Mixed Reports Could Make for a Tough Day

The juggernaut works as long as you have strong earnings, but when you have mixed pictures, you wind up thinking, OK, the first guys were good, but now we are in the cheap seats and the General Electrics (GE - commentary - Trade Now) and the Bank of Americas (BAC - commentary - Trade Now) don't cut it.

When we see these numbers, we then have to default to macro situations such as industrial production and job creation because both GE and Bank of America need stronger worldwide growth and jobs, respectively. The industrial production number just released is a great sign for both of these companies.

The jobs issue is a political issue in America. We don't have jobs because we have failed to stimulate correctly and used the money to help Nancy Pelosi's state government and municipal government allies. GE's more of a finance play, and there the worldwide macro picture is not strong enough to offset investments in regions that are still faltering -- such as Central Europe, Eastern Europe and Mexico -- as well as nation where housing is weak in (e.g., the U.K.). GE is still not a story about nuclear power or locomotives, although I was gratified to see the oil service line be positive.

Now we will look at Bank of America and Citigroup (C - commentary - Trade Now) and decide that JPMorgan Chase (JPM - commentary - Trade Now) and Goldman Sachs (GS - commentary - Trade Now) were aberrant. We will look at GE and decide that Alcoa (AA - commentary - Trade Now) and PPG Industries (PPG - commentary - Trade Now) and the like were aberrant.

So we should have a tough day.

What I suggest you watch is the Nasdaq. Google (GOOG - commentary - Trade Now) could divert money there, as there are no flies on tech as much as the bears -- witness Xilinx (XLNX - commentary - Trade Now) and lead times -- try to claim.

Random musings: The most bearish thing I heard today is the chatter about the Dreamliner being delayed. That's a key to the industrial production growth we need.

At the time of publication, Cramer was long BAC, JPM, GS and PPG.

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At the time of publication, Cramer was long BAC, JPM, GS and PPG.

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