Timing on the Upgrades Is Questionable

I don't know about you, but I get nervous when I see all of these upgrades and early-morning buying after the Nasdaq has been up for eight straight days and we had a monster short-covering rally last week.

I understand Goldman's desire to put a big number on the S&P 500 for the end of the year because many companies have boosted the bottom line by firing people. But the best comments I have seen so far this quarter come from companies like PPG Industries (PPG - commentary - Trade Now), which said that things are mildly better. Maybe Bank of America sees the same thing happening for Caterpillar (CAT - commentary - Trade Now) tomorrow, so it is worth upgrading? I guess. I know that Eaton (ETN - commentary - Trade Now) is perceived as beating earnings and that the dividend is safe, and Johnson Controls (JCI - commentary - Trade Now), another morning reporter, took share and did well by dominating the interior share of the auto build. I don't know if Caterpillar has that kind of momentum, and I don't know how safe the dividend is. Second-half strength? Given what I keep reading about ahead with commercial and residential construction, I don't know how you get to stronger numbers.

Cisco (CSCO - commentary - Trade Now)? I have been betting that John Chambers puts on a better spin than he has, so I get that upgrade, particularly because of the big orders coming from Asia. The media stories out of Morgan Stanley? Sure, the business is cyclical, but if we are going to see improvement in Disney (DIS - commentary - Trade Now) and CBS (CBS - commentary - Trade Now), I would rather buy Google (GOOG - commentary - Trade Now), which will take more than its fair share and reported a quarter that simply wasn't as bad as the market took it.

I come back with all of these and say, wait a second. We just rallied 700 Dow points? Wasn't the time to be bullish then, when there were far fewer bulls and rates were lower?

Something leaves me cold on all of these upgrades. I am not a seller, but I am sure not a buyer on any of these moves.

Random musings: I like the weaker dollar because so many of the companies that have reported have really been hurt by the strong one. ... Gold's move is huge and stocks are lagging the SPDR Gold (GLD - commentary - Trade Now). I still like Agnico Eagle (AEM - commentary - Trade Now) and Randgold (RAND - commentary - Trade Now). ... I still can't believe that people are bidding up Halliburton (HAL - commentary - Trade Now) on that quarter. ... How the heck did Stanley Works (SWK - commentary - Trade Now) boost its dividend? Amazing. ... FDIC seems to have stopped giving healthy banks the unhealthy ones with some guarantees. M&T Bank (MTB - commentary - Trade Now) just reported a great quarter, and you would think that it would be a ready recipient, especially when we read about all of the damage that commercial real estate is supposed to be doing to the balance sheets of the regionals...

At the time of publication, Cramer was long Bank of America, Goldman Sachs, Cisco and PPG Industries.

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