What Microsoft May Change in the Market

Holy cow! We made the front page of The New York Times! And it's with good news, not bad! When was the last time that happened?

We've come a long way since Stuart told his boss to buy Kmart in those old Ameritrade ads about idiots who knew a lot about the stock market. (Double irony not lost -- Kmart went bankrupt, showing that the ad guys know nothing about what we really do when they make these ads, and now I am a champion of Kmart.)

Since that time, investors have become convinced that the markets are crooked, the mutual funds are crooked, the brokers are crooked, the executives are crooked and the process is crooked. The only time our news was on the front page was in the form of arrests and indictments of business people worldwide!

Which is why it is nice to wake up to a headline about a major American company -- Microsoft (MSFT - commentary - Cramer's Take) -- returning hard cash to its shareholders. What a pleasure! That's the antidote to so much that I read and see and feel.

I know there aren't that many Microsofts out there. In fact, there is only one. But tons of companies have lots of cash and don't make bold statements with it. Tons of companies are brimming with cash and don't give it back or even know what to do with it. That's why this is a doubly good-feeling surprise.

I have no illusions about what brought us to the level where the Nasdaq was down 8%. A bunch of companies simply imploded. But in the last 24 hours, enough companies have reported good numbers that the market might differentiate between companies like Nokia (NOK - commentary - Cramer's Take) and Motorola (MOT - commentary - Cramer's Take), between Intel (INTC - commentary - Cramer's Take) and Microsoft.

If they do, we go higher still.

If they don't? Well, that's just back to where we were two days ago -- miserable, awful and quite unwilling to see anything positive at all.

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At the time of publication, Cramer was long Kmart Holding and Intel.

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. 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."