When to Sell Cyclicals? When King, Champ Say

Let the King of Beers and the Breakfast of Champions tell you when to sell your cyclicals and your levered companies. That's right, they told you last time, they will tell you again.

When the Fed began to get too tight in 1999, General Mills (GIS - commentary - Cramer's Take) and Anheuser-Busch (BUD - commentary - Cramer's Take), which had done nothing throughout the boom, simply took off like rockets. They soared.

Again, these two stocks have done nothing, which is the all-clear for investing in Caterpillar (CAT - commentary - Cramer's Take) and Ingersoll-Rand (IR - commentary - Cramer's Take) and United Technologies (UTX - commentary - Cramer's Take) and Deere (DE - commentary - Cramer's Take) and Fortune Brands (FO - commentary - Cramer's Take) and American Standard (ASD - commentary - Cramer's Take) and so many other winners including the Phelps Dodges (PD - commentary - Cramer's Take) and the Freeport Coppers (FCX - commentary - Cramer's Take).

But when the King and the Champ start to move, you have to make sales in smokestackers. They are not secular growth stories. They are, alas, just trades, no more, no less.

Be ready. Watch General Mills and Anheuser-Busch. Be ready to scale out of the cyclicals the moment these two break out.

This time will be no different.

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James J. Cramer is a director and co-founder 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 by clicking here. While he cannot provide personalized investment advice or recommendations, he invites you to send comments on his column to [e-mail]. Listen to Cramer's RealMoney Radio show on your computer; just click here. Click here to buy Cramer's latest book, "You Got Screwed!" Click here to order Cramer's autobiography, "Confessions of a Street Addict."