It's right.
Forgive me for wanting to see it first, for wanting to know the truth about whether the quarters finished stronger in tech than I thought. Forgive me for insisting on seeing whether
Microsoft (MSFT Quote - Cramer on MSFT - Stock Picks) screwed up further before I said it was OK to buy. Forgive me for wanting to wait.
Because I know Microsoft's right. And if Microsoft is right, a lot of other stocks are right, too.At this moment I am in the maelstrom of my new job, the long-term maelstrom. Because I know that right now tech is a seething beast that wants to go higher, and all we have seen is the prelude to something bigger. I know it is a good trade. I don't know if it is a good investment.
I have been reluctant to say, "Play some tech off the ease," because in my new job, I can't come to you and say, "Take that 10-point
eBay (EBAY Quote - Cramer on EBAY - Stock Picks) move that you just got off my Action Alert." That's short-term, that's renting, and I don't want to go back to doing that. I vowed to be an owner from here on in.
So forgive me for treading where traders tread, but the bears won't be able to keep tech down here after last night's delicious trifecta of
Sun Micro(SUNW Quote - Cramer on SUNW - Stock Picks),
Nortel(NT Quote - Cramer on NT - Stock Picks) and, most important, Microsoft. They won't be able to because a new thesis has been formed, and the thesis is, "It ain't so hot now, but in six months it will be better." And you can't refute that thesis. It is simply too far in the future to be refuted. It is, as I used to say in my old job as a reporter, "Too good to check out!"
I don't know if in six months it will truly be the case that all is well. I don't know if that will turn out to be too glib. (
Adam Lashinsky in his Microsoft
piece certainly thinks so.) But I do know that this thesis, this mantra, will work for weeks, if not months, and those are moves you want to catch and I don't want to deny that they are occurring. I don't want to say to you, "I can't countenance buying Sun here because in six months I don't know where it will be." I don't want to say that because in three months I know it will be higher.
The worst is indeed over.
I know that because Sun Micro and Nortel and Microsoft were no great shakes last night. The calls weren't blowouts. The bar did not get raised. Heck, it got lowered a tad with Sun. But they all are going to work because they all explained that while business right now isn't strong, it will be down the road. And portfolio managers lapped it up. They want to believe.
What really happened here? What made it so it was not only safe to buy, but so that traders think it must be bought? What catalysed a buyers' panic and the sense that it must be joined? Quite simple: For most of last year, expectations were too high and the fundamentals kept disappointing. Somewhere, at some point in the last four weeks, expectations got so low that the fundamentals are now exceeding those expectations.
People at last got too negative and now even these negative numbers are causing stocks to rise, because people believe the worst may be over. When they do that, you can't be bearish. You must be invested. Or, to put it another way, if you lower expectations enough, you are sure to beat them. That's what has happened in most of the personal computer stocks. That is what has happened in software. That is what has happened in semiconductors.
In my old shop, I would say, "Gents, the bears have had a great run. But they have overstayed their welcome. Now it is time to hunt those suckers down." And we'd go out and kill some Kodiak. Time to make some bear rugs. Go get 'em.
Random musings: I hope you tuned into our
RealMoney.com
chat, where we got into the Microsoft call while it occurred. It was one of those moments where the Web seemed so new and wonderful again. I was listening to the MSFT call on my computer, instant messaging the world about the other conference calls going on, taking questions by phone and giving you running commentary along with two Microsoft experts,
Jim Seymour and
Adam Lashinsky. All during it I was thinking, "Can you believe what we are offering here? Real-time analysis, better than anything I have ever seen in the universes of politics and sports." You know what? I felt proud.
Jim Cramer
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