When Oil Percolates...

Nice to see the good old-fashioned bull markets back. It's funny what happens when the oil market percolates. You get that fabulous umbrella that highlights the longer-term themes: agriculture, infrastructure (oil infra, not muni infra), oil service and minerals. The move also confounds all of the doomsayers because surely the commodities can't be that strong if we are going into a recession.

Of course this is jingoism/hegemony of old speaking. We are simply not that important any more for these themes. Plus no one has called the bluff of ethanol, so the ag linkage just won't go away.

Far be it from me to say that oil isn't done as a theme. I have been switching around my oil exposure for my Action Alerts PLUS charitable trust, going toward oil infra -- Foster Wheeler (FWLT - commentary - Cramer's Take) -- and away from the pure drillers, but when we get to $100 oil they will all work.

This market is not about anything other than a tug of war right now among the L/U and Vs. Let me explain: the sharp recovery -- that's the V, which has housing; the slower recovery -- that's the Us -- and the no recovery but no further downs -- the Ls. Today's a U day so it allows old themes to resurface because the economy is not so weak as to kill Exxon (XOM - commentary - Cramer's Take) and Deere (DE - commentary - Cramer's Take) or Foster Wheeler and Freeport (FCX - commentary - Cramer's Take). I think every time we get one of these days the "we have bottomed" crew comes out. I think we are just going to be hanging around bouncing for a while, being dinged by failures, and boosted by when things get too negative as we did last week.

Nothing more.

Don't forget, it is options expiration week, so anything can happen, and right now the anything is a rally in cyclicals that has not proven sustainable since July.

Random musings: Still can't believe I can read Vince Farrell here! Amazing.

At the time of publication, Cramer was long Freeport-McMoRan and Foster Wheeler.

ALL JIM CRAMER BLOG ENTRIES | POST A COMMENT | READ COMMENTS  

---

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. To order Cramer's newest book -- "Jim Cramer's Stay Mad for Life: Get Rich, Stay Rich (Make Your Kids Even Richer)," click here. Click here to order "Mad Money: Watch TV, Get Rich," click here to order "Real Money: Sane Investing in an Insane World," click here to get "You Got Screwed!" and click here for Cramer's autobiography, "Confessions of a Street Addict." While he cannot provide personalized investment advice or recommendations, he appreciates your feedback and invites you to send comments by clicking here.

TheStreet.com has a revenue-sharing relationship with Amazon.com under which it receives a portion of the revenue from Amazon.com purchases by customers directed there from TheStreet.com.