What does the market want today? Europe's terrible, back to the sell-on-anything news, including German note demand. So we have to return to oxygenated growth.
Who has it? Intuitive Surgical (ISRG) and United Rentals (URI) do.
These are two intriguing companies as they are polar opposites in needing strong economies. ISRG is the quintessential weak economy play, but it's got the product that the hospitals need and the procedure use of the Da Vinci continues to climb. The acceleration in earnings and revenues is extraordinary and will be a major focus today. You've got revenue guidance going to 21% from 19% from 17%. There are so few companies with that kind of revenue growth that the momentum here blows your mind.
URI is fork lifts. It's earth movers and most importantly it is booms, the giant lifts you need to construct things. The rental business is truly amazing and it is only going to get better when it closes the RSC Holdings deal -- a huge competitor -- at the end of the month.
All of this has to do with increased building in the United States and while the commercial loan growth of the banks, even the best banks like US Bancorp (USB), is subpar you have to believe things are getting better when URI's orders are so strong. We got a sign of this from Titan Machinery (TITN) when it reported its blowout. URI confirms the trend.
Of course neither of these two is in the Dow. People will be focused on IBM (IBM), which was lumpy (see our Action Alerts Plus note). They will focus on what looks like slowing Intel (INTC) growth, but I think can still be explained away by a difficult product transition and lingering Thai flood issues.
But my takeaway so far is that I can't believe how these two polar opposite companies are steaming ahead and that's where people should focus on during another day when Europe is back in control because of weakness that we all know is going to continue for some time.
Random musings: How could so many people believe that Cree (CREE) would do well? This was such a hyped q. I remain entirely negative on the LED company as I have been for more than a year now.
Editor's Links
More from Jim Cramer:
