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RealMoney.com: Market Analysis
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Leave Battleground for What Works

By Jim Cramer
RealMoney.com Columnist

1/20/2006 8:36 AM EST
Click here for more stories by Jim Cramer
 
 Market Analysis
  • When most stocks are battlegrounds, retreat to what's in bull-market mode.
  • Right now, that's the oil drillers.
  • They have clear visibility, so when they come down, you can buy more with confidence.



Too many battlegrounds right now. Too many upgrades and downgrades. Enfilading fire left and right. Semis up; semis down. Oil too high. Citigroup (C - commentary - Cramer's Take) and GE (GE - commentary - Cramer's Take) not so hot. Homebuilding slowing. Pfizer (PFE - commentary - Cramer's Take) bad but the stock goes higher.

What are we supposed to do?

I always retreat to what's in bull-market mode, what is unequivocally good, what can be bought even if the quarters confuse. That sends me to the oil drillers. I know the group's had a monster move, and I know that we can't really get in to those price-to-earnings ratios. But remember when Schlumberger (SLB - commentary - Cramer's Take) was at $60? It has about a 50 P/E because no one believed the numbers. Turned out to be a bargain.

I know people always want to believe they can figure out tech on the fly. For example, I, like just about everyone else, was trying to figure out if Motorola's (MOT - commentary - Cramer's Take) "bad" was actually "good," meaning that the supply problems curtailed the earnings, which could then explode next quarter, Seagate (STX - commentary - Cramer's Take)-like. But then, Seagate blew away this quarter, too, so the analogy doesn't hold. Is MOT more Yahoo! (YHOO - commentary - Cramer's Take) than AMD (AMD - commentary - Cramer's Take)? The mind spins out of control with these analogies.

Which brings me back to the drillers. No battlegrounds. No worries about this quarter, next or the next after. The visibility is as clear as the sky on a beautiful sunny day. No underpromise, no overdeliver. Just plain deliver.

That's what I want when every other place is cloudy. Because if the stocks go down, I can buy more and rest assured I will make money.

Random musings: I talked more about the drillers this morning on Street Watch. Click here to catch the video, free!






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We're overbought with too many bulls, but that shouldn't last long now.

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Mornings like this, where we just aren't taken apart when we should be, justify that posture.



General Electric owns CNBC, for which Cramer is a featured commentator.

At the time of publication, Cramer was long Motorola and Yahoo!.

Jim Cramer is a director and co-founder of TheStreet.com. He contributes daily market commentary for TheStreet.com's sites and serves as an adviser to the company's CEO. Outside contributing columnists for TheStreet.com and RealMoney.com, including Cramer, may, from time to time, write about stocks in which they have a position. In such cases, appropriate disclosure is made. To see his personal portfolio and find out what trades Cramer will make before he makes them, sign up for ActionAlertsPLUS. Listen to Cramer's RealMoney Radio show on your computer; just click here. Watch Cramer on "Mad Money" at 6 p.m. ET weeknights on CNBC. Click here to order Cramer's latest book, "Real Money: Sane Investing in an Insane World," click here to get his second book, "You Got Screwed!" and click here to order Cramer's autobiography, "Confessions of a Street Addict." While he cannot provide personalized investment advice or recommendations, he invites you to send comments on his column by clicking here.

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