A Near-Perfect Environment

How exciting is a fall tape after a summer where people really took vacation and the market did nothing but creep back up to old highs?

Let's face it, we had a drama-less summer. Other than a mean-spirited selloff in July -- perhaps when Soros sold off the last of his techs -- we did nothing but silently move higher to the point where nobody's laughing at Dow 12,000 and NDX 5,000 anymore. In fact, I get the impression that you couldn't ask for a better environment. The personal computer industry is strong, the oil price is high and about to go lower, the candidates are fighting over themselves not to impact the stock market negatively and interest rates keep going lower.

Into that backdrop, we have financials nearing highs but still reflecting low expectations. We have cyclicals appearing ridiculously cheap. We have techs poised to go back to where they were before the spring selloff. And we have drugs coiling up, ready to put on a big move, as Gore's rhetoric turns into nothingness come November, because he's a much better friend of research than Clinton ever will be.

The only things still left to avoid are those companies that make their living designing Web sites. It looks like that business, which was so hot last year, is ceasing to be much of a business at all, as every publicly traded Web company seeks to get profitable with what it has and the private markets remain shut to new capital for dot-coms. Maybe forever.

In that kind of environment, it pays to do what you have to do every time it looks like we have a soft landing. You buy tech, and not just high-growth tech. You buy the boxmakers and the IBMs of the world. And you watch as they take the market higher.

Random musings: When I got my current issue of eCompany Now, the magazine about tech put out by Fortune, I admit that I wanted to hate it. How can there be anything more to say about the Internet economy? I was wrong. The eCompanyNow editors know how to put out a compelling magazine. A fabulous Whole Foods article, a positive perspective on Webvan and some massively helpful hints about emailing and promotion. This magazine is a must-read for industry folk, and I mean our industry folk. Had I read the magazine a day before I did, I would have been shorting Viant (VIAN Quote - Cramer on VIAN - Stock Picks) with my eyes closed! Oh well. Just go and subscribe. You are going to have to eventually anyway.