the ever-faster Internet-enabled flowing capital that chases returns from such cycles. But whether that means this commodity cycle will last 12 years or six is certainly left to be determined. It's a bull market in commodities until it's not. And it is right now.

But little of this analysis has to do with the state of the broader service economy and almost nothing to do with the tech economy. Here's my call: I'm not going for any long bombs into this earnings season, but will be looking to punch it up the middle with a well thought-out ground game.

Into earnings season we go then.

At the time of publication, the firm in which Willard is a partner was net long News Corp., although positions can change at any time and without notice.

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Cody Willard is the manager of CL Willard Capital Management, LLC. He is a regular guest on Fox News, CNBC and other networks, and he writes a monthly column for the Financial Times. He is also an adjunct professor at Seton Hall University and the author of TheCodyReport.net, a monthly stock market newsletter. Willard appreciates your feedback -- click here to send him an email.