I think the market, spurred by the good ADP payroll data, could have handled one errant punch thrown by some Fed officials who last month mused that stock prices might be too high. But the second punch, the Paul Ryan sucker punch? The one that said tax reform's going to take longer than health care -- not that there's any real compare there because what's longer than never? Nah, that's way too hard because it is the punch that says he personally is going to wreck Trump's biggest legislative centerpiece, lower tax rates.
Unbelievable.
And just after we had done a fantastic roundtable today where all four participants were pretty sanguine about relatively quick passage, because who doesn't like a tax cut?
Discipline saved you today. The discipline not to chase. And believe me, did I want to chase for Action Alerts PLUS, but I feared that by the time we had bought, something would have happened to make the stocks we bought reverse.
And that's what you have to fear.
But you know what? So much of the selling was program-driven that if you look at what was able to handle the onslaught and mark them down, they could be good go-to places tomorrow if we predictably open down.
Here are the ones I was astonished about. First is Salesforce.com (CRM) , which maintained its gain all day even though nothing's going on.
Makes you wonder if something is going on.
Second is McDonald's (MCD) . Now I am a little mystified why this one acted so well with all of those executive departures, but it is tempting on weakness.
Third is Treehouse (THS) , the private-label food company that I like so much that seems to have finally gotten its footing. Fourth is a twofer: Lowe's LOW and Home Depot (HD) . Stephen "Sarge" Guilfoyle loves Home Depot and it is truly turning out to be the retail savior, ex Amazon (AMZN) , out there.
Finally, there's another duo: MasterCard (MA) and Visa (V) .
These two just don't know when to quit.
So focus on those tomorrow if the market looks like it's headed lower. They have some bids ... and some staying power.
Action Alerts PLUS, which Cramer co-manages as a charitable trust, has no positions in the stocks mentioned.