With the U.S. earnings season getting into full swing, Jim Cramer advised investors not to be rattled by short-term volatility.

On July 22, Cramer said investors should keep their hands still during earnings season and watch the signals the market sends, focusing on the principle of holding good companies for the long term, CNBC reported.

Cramer said an unpredictable market pattern was continuing. The Dow Jones Industrial Average fell 6 points, or 0.01 percent, while the Nasdaq slipped about 0.6 percent and the Standard & Poor's 500 fell more than 0.1 percent, leaving major indexes without a clear direction. But he said moves within individual stocks and sectors have been difficult to explain with conventional logic, as a flood of earnings reports coincides with U.S. air strikes on Iran and shifting outlooks for oil prices and interest rates.

Cramer said investors should keep their hands still during earnings season, adding that the market's secrets emerge over time and people should accept the overall flow for now. He said investors should hold good companies for the long term and block out short-term noise, adding that sharp near-term swings could instead present buying opportunities.

He cited GE Vernova as an example of the confusion. GE Vernova sank 8.7 percent after missing earnings expectations. Cramer said he acknowledged the earnings weakness, but he saw the company's long-term outlook as intact because cash flow is strong and turbine demand is solid. He said investors should distinguish between a short-term earnings shock and a long-term business outlook.

Nvidia was also presented as a similar case. Nvidia opened lower early in the session even though there was no company-specific bad news, but later rebounded to end up 2.3 percent. Cramer cited expectations of a surge in new orders at AI server maker Super Micro as a backdrop to the move. He said it could be a delayed reaction or one facet of a confusing market.

Cramer also pointed to diverging moves in interest rates and sector trends as another sign of confusion. Utility stocks such as Sempra and Dominion rose 2.7 percent and 1.8 percent, respectively, even as U.S. Treasury yields extended gains. Utilities are often bought for dividend income, so rising bond yields typically reduce their relative appeal. Yet the stocks rose, which Cramer saw as a signal that the market cannot be explained by traditional correlations alone.

Cramer warned against trying to interpret the reasons for every stock move in real time. He said investors should not expect or demand rationality and should not make bets that stake everything on earnings numbers.

His message is clear. During earnings season, stock-specific volatility can grow as individual releases, geopolitical factors, and expectations for oil prices and interest rates are reflected in share prices all at once. In that situation, he said, investors should put more weight on holding high-quality companies for a long time than on trading based on headlines. He said a key point to watch this earnings season is that companies' long-term strength matters more than short-term market swings.