When in Doubt, Trust the Technicals

Today's when the overload dawns on you. I am frantically looking at how 3M (MMM - commentary - Trade Now) made the quarter, how Apple (AAPL - commentary - Trade Now) finally moved the needle for AT&T (T - commentary - Trade Now), and how Union Pacific (UNP - commentary - Trade Now) was still able to cut costs even further, all the while re-evaluating the tech earnings from last night and the negative Pepsi (PEP - commentary - Trade Now) story -- which I disagree with -- in The Wall Street Journal. Wasn't Hershey (HSY - commentary - Trade Now) great despite the high P/E? Will the analysts capitulate, or will they still hate it?

Then you have to try to figure out how real Ford (F - commentary - Trade Now) is -- seems very real -- and whether I am right on eBay (EBAY - commentary - Trade Now) (I own it for Action Alerts PLUS) and wrong on SanDisk (SNDK - commentary - Trade Now) (a guest columnist says I sure am).

So what's the takeaway? This is the maximum-screw-up period, when you can only afford to learn and not take much action -- the details are eluding me. Does anyone really think that he has his arms around Wells Fargo's (WFC - commentary - Trade Now) losses? Does anyone really think that United Tech (UTX - commentary - Trade Now) or 3M or Caterpillar (CAT - commentary - Trade Now) has a handle on the future? Does Nucor (NUE - commentary - Trade Now) really believe that the turn isn't for real?

Plus, does Obama's speech make a difference? Aren't we headed to a world where the only real changes have to do with cutting subsidies by the government for home health and for Medicare Advantage, and the rest is much ado about nothing?

So, when there's overload, I like to fall back on technicals, and we are really overbought -- the most since the bottom in the fall, plus 9, way over where I am prepared to do any buying and where automatically I like to sell, even though I have already raised capital for Action Alerts PLUS.

The technicals work when the fundamentals are overwhelming. I am going to let those who shoot first and ask questions later have the sway while I go in the bunker with a hundred transcripts and figure out what the heck is really going on.

Random musings: Miraculous turn for Celgene (CELG - commentary - Trade Now), a reminder that new drugs and trials do matter.

At the time of publication, Cramer was long eBay, Pepsi and Wells Fargo.

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