Market Selloff Enters Whoosh Mode

We've got a level of derision for the market reserved for moments like 1987 or 2001 post-cataclysm.

Author:: Jim Cramer
Publish date:: May 10, 2004 11:31 AM EDT

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This selloff should be it. We should be in whoosh mode, with stocks like

Ingersoll-Rand

(IR) - Get Report

and

Deere

(DE) - Get Report

in free fall, declining not because of earnings shortfalls, not because of weakness in business, but because they simply are up a lot, so who needs them?

The problem is that the same logic could be next for

Lilly

(LLY) - Get Report

and

Procter & Gamble

(PG) - Get Report

, the only two stocks that now are working.

We had 700 stocks hit a 52-week low on Friday vs. just a handful of highs. That's ridiculous, too. Things simply aren't that bad. Oil is showing signs of peaking. Gold's come down a lot. The

Fed

eventually will move.

With the S&P proprietary oscillator at -6.5, with the averages being pummeled, with virtually all stocks rolling over and with the number of bulls certainly set to decline to the low 40s on Chartcraft's

Investors Intelligence

poll, you have to anticipate some sort of turn.

That's been costly -- no, that's been deadly. But we are now in waters we have seen only in 1987 and in 2001 post-cataclysm when it comes to the selloff.

Hard for me to believe that this market merits that level of derision.

At the time of publication, Cramer was long Ingersoll-Rand.

James J. Cramer is a director and co-founder of TheStreet.com. He contributes daily market commentary for TheStreet.com's sites and serves as an adviser to the company's CEO. Outside contributing columnists for TheStreet.com and RealMoney.com, including Cramer, may, from time to time, write about stocks in which they have a position. In such cases, appropriate disclosure is made.

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