Cramer: Europe Trumps Earnings

Mad Money Markets

Mad Money host Jim Cramer says this is a pretty terrific earnings season, but bad news out of Europe trumped those results, driving stocks down.

So far, the earnings picture has been just fine, Cramer said Tuesday. You just may or may not have known it since the market action is still being driven by what’s happening in Europe.

“You get bad news out of Europe, and we don't care about good earnings because we know the future has to be darker than the past,” he said. “However, if we get constructive comments out of Europe, then we take up those companies with good earnings and we extrapolate them … to all of the other companies in their cohort and even the S&P.”

The latter is what happened Tuesday. The market rallied on a report by The Guardian that France and Germany have agreed to boost a euro zone financial rescue fund to two trillion euros to help resolve the debt crisis.

Of course, we actually did get some fabulous earnings news Tuesday, the “Mad Money” host said. Parker Hannifin reported a terrific number and then guided up substantially. W.W Grainger also delivered a monster quarter and raised estimates for the rest of the year. And oil stocks rallied in a delayed reaction to Statoil’s bid for Brigham Exploration BEXP Monday. All of these helped give a lift to the market.

But the bottom line, Cramer said, is that Europe remains the be all and end all of our markets.

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