Jim Cramer was happy to see that the market was finally able to pull off a three-day rally that encompassed all groups of stocks, except for utilities.

"Which is fine with me because any strength in the utilities is a sign of both desperation and recession," the "Mad Money" host said.

But does the terrific action on the averages mean that this rally is the real deal, or could the oversold position that stocks started from mean this is just a dead cat bounce?

To find out, Cramer took a close look at each group of stocks to figure out if the pain for 2016 could finally be over.

The rails were a major force of negativity when stocks initially started heading down. That all changed when the chief officer of CSX confirmed that he expected first quarter earnings to decline significantly. Not only that, but he said coal would decline by more than 20 percent in 2016.

Instead of CSX getting crushed, the stock actually went higher, which fit with the staggering gain that Union Pacific had after it reported a terrible quarter.

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Another group on Cramer's radar was Nordstrom, as the stock has been working its way higher after it fell last quarter following a horrendous earnings report. Cramer thinks this could mean that when Nordstrom reports on Thursday, the worst won't matter.

Likewise, Wal-Mart rallied more than 10 percent since its last disappointing quarter, which Cramer considered encouraging for the retail group.

The travel and leisure sector group has also bounced back, even though it seemed that these stocks were surrounded by the gloom and doom of short-sellers. Those short-sellers were in pain on Wednesday when Priceline reported a very strong number, and finished up more than 11 percent for the day.

Big data has also been in the dog house since reports from Tableau Software and LinkedIn took down the group recently. However, stocks like Salesforce and Adobe that also had collateral damage are now up 10 percent. Even Apple managed to find some footing on Wednesday.

Cramer also loved the action in the consumer packaged goods sector, as Hormel and Campbell Soup have been on fire.

However, with exception of the consumer packaged goods cohort, some investors could think these stocks all bounced back because they were oversold.

"What I say is that we were in free-fall and that is no longer the case. Now we are basing with broad sector appeal," Cramer said. (Tweet This)

Cramer thinks this could be a foundation to build on — a change from the pain of 2016.

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