If you had to define the early cycle, if you had to outline what stocks should be soaring coming out of a recession into a boom and which ones should be faltering, you would have to say the action in this market in the last month is the quintessential behavioral pattern.
What are the components of the early cycle? First, it's the homebuilders. As is typical coming out of a recession, the stocks precede the bottom of housing. That's exactly what's happening with the lowest permits and highest affordability and best mortgage rates and massive inventory. Everywhere, except on Wall Street reporting, the bottom is bursting out. When you read the lead story in the Sunday Philadelphia Inquirer, and it is all about the thousands of prospective homebuyers heading south to pick up condos and homes for half of what they were worth two years ago -- or even less -- and you know that virtually no one has broken ground in the Sunshine State in a year, you can bet that the bottom's actually behind us. This housing market has wiped out all but the most stable private builders and even the public ones are merging as we know from Pulte (PHM - commentary - Cramer's Take) and Centex (CTX - commentary - Cramer's Take). So, in the next cycle, you can see some profitability developing year over year even though the new homes don't have much margin because the foreclosed homes next door are going for a song. And don't believe this won't change the dynamic of future foreclosures. In most areas, rent is higher than the interest on mortgages, so you will find that second or third job needed to stay in your home. The incentive structure's radically different than a year ago.
Banks rally and rally hard in this environment, and we know that's happening. The stress test should give the strong banks the chance to prey on the weak, as I think everyone has the wrong story about the stress test. The results of the stress tests will likely not be more money except for perhaps Citigroup (C - commentary - Cramer's Take), although I doubt even that. The results will be "merge or be seized," with the government absorbing the bad loans until they can be sold to the public-private partnerships, which will flourish. We'll get a lot of mergers, which will strengthen banks like FirstMerit (FMER - commentary - Cramer's Take) and JPMorgan Chase (JPM - commentary - Cramer's Take).
Jim Cramer Blog Don't Be So Sure About a Pullback 4/17/2009 12:14 PM EDT The market doesn't have much fear, and a lot of people are ready to buy a dip.
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