CNBC’s Jim Cramer said Monday that reacting to market “false tells” can be a costly mistake for investors.
“If you believe the constant barrage of negativity, you’ll miss some incredible buying opportunities in great stocks that rarely come in,” Cramer said Monday on “Mad Money,” after the major U.S. averages finished in the green. The Dow Jones Industrial Average added roughly 1%, or 515 points, while the S&P 500 and Nasdaq Composite rose 0.54% and 0.56%, respectively.
However, that’s not the kind of start to the week that appeared on tap when the futures market opened at 6 p.m. ET Sunday night, Cramer noted. The S&P futures opened lower, with the sell-off attributed to falling prices in oil, natural gas, precious metals and crypto – what Cramer called a “bogus linkage” between stocks and commodities. In his view, those reversals were largely positive for the economy, not negative and reasons that investors should’ve been spooked.
Oil eased as geopolitical tensions with Iran cooled, while natural gas plunged due to warmer weather forecasts after a brutally cold stretch in the U.S. sent prices soaring. Those developments, Cramer argued, reduce pressure on consumers, giving them more money to spend elsewhere in the economy.
Meanwhile, Cramer said silver giving back some of its speculation-fueled gains will help lower costs for electronics, electric vehicles and solar panels. Additionally, Cramer said he believes weakness in crypto can actually push capital back into the stock market.
“If you knew that these negatives were actually positives, you would’ve been able to buy a host of stocks on the cheap” when the futures-driven fear pulled stocks lower at the open, Cramer said.
But Cramer said that investors who dig beyond headlines and futures moves can spot these disconnects and profit from them.
“If you’re a prisoner of pessimism, you must break free if you’re trying to make real money in this stock market,” he said.
