Cramer says market needs a ‘total give up’ to find a bottom and signal an all-clear to buyers

The stock market needs to get worse before it can get better, CNBC’s Jim Cramer said Friday.

“I’m looking for a day where people to say ‘I give up,'” Cramer said on “Squawk Box,” heading into another wild trading day, with both the Nasdaq and the S&P 500 now in correction territory.

“We have to have a total give up, and I still think that we haven’t had the give up that I’d like to see. We’re starting to get it,” he added, ahead of stocks turning positive Friday.

Investors shouldn’t look to companies like Chevron to save them, the “Mad Money” host said.

Chevron shares were losing roughly 5% after the energy giant Friday morning reported mixed quarterly results. Chevron’s stock hit an all-time high in the prior session.

Apple shares were jumping more than 5%, adding to gains following strong earnings late Thursday. The tech bellwether’s strength failed to inspire the market early Friday but then helped it higher.

“We have to have these stocks go down … and and when they all go down, then I think we finally get a bottom,” Cramer said. “It’s clear that we’re in a phase for people to say, ‘Get me out,’ … you’ve got those periods of denial, and now there is just acceptance, and I think people are going to say, ‘I can’t take it anymore.'”

Cramer said, “You don’t want no hope and no help from any of the companies,” but the sellers need to exhaust themselves before buyers can step back into the market.

Recalling the Gulf War’s impact on the market in the early 1990s, he added, “We used to get recovery on Friday. People would be afraid to go in shorter on the weekend.”

“Maybe that’s kind of where we might be,” he said.

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