May 30, 2007
Satisfying Our Hunger for Spectacle
Kind of a long, strange, semi-honest, soul-searching piece from Jim Cramer:
“For the people who still can’t stand me, anything I do, or what I claim to stand for, I can offer only one thing. Despite the fact that wherever I go I get asked for my autograph, and if I stop for too long I end up getting my picture taken with a dozen strangers, I remain completely and utterly repulsive to myself.”
Odd, no? I’ve always liked Cramer — he’s smart and he writes well, but I wouldn’t watch Mad Money even if I could. I think reading and quiet, solitary reflection are the best ways to come up with good investment ideas.
(Were Cramer (in 1974) and John Belushi separated at birth?)
Cat: | Time: 12:09 pm (utc+8)
May 30th, 2007 at 7:44 pm
the reason people hate him? well, some don’t like his style. some don’t like his constant blabbering. and some don’t like his touting himself as the greatest ever.
i’d fall into the latter camp. i find m.m. mildly entertaining for a stock show, but i don’t watch it since i can get the information on it without suffering through him.
however - he’s longer-term equal to a coin flip. he doesn’t use actual stops. that combination is equal to blowups waiting to happen, so periodically, his action alerts portfolio blows up (see NT), or his winners of the new world from 2000, where he was wildly bullish on the sector longer-term through a good chunk of the naz blowup.
and his action alerts portfolio, over 5+ years? barely beating the s&p (and if you subscribed to it over this time, your performance would be less than if you just bought the SPYs and sat back). his performance in 2006 alone? below the s&P (6% vs 11%, i think).
does he know *how the markets operate* (short term)? yup, i think so. does he know how to teach? yup. but does he know how to trade stocks longer-term himself? there’s been zero proof of it, and he’s had 6+ years to show he can do it.
May 31st, 2007 at 3:28 am
That picture is unrecognizable. One of the few people who looks somewhat better 30 years older.
I bet his AA portfolio would do better if he had some buy and hold rule - couldnt trade but had to hold for a year or something.
May 31st, 2007 at 4:59 am
bob maybe you should look up his hedge fund performance- 20yrs at avg of around 24% annual return i think. he knows how to pick stocks. problem is his style/length of holding that the avg person cant keep up w/. his style is information arbitrage- he reads everything and thinks he has to know everything. great if your juiced like he is, bad if your an amatuer trying to emulate his style. my favorite though after reading his books and following him for years at a distance is how he mocks chartists, but yet his wife aka ‘trading goddess’ was a chartist and even saved his firm back in the day using her ‘oscillator’ to overleverage their fund at the bottom back in the 90’s. he means well and is clownish entertaing and you can pick up some gems from him. much better than listening to the loud mouthed b maria b talk over guests.
May 31st, 2007 at 5:12 am
When you have a hedge fund you can buy on weakness and buy more on further weakness. This goes against your convential trading of cutting losses short. Cramer doesn’t pratice the art of humility and I think some people on the street went against his calls when the flock of sheep followed his calls. Confessions of a Street Addict was good but I didn’t care for Real Money. Nicholas Maier used to be one of his traders and he wrote a book called “Trading with the enemy : seduction and betrayal on Jim Cramer’s Wall Street” which was a very good view of what it is like working with Jim Cramer every day.
May 31st, 2007 at 5:16 am
yup, i know his hedge fund performance. that was all short-term stuff, which i’ll give him credit for…although (esp. if you’ve read _confessions_ or read his old posts when he was athe fund on TSCM) you know he goes gaga the wrong way at bottoms and tops. i only trade (contra) cramer 2 ways, and that’s one of them.
however…his long-term stuff is ONLY what i was commenting on. that’s his action alerts. and he’s been bad (for a market genius) at that. i’m not comparing him to someone buying his picks, but what his action alerts have done.
(btw, the fund was about 10 years at around 24%, not 20. and it was NOT longer term stuff).
actually, his action alerts portfolio would do a lot better if it just had an o’neil “sell at 8% loss” rule, which he could have done. but he doesn’t believe in stops, believes funds are out to get him, etc.
i agree RE: chartists - he does that, yet his ‘best’ picks on the show are those which are beautiful technical setups, at/near 52 wk highs.
May 31st, 2007 at 10:30 am
yeah read maiers book when it first came out and heard rumors he tried to squash it at the publisher. was an early subscriber to thestreet.com when it debuted and canceled after about 2 years but it has been interesting seeing him run the race since then.
my mistake bob on 10yrs. interesting that his better picks are usually just end up being high RSI stocks at or near 52 week high/momo plays and the pre-earnings calls(guesses) have been some of the ones to smoke him.
May 31st, 2007 at 10:39 am
Cramer traded as well as the next “little guy” who’s able to throw around $100 million in commissions annually.