Get Selective With Slowdown Stocks

Suddenly, we have to be selective in the slowdown stocks.

Hershey (HSY - commentary - Cramer's Take) catches a downgrade from Wachovia and it plummets back to $53. Medtronic (MDT - commentary - Cramer's Take) lowers guidance and you get smacked in St. Jude (STJ - commentary - Cramer's Take) and in Boston Scientific (BSX - commentary - Cramer's Take) (that Guidant acquisition is looking more and more like a colossal mistake).

We can look at this two ways. One is to say that the trend into the soft goods and defensives has run its course. The other is to say we have simply become more selective and are no longer in the "bid everything up because we could catch too much disappointment" phase.

I am strictly betting on the latter. Why? Because why else will Procter & Gamble (PG - commentary - Cramer's Take) keep going up? That was the tell that this is an intra-rotation rotation and no more than that.

Watch the employment number tomorrow. Any strength and you are going to go right back to this group, but now the stocks matter. You can't throw darts anymore. Not even at the drugs, where Pfizer (PFE - commentary - Cramer's Take) suddenly has Lipitor issues, which look a lot like pre-Plavix issues that have dogged Bristol-Myers (BMY - commentary - Cramer's Take) -- although I would still buy it because it is too cheap.

Don't lose heart in these stocks. We have three more months of outperformance, and five more months if the Fed tightens again after this one.

At the time of publication, Cramer was long Bristol-Myers.

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At the time of publication, Cramer was long Bristol-Myers.

Jim 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. Listen to Cramer's RealMoney Radio show on your computer; just click here. Watch Cramer on "Mad Money" at 6 p.m. ET weeknights on CNBC. Click here to order Cramer's latest book, "Real Money: Sane Investing in an Insane World," click here to get his second book, "You Got Screwed!" and click here to order Cramer's autobiography, "Confessions of a Street Addict." While he cannot provide personalized investment advice or recommendations, he invites you to send comments on his column by clicking here.

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