Jim Cramer: It's Harder and Harder to Be a Bear
The S&P 500 looks set to close at a record high for its second day in a row. The Dow Jones Industrial Average has regained its 18,000 level and scored a new intraday high. The Nasdaq rushed higher to erase all 2016 losses.
It's a tough time to be a bear on Wall Street right now.
"It has become harder and harder to be a bear," said Jim Cramer, portfolio manager of the Action Alerts PLUS Charitable Trust. "The traditional bear cases are very hard to reconcile when the transports start taking off, very hard to reconcile when the traditional junior and senior growth stocks start rallying."
The S&P 500 closed at a record high for the first time in 14 months on Monday, building upon major gains enjoyed at the end of last week. Stocks had been lifted by a better-than-expected U.S. jobs report for June which brought relief over the state of the U.S. economy. Worries over the U.S. economy peaked earlier in the year as the labor market weakened and a stronger U.S. dollar and soft global demand pressured the manufacturing sector.
A massive selloff over the United Kingdom's vote to exit the European Union also kept investors on their toes. Wall Street had plummeted in the days following the June 23 vote as worries over the roughly two-year transition out of the 28-member bloc escalated.
Stocks have recovered since then as the Brexit news sank in. Benchmark indexes have recovered all losses suffered over the June selloff.
"Ever since then, as the market goes higher, the sellers seem to have evaporated," added Cramer. "The sellers are just not there. The sellers were a big sell on Nike (NKE) - Get Report ... they were big at $55, $54, $49, but they're nowhere at $56, $57, $58. That's part of the phenomenon I've seen a few times in my career, where the sellers seem to have evaporated."