Bailouts Only Delay the Inevitable

Look, we know what keeps happening here. Every day we come in, and every day there is a bailout of sorts that takes the trouble off the table. The reversal into a decline on Friday was caused by bad trading in Washington Mutual (WM - commentary - Cramer's Take), giving us the possible reminder that it isn't just Wall Street that is in trouble but Main Street too, because Wamu is the lender to Main Street all over the country.

But then early this morning we heard the good news of a big infusion from the private-equity firm TPG, and the reason we were betting the market would go lower disappeared.

Now, at the end of the day, the market was so overbought -- the worst it has been in a year -- that you had to figure it was as good a time as any to ring the register, but make no mistake about it, this market was rallying because of the Wamu deal, if it occurs.

Could things change? After the close, the abysmal numbers for Advanced Micro Devices (AMD - commentary - Cramer's Take) and the weak Alcoa (AA - commentary - Cramer's Take) earnings made things feel a little overdone to the upside, even though I can craft a good story for Intel (INTC - commentary - Cramer's Take) from AMD. Unless, of course, the market is the glass half empty and we read AMD as a slowdown and now a share loss. Alcoa was up on a takeover spike and would have given some back even if the quarter were great.

I am sticking by my discipline, which says that when things are this overheated that the S&P proprietary oscillator -- available on S&P's Web site for a fee as part of the chart package I have hand delivered to me each weekend -- is king here, and it says you should be selling, not buying. As for those who do not have the luxury and who need stocks on their sheets, I would only be a small buyer.

I think we go lower before we go higher. I know Doug Kass agrees with me, so I feel in very good company.

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

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