JJC:    Everybody and their mother have been saying all day that good retail sales drove the action up...  that it was retail sales that fueled this big rally...

That's completely and utterly - and, best of all, demonstrably - false.

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So, the idea that the retail sales number that came out at 8:30, is behind the whole move... totally wrong... as anyone who'd done the least bit of homework would have known...

For some twisted reason, I feel compelled to actually tell the truth...

What's the truth?...

Today's action was driven by oil!...  Or, more precisely, by oil's inability to go lower...

It was oil's resilience that started this rally... Oil held up, despite a big build in inventories that were announced today.  That's when the market took off...

That big build should have sent have sent oil down...  It went up...

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Now, that's the real guts of this rally...

A commodity that refuses to go down, in the face of some numbers that ought to have crushed it...

There's too much demand for oil, and not enough supply, so we need alternatives, and we need alternatives now...

Oil is the umbrella that makes everything else work...

We had the kind of oil-based rally that was so common in 2007, which is how I understand what went on today, and exactly how I think you should play it tomorrow...

Instant replay of 2007, based on higher oil futures, despite big inventories.  Now that - and not retail - is the real story.  Everything spreads out from oil to oil service, right?... Exxon (XOM),  Schlumberger (SLB)... Conoco (COP*), Transocean (RIG*), Halliburton (HAL)...

At the same time, a stock on the opposite end of the energy spectrum, but every bit as good, Cramer-fave, First Solar (FSLR)...   FSLR reported a blowout, better-than-expected quarter, along with historically fabulous upside guidance...  They basically did the quarter I was looking for next year at this time... which created its own umbrella...  and, by the way, I still like FSLR here, even up this much... I've liked it from $50, to $283... So, with oil going to $100, I would still buy it up $50 smackers...

FSLR's spectacular day moved the whole solar group, which included Applied Materials (AMAT), which didn't have a good quarter away from solar...  and MEMC (WFR), which makes semiconductors for solar panels.  

These are all classic oil derivative plays.

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With oil going up, comes natural gas...  the replacement for other fuels that are in shortage for the moment... by the way, natural gas is still incredibly cheap, compared to where oil was in 2006, and compared now to coal, which is another group that works, when the oil umbrella works...

I believe these stocks are still worth buying...

Ultra Petroleum Corp. (UPL), XTO Energy Inc. (XTO*) - be careful, it just issued 20 million shares... Apache Corp. (APA), Anadarko Petroleum Corp. (APC)...  even after their staggering gains today.

And, of course, Arch (ACI) and Peabody (BTU)... they'll keep going up... along with the rails that ship it... most notably, CSX (CSX) where, oddly, the great CEO, Michael Ward - even though the stock's about at its 52-week high - is about to lose his job, because hedge funds don't like him, want the stock to go higher, and because he's doing too well...

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The oil umbrella extends to agriculture, which is now firmly a part of the energy sector, thanks to the inefficient, and now we learn, environmentally-harmful, embrace of ethanol by our government...

I am warming up to Deere (DE), down $10 from its high...  That was a good quarter... not to mention Mosaic (MOS) on the reversal.  That intrigues me...  because it's got the lowest cost of the fertilizer market, and it costs too much to build new plants to make the stuff... I like DE and MOS for ag plays in this market...

Go into the Goldman Sachs conference call on MOS, and you'll hear exactly what I'm talking about...

Plus, China's not going to be exporting fertilizer anymore.   That's really going to cut back on MOS's competition...

I don't care as much about Monsanto (MON), because the wheat move doesn't involve them.  They're corn.   And I'm worried about Bunge (BG), because they have to put up lots of money, because of margin problems in wheat...     

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Then there are the infrastructure stocks...  more oil umbrella... which I also think are worth buying, as these always work off oil, with any run...

Chicago Bridge & Iron (CBI), Shaw Group (SGR), Jacobs Engineering (JEC)...  they are the infra plays that ramp the most with the oil move...  And, of course, I've touted them all shamelessly and endlessly...  Even though they've gone down, I think they can go higher... 

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All of this has been pretty straightforward so far.  Let's get a little less linear.

The First Solar (FSLR) umbrella isn't about its sector alone...  It's also about high-growth momentum stocks...

When a high-growth momentum stock goes up, it gives an umbrella for a lot of others...

It gave all the momentum names a chance to shine today.  I felt very nostalgic, right?...  Just like the old days... 2007...  Remember when Research In Motion (RIMM), and Apple (AAPL), and Intuitive Surgical (ISRG), good-stock-gone-bad, Google (GOOG) used to go higher all the time?...

Momentum trades as a unit, as bizarre as that may sound...