For the Financials, It's in the Charts

Over in Columnist Conversation, David Sterman raises the point I have been battling over with people all day: What do "they," the buyers of the beaten-up financials see?

I think they see what I saw in 1990; I think they see that they don't go down much any more on bad days and they do pretty well on good one.

I think they see that when things get better, they will have bought great franchises on the cheap.

No one denies that there are terrific businesses buried within Citigroup (C - commentary - Cramer's Take) that could be unlocked. There will be fees galore for Fannie Mae (FNM - commentary - Cramer's Take) and Freddie Mac (FRE - commentary - Cramer's Take) if housing bottoms, and the buyers clearly think that housing has bottomed.

As far as the minerals and the oils, they are trading down because people feel that, at the margin, they have been going up because of the weak dollar and somehow the weak dollar's turn into something stronger will cause pricing to break.

They also believe that the Fed has succeeded in breaking the back of inflation. I think it is fatuous; as I say on tonight's "Mad Money" show, Ben Bernanke does not control the price of chicken wings.

Now, in the end, it doesn't matter what I think. The big buyers are coming in and taking stock, and a lot of the buyers seem to be foreign, either sovereign or otherwise, who are finally willing to say, "I bet I won't lose any more on currency, and this is one of the better stock markets in the world."

In the end, though, I am a supply/demand guy, and the supply of resources is running out fast, and the demand worldwide keeps growing.

I think you endure a snap-back rally in the dollar, a further decline in gold -- which is what everything is keying on -- perhaps to the $750-$800 level, and then we go back up with the old groups again. We don't control the old groups -- "they" do, the real they, the producers and buyers of commodities.

What's so amazing is that there is simply no way not to have vicious rotations any more. If you were short Clorox (CLX - commentary - Cramer's Take) betting on its umpteenth miss or long Exxon (XOM - commentary - Cramer's Take) betting on its consistent growth; if you were leaning on Procter (PG - commentary - Cramer's Take) and going with Apache (APA - commentary - Cramer's Take), you endured so much pain today that you are ready for the sidelines and the unwinds.

That's what I think they see, in answer to David's question. Beyond that, they can't see any further than we can.

Oh, and one other thing, never underestimate the power of all the closet chartists out there: The financials have the best charts in the books, the fertilizers and oils the worst ones.

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

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