Cramer Needs to Stop Being Hard on Himself

So, now do we sell

Schwab

(SCH)

, under the

America Online

(AOL)

logic that a Net company just brought an old-line company that walks dogs for rich people?

Am I getting the hang of this market? Am I now figuring it out? Or was it silly for AOL to merge and silly for

Yahoo!

(YHOO)

not to merge?

Can we take a timeout to ponder whether things just simply aren't working at all? Maybe all of the four-letter stuff and the highfliers were simply

walked up big time

by underperforming hedge funds and we are now stuck with some crummy prices that we are still working off?

Cramer's Latest: Join the discussion on

TSC

message boards.

I look at the performance figures from big hedge funds in the fourth quarter and I am beginning to believe that much of the fourth quarter was simply desperation buying that ain't coming back any time soon.

In other words, I want to stop beating myself up about what the heck is going on. If the whole

Nasdaq

was collectively marked up, either through ingenious use of the

Nasdaq 100 Trust

(QQQ) - Get Report

and the

DOTs

and odd-ball futures and derivatives, then who can possibly figure out what are the true, right levels?

Random musings

: Bought some bonds this morning, thinking that these

numbers that just came out are simply consistent with what is factored in already and not worse. No big bet though. Will the new

Merrill Lynch

strategist be the

Manchurian Candidate

, programmed to move the Glass Bull into real bullishness?

James J. Cramer is manager of a hedge fund and co-founder of TheStreet.com. At time of publication, his fund was long America Online, Yahoo! and the 30-year Treasury bond. His fund often buys and sells securities that are the subject of his columns, both before and after the columns are published, and the positions that his fund takes may change at any time. Under no circumstances does the information in this column represent a recommendation to buy or sell stocks. Cramer's writings provide insights into the dynamics of money management and are not a solicitation for transactions. While he cannot provide investment advice or recommendations, he invites you to comment on his column at

jjcletters@thestreet.com.