Jim Cramer's Best Blogs

Look, not everything can bounce. We got that horrendous number from Hewlett-Packard (HPQ), and I see nothing there to buy. But Hewlett-Packard lost that luster ages ago; the stocks I am highlighting have all been pretty darned good until recently.

I think ultimately what 3M, Wal-Mart and Monsanto are saying is that this is a forgiving market, willing to accept short-term stress because things could get better. It's an optimist's market.

And you have to use short-term disappointments in order to get longer-term gains.

At the time of publication, Action Alerts PLUS, which Cramer co-manages as a charitable trust, was long BBBY and FDX.

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Just Chill Out About the Jobs Number

Posted at 3:06 p.m. EDT on Friday, Oct. 5

Not everything is political. This morning we got a Labor Department report that was essentially in line, an addition of 114,000 jobs, neither here nor there. The jobless rate fell from 8.1% to 7.8%, and hourly earnings were more than expected. We had some nice revisions upward from previous months, showing in particular that the anemic report from August understated job creation.

I am putting all of this data in flat, dry terms, because it is flat and dry. There's not much to it. It's good to see that the jobless rate is below 8%, the lowest it's been since the beginning of 2009, but far worse than it was a half dozen years ago, and it is neither encouraging or discouraging, especially when you have to worry about the upcoming fiscal cliff.

Now, here's what's got me steamed. Because I gave that summary on air at CNBC, literally just said it like that, I was instantly a target of the anti-Obama crowd. Because I didn't question how the employment rate got to below 8%, because I didn't suggest that the number might have been rigged to look good for President Obama, I was pilloried as a houseman, owned by the Democrats, all over the place.

This is outrageous. My philosophy on this Labor Department report has been crystal clear since I first began opining on it in the 1980s -- you can't look through it. You can't question its authenticity. You can't say it is political, and more important, you can't question its legitimacy for one party without questioning it for another.

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