Cramer: Hedge Funds Are Moving This Irrational Market

This was originally published on RealMoney. It is being republished as a bonus for TheStreet.com readers.

They disappeared. The darned sellers disappeared. The sellers of MasterCard(MA Quote) and Freeport-McMoRan(FCX Quote) and Potash(POT Quote). The sellers of National Oilwell Varco(NOV Quote) and Conoco(COP Quote) and XTO Energy(XTO Quote) and Ultra Petroleum(UPL Quote). The sellers of Occidental(OXY Quote) and Devon(DVN Quote).

Where the heck did they go? Think about it: Natural gas and oil were down today, despite a hurricane coming to the Gulf!

This is what I mean is driving me and everyone else crazy. This is what I mean when I say these hedge funds have lost control of their clients, their money and their minds.

Think about it: If you weren't desperate, you could have sold a little yesterday and a little today. You got much better prices today. These hedge-fund young guns either don't know how to trade -- use a discipline, work the order, try to get a good price -- or they have to send money back constantly because they are doing so badly and they are liquidating.

What's so unnerving is that the prices of the stocks have so much more to do with the hedge funds that buy, sell and short them than they do with how the companies are doing. Ultra Pete, up more than 6, didn't just discover more oil. Cabot Oil(CBT Quote) didn't discover a new shale. Freeport actually shaded down numbers, for heaven's sake. It didn't matter a hill of beans that National Oil didn't get any orders.

This is why this market has become an intense game of gaming other funds, not the fundamentals. It is why the market has become so repulsive to so many.

Now, there are major trends that can be adhered to. I have said ad nauseum that the banks and homebuilders and retailers and consumers of oil and gas bottomed on July 15. Not all, obviously: Lehman (LEH Quote) and Washington Mutual (WM Quote) are classic outliers, as will be AIG (AIG Quote). These stocks have their own peculiar patterns, like the 6-point run in Whirlpool(WHR Quote) on Friday and the 5-point decline yesterday.