Throw Out the Playbook on X, NUE, RS and GIS

You don't buy a steel stock going into a recession. You don't buy a food stock with the grain complex going sky-high.

Wrong! Or at least wrong when it comes to U.S. Steel (X - commentary - Cramer's Take) and Nucor (NUE - commentary - Cramer's Take) and Reliance (RS - commentary - Cramer's Take) and today, General Mills (GIS - commentary - Cramer's Take).

Steels are supply-constrained with worldwide demand strong. That's how you can see 52-week highs in some of these stocks. That, and the fact that commercial construction is holding up and the export market is white-hot.

General Mills today shows that if you innovate with new products and you get pricing on some goods while hedging your raw costs -- GIS did all of these -- you can still beat numbers. I have always liked GIS as a well-run company, but this quarter was a Goldman Sachs-like beauty.

I believe, given the outlook, that there is still more upside for GIS. By the way, I believe that Pepsi (PEP - commentary - Cramer's Take) and Coke (KO - commentary - Cramer's Take) have similar profiles to General Mills and are great buys. I think that KO is constrained by the strike price -- Friday is expiration -- and Pepsi could get set back here to $70 for the same reason, but they, too, have gotten control of their own destiny.

Random musings: This market has a decent tone and I am emboldened to say that I don't think it can be crushed here.

At the time of publication, Cramer was long Goldman Sachs.

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.