Stop Trading!: Why Is the Market Up?

“The market should have been down really huge today,” Cramer said during Stop Trading!.

But with less than an hour to go in Friday’s session, the Dow was up about 10 points, a marked difference from early-day expectations of a massive decline.

A bailout for Detroit’s Big 3 automakers died in the Senate and news of an alleged $50 billion fraud by Bernard Madoff hit the wires late Thursday, leading most on Wall Street to believe that a rough day was ahead for investors.

“If you were a bear last night,” Cramer said, “you were partying like it’s going out of style.”

But the market has held up. And Cramer thinks traders will carry knowledge of that resiliency into the weekend. That no matter how devastating the news, stocks seem to be holding steady.

Action in the Nasdaq indicates buyers there think the worst of the declines is over. Weakness in the dollar is all the reason tech traders need to be bullish apparently. That index is up about 17 points Friday.

Cramer sees a correlation between the present-day Nasdaq and that of 2003, when the index had dropped so low investors couldn’t resist buying.

“I think the Nasdaq is trading as it bottomed in a previous era,” he said.

(Watch Mad Money tonight for Cramer’s technology recommendations. There aren’t many, he said, “where you think that fundamentals could turn.”)

As for the autos, Cramer reiterated his call that investors should own only the preffered stock of GM and Ford . Common shares “are zombies,” he said, adding that a bet on the common stock is similar to buying a lottery ticket.

Cramer also said that Boeing is looking more and more like GM, as labor problems drag that company down. Given the problems that GM’s having with the United Auto Workers, he thinks BA is a sell.

“American’s starting to recognize that you may love unions or hate them,” Cramer said, “but you can’t invest with them.”

Questions for Cramer? [e-mail]

Questions, comments, suggestions for the Mad Money website? [e-mail]