Cramer and Bull Brethren Heed Word from Abby Cohen

By James Cramer

It's happening again, as it has so many other times since this bull market began in 1982.

The market rolls over. The talking heads scare the bejesus out of us on television and in print. Asset allocators sell stocks at any price. We begin to read about redemptions and how fund managers are bleeding from their eyeballs. Strategists take money out of the market.

IBM

and

GM

get downgraded. People can't take the pain of being long.

The bull is pronounced dead, from overvaluation, from froth, from greed, from interest rates, from inflation. The obituaries appear everywhere, from the front page of the

USA Today

to the whole issue of

Barron's

. Then somebody stands up, the reigning king or queen of the moment, and says, hey, things aren't so bad.

Tuesday

Abby Joseph Cohen

, the equity strategist from

Goldman Sachs

, said just that. At 2:30 p.m. In an upbeat and considered call to clients.

And the market responded like a coiled spring. Tech and the financials, two groups she highlighted, came roaring back. The people who were selling

Chase

started buying it again. The people who were shorting

Compaq

switched directions and went long. People forgot why they had been so negative, and they started buying.

All of those precious index and stock puts that managers wisely bought for protection or profiteering were suddenly turned into so much ballast. And all of the fund managers we had buried last week came back from the dead, some stronger than ever. Vampire managers.

Suddenly, collectively, we weren't long enough.

Then Wednesday we pick up the paper and

P&G

bids for

Tambrands

.

Alex. Brown

, Tambrands -- oh, is it painful to be short. The companies that ultimately define the stock market, companies like sworn enemies,

Bankers Trust

and Procter & Gamble, who couldn't see eye-to-eye on anything in court or in print, both reach down and buy merchandise from the shelf of the

New York Stock Exchange

. At great prices for them.

Since I got bullish again I have been inundated with calls and emails saying how my view lacked rigor. "You don't have the bonds," says one. "We haven't had the crummy earnings yet," writes another. "You'll be killed if you buy this dip," says a third. "How about that utility average, it hasn't confirmed anything?"

To those critics I say, go buy some stocks and get off my back.

James Cramer is manager of a hedge fund and co-chairman of

The Street.

His fund has a long position in

Chase

and a short position in

IBM

. As for

Tambrands

, Cramer says, "I wish I were long." While he cannot provide investment advice or recommendations, he welcomes your feedback, emailed to

Jjcramerco@aol.com.