Oil-Led Recession? I Wouldn't Bet On It

The stocks are wrong here, and defense isn't the answer.
By Jim Cramer ,

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A recession led by oil. That's what the stocks are saying today, and I don't know if I agree. You can see

Abbott

(ABT) - Get Report

and

Anheuser-Busch

(BUD) - Get Report

and

Schering-Plough

(SGP)

and

Altria

(MO) - Get Report

, and you know that's the signal that the market thinks that we are not going to avoid a recession with the $5 gasoline that is coming.

That means

Target's

(TGT) - Get Report

wrong and

Home Depot

(HD) - Get Report

is right! That means we should be worried about

U.S. Steel

(X) - Get Report

and we should be buying

Clorox

(CLX) - Get Report

. (It's pretty amazing that

Kimberly-Clark

(KMB) - Get Report

is up -- that's the one that is most levered to oil!)

You know my view: The stocks aren't telling it right. We aren't going to have a recession because of oil, because we

haven't had

a recession because of oil. In fact, the credit that is becoming available will offset the gasoline issues, and the companies that have adjusted to these prices will continue to adjust.

Retail remains bad. Shocker.

The only mysteries are

Pepsi

(PEP) - Get Report

and

Procter

(PG) - Get Report

, which never lift. I would be a buyer of both.

At the time of publication, Cramer was long Abbott Laboratories, Altria and Schering-Plough.

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