What to Make of This Whippy Market

Whippy market. For certain. I think that there are some weird S&P 500 trading programs at work that are actually putting money into stocks, causing the market to be stronger than it should be.

Perhaps it is because the short base is back. Perhaps it is because people always want to take the housing issue and extrapolate it. Tough to tell.

Here's a thought, though. If you had great earnings, you didn't get your butt kicked when things were bad and you snapped right back to the black when the programs kicked in. That's rather remarkable.

In that sense, we had business as usual. General Dynamics (GD - commentary - Cramer's Take) and Northrop Grumman (NOC - commentary - Cramer's Take), two of my faves, still could rally off good earnings.

I say "still could rally" because I have seen many a market where good news gets us a yawn.

This market is better than that. Sometimes, that's worth pointing out, especially because the Merrill (MER - commentary - Cramer's Take) losses did take your breath away.

At the time of publication, Cramer had no positions in any of the stocks mentioned in this post.

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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. Watch Cramer on "Mad Money" weeknights on CNBC. Click here to order Cramer's latest book, "Mad Money: Watch TV, Get Rich," click here to order his 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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