Save Energy, Make Money

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New tech keeps rocking. Emerson (EMR Quote), Parker-Hannifin (PH Quote) and Eaton (ETN Quote) keep coming up with inventive ways to use less energy. Cummins (CMI Quote) and Navistar (NAVZ Quote) make those better engines that can save 9% to 13% of the oil used.

So what?

When oil is at $125 a barrel, you are getting some big numbers. Big percentages; big numbers. No wonder they can keep going up.

The replacement cost of a new truck -- all of these companies have truck-related businesses -- is getting so great that the market for new products just goes up and up for each $1 of oil.

That's the one-for-one marginal need to buy that comes in just like we see in Trinity (TRN Quote).

It is vital that you understand that we are in a mode where the companies that make engines that use less oil are simply the single best way to lower costs for an enterprise that moves goods.

Making trucks competitive toward the best group in this market -- the rails -- is a major undertaking. Eaton, Emerson, PH, Navistar and Cummins are all doing it, making trucking competitive, without running afoul of emission rules.

That's why numbers are going up. That's why the stocks are going up. Unless you look through the prism of what cuts energy use, you are going to be stuck trying to figure out how the consumer's doing.

The consumer's doing awful.

Not worth the focus.

Random musings: Sometimes I wish I were a practicing lawyer, because I would be filing a class-action suit against Moody's (MCO Quote) for this computer glitch that gave higher ratings to debt securities that may have been rated uninvestible otherwise. The liability is immense -- so immense that, unlike most lawsuits, this one could put this outfit out of business.

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