It's Really, Really Ugly Out There

This column by Jim Cramer appeared earlier Monday on RealMoney. Click here for a free trial, and enjoy incisive commentary all day, every day.

Take the banks. Many are breaking down to or below levels where they did big financings, some well below, like Wells Fargo(WFC), BB&T(BBT), JPMorgan(JPM) and Bank of America(BAC) -- all pretty decent banks. Others have good yield but the yield doesn't seem to stop the decline one bit as we can see from People's United Financial(PBCT) or Astoria(AD), or, worst of all, Hudson City(HCBK), which has a 5% yield and no problem at all paying it. The charts seem to think that it isn't good for it, though, because utilities of similar quality and less yield are going higher. Or how about the incredible shrinking multiple of tech? Google's(GOOG) at 19 times earnings. Intel(INTC) and Hewlett-Packard(HPQ) are at 9 times earnings, the former is supposed to be peaking in margins and is regarded as panicking while HPQ is clearly rudderless. Forget Seagate(STX) and Western Digital(WDC); I am beginning to think there is no price people will pay for them. Lots of high quality medicals seem to have lost all support. MedcoHealth(MHS), Gilead(GILD), Express Scripts(ESRX), Quest Diagnostics(DGX), these are all shrinking beyond recognition. So much for what to buy in a re-recession, my term for double-dip. The defense stocks are amazingly bleak and trade as if we aren't just pulling out of Iraq but also of Afghanistan. Raytheon's(RTN) been murdered here. Lockheed(LMT), L-3 (LLL) and Northrop Grumman(NOC) can't seem to be given away. Perhaps the worst is retail where even after we got some decent earnings last week from Target(TGT), Wal-Mart (WMT) and Urban Outfitters(URBN), the declines for stocks like the office products stores, Staples(SPLS), Office Depot (ODP) and OfficeMax(OMX) show no signs of abating. It is impossible to look at the teen retailers like Hot Topic(HOTT), Aeropostale(ARO) and American Eagle (AEO) without thinking terminal thoughts. J.C. Penney(JCP), Chico's(CHS) and Charming Shoppes (CHRS) are disasters as is Gap(GPS). 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