The stock market must deteriorate before it can improve, CNBC’s Jim Cramer said on Friday.
“I’m looking for a day where people will just say, ‘I give up,'” Cramer said on “Squawk Box,” heading into another wild trading day with both the Nasdaq and S&P 500 now in correction territory are.
“We have to totally give up and I still think we didn’t have the surrender I would like to see. We’re starting to understand it,” he added, before stocks turned positive on Friday.
Investors shouldn’t look to companies like Chevron to save them, the Mad Money host said.
Chevron shares lost about 5% after the energy giant reported mixed quarterly results on Friday morning. The company’s stock hit an all-time high in the previous session.
Apple shares rose more than 5%, adding to gains after strong gains late Thursday. The tech leader’s strength failed to inspire the market early Friday but then helped it bounce.
“We have to make these stocks go down…and if they all go down then I think we’re finally going to bottom,” Cramer said. “It’s clear we’re going through a period where people are like, ‘Get me out’ … You have these periods of denial, and now there’s just acceptance, and I think people are going to be like, ‘ I can not stand it anymore.'”
Cramer said, “They don’t want hope and they don’t want any help from any of the companies,” but sellers have to exhaust themselves before buyers can get back in the market.
Recalling the impact of the Gulf War on the market in the early 1990s, he added: “We used to recover on Friday. People were afraid to go shorter at the weekend.”
“Maybe we’re something like that,” he said.
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