One minute the market it up, the next minute it is down. The market is volatile and brutal. Jim Cramer knows that seeing both ecstasy and tragedy occur in one day means this year is different territory. It's a trader's game.
"If this market were a person, we would be giving it twice-a-week sessions with a psychiatrist, along with some mood altering drugs to keep it a little more on even keel," the "Mad Money" host said.
And it is not just that the market has forgotten what happened in 2014. It now even forgets what happened in the morning and switches tune in the middle of the day.
After such a crazy session, Cramer emphasized the importance of realizing that this is a trader's market. To help navigate that kind of territory, he recommended two things:
No. 1 Find good quality stocks that you like and keep them on your radar. Examine them once a week, to make sure you don't get slaughtered.
No. 2 Take advantage of the volatile market and sell stocks when it opens big and then buy them back when it gets hammered.
So what was the good, bad and the ugly that contributed to such a volatile trading day on Tuesday?
The day started up with Europe strong, especially when it learned that Germany is running a balanced budget. Even oil gained ground in the morning and began to rally.
Additionally, there was good news surrounding Alcoa, Amazon and Apple. Alcoa reported a good quarter on Monday and investors found the positive news refreshing.
Credit Suisse upgraded Apple to a buy, based on the strength of iPhone sales and a potential return of capital to shareholders next year. Likewise, Citigroup upgraded Amazon to a buy from hold based on positive sales. Cramer doesn't see the value in Amazon, but nevertheless it was gobbled up with anything that smelled like a high-growth stock.
Then the day took a turn downhill when KB Home admitted it had a softening in demand, which sent everything housing related down. Likewise, Costco was downgraded by Goldman Sachs to a hold from a buy.
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The big whammy came when George Paz, the CEO of Express Scripts, told analysts that he would continue to find lower prices for customers for Hepatitis C, hammering the biotechs on price. Gilead, famous for its expensive Hep C drug, led the way for a biotech slaughtering.
"Take your pick, but recognize that if the morning doesn't know what the afternoon's doing and the closing bell doesn't look like it either, we've got a ton of work to do around these levels until we find some much-needed stability," Cramer added.
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