Market action shows the debt ceiling is not Wall Street’s concern, Cramer says

CNBC’s Jim Cramer said Monday that Wall Street isn’t reacting to debt ceiling stress the way you might think — in fact, many buyers seem unaffected as chaos reigns in Washington.

“Is it possible that the entire debt ceiling is meaningless?” Cramer asked, calling Monday’s market resilience bizarre. “That’s certainly what the market is saying.”

He pointed to the way some companies that reported terrible quarters — especially those related to cybersecurity — sent their shares higher on Monday, while classic growth stocks that typically rise on fears of debt defaults — like PepsiCo, General Mills, McDonald’s and Procter & Gamble – was painful.

“These have had big runs for months due to fears that [Federal Reserve] is going to throw us into a recession,” Cramer said. “But they’re being annihilated as if the market is going to take a debt default in stride.”

Cramer added that it seems unlikely that PepsiCo stock will fall by $5 a share unless “Wall Street thinks the economy is about to roar.” Ultimately, investors need to ask themselves which industries would really be affected by a government default, he said, citing an admittedly eclectic group of stocks such as real estate, utilities, heavy machinery and other entities that rely on loans.

“There are so many permutations of securities that interact with U.S. Treasuries that all the pricing mechanisms and all the institutions that need those coupons will end up in a real jam,” Cramer said. “But it’s a fixable jam.”