You really have to ask, what kind of Med's is this guy on. how can you trust a guy that changes his opinions as frequently as a whore changes undies. Cramer After: http://www.cnbc.com/id/15840232?video=1029422664&play=1 Cramer Before: In 2006, Don't Blame the Shorts By James J. Cramer RealMoney.com Columnist 12/30/2005 9:50 AM EST Perhaps the most over-observed, over-chronicled and falsely over-weighted topic on Wall Street these days is naked shorting. First of all, you should almost never care about this process if you are a business person. If you are running a company and you are targeted by short-sellers, it's usually because you deserve it. I don't mean to be literal, but most of the short-sellers I know are smarter than the long buyers, and they are in a tough profession because the rules are so against them that it is barely worth trying to make money that way. So, they go after their targets carefully, because stocks can go up to infinity if you short them, but they stop, mercifully, at zero if you buy them. Second, the concept of not finding shares before you short them, not locating them, is something that happens very rarely, and when it does, you tend to get bought in and lose everything that you might have made. Yet, there is this whole cottage industry of people who know nothing about the mechanics of Wall Street, meaning people who have never spent time in margin, in reconciliation, in the cage, in stock loan, and don't know how things work. They keep writing and talking as if having no such thing as naked shorting would make the world quite different and more positive. What a bunch of hooey! To refresh, when you short, you need a locate; that is, you need to find the shares that you are going to borrow to sell. If you don't get a locate, or even if you get a locate and then the stock becomes overshorted, meaning too many shares are short vs. the float, you can be subject to being bought in. I used to short stocks all the time the right way. I first would get a locate from one of many of the places I had accounts, and then I would sell the stock short. But so often, others would join the short and I would be told that the stock could no longer be borrowed even though I had gotten the locate ahead. Then, the games begin. You have to beg not to be bought in. You have to plead. And in the end, it doesn't matter. Someone has bought the stock and takes the shares out of the vault so he needs them physically. (That's usually a sign that management has "figured the game out" and told everyone to get the stock out of "Street name" so it can't be borrowed so a squeeze can occur.) I have been "bought in" numerous times. You don't even know you are being bought in when you are, and you are not subject to time and sales requirements, meaning that you can be bought in at any price the desk that needs the stock sees fit. I got bought in on National Community Bank of Rutherford 8 points higher than the stock was trading. That's allowed. That's part of the long-side rigging that makes all of this squawking about naked shorting such a joke. But that's probably because the squawkers have no idea how the process works. Anyway, suffice it to say that the shorts, in the end, have very little power to manipulate down, to control the situation or even to influence the situation. But there are always managements eager to deflect the core weakness of their own businesses by suggesting that naked shorting is behind their demise. What a joke. The reality is that there are about four or five good short-selling firms, and they could be wiped out if any of the companies they are shorting turn out to be real and good and capable of sustained growth. I don't want to waste a lot of your or my time in 2006 talking about the powerful short-sellers. They are a myth. I do want to wage a campaign against the shorts' foes though, because without the shorts, how would we discover the frauds like Enron and WorldCom? You believe the sell-side research people will uncover them? The government? The ratings agencies? The rank-and-file media? Give me a break. And get off the backs of the shorts. They aren't worth your attention. Random musings: Syneron Medical (ELOS:Nasdaq) is under a lot of pressure. Glad I got off that horse at a high. ... A big welcome to Commerce Bancorp (CBH:NYSE) , TheStreet.com's new neighbor; a new branch just opened down the block from our offices. At last, I can move my stuff there so I won't be treated like a non-entity as I am at my current bank, which will go nameless.
Cramer is an idiot who speaks both for and against things simultaneously thereby guaranteeing he can claim he is right no matter what happens.
He's a sociopath. He effectively hides it from his unsophisticated audience by behaving like an ass-clown.
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It's really unbelievable. Having been at a bank, at a hedge fund and a daytrader, I have never been able to short a stock without a locate, ever. Who can naked short sell then? I don't think any of the 'opponents' have a clue what actually goes on. Like the ban on short selling banks. The buyers of CDS's on banks debt were the major culprits at the time for the pressure on banks. OK for them to buy protection/puts. OK for the CDS market makers to short stocks to protect themselves, I believe they were exempt from the ban. The blame was put on 'naked' short sellers at the time. I think they are talking about short selling in general, but Cramer should know his terminology better. For every buyer there has to be a seller. Aren't short sellers providing liquidity? Isn't liquidity a good thing? How come overinflated stocks that come crashing down aren't scrutinized as to who brought them to lofty levels. If you think that manipulation on the upside isn't rampant, then you are not looking close enough, or don't care because markets/stocks going higher are not a 'concern' for the public. Tell that to the folks that bought JDSU at $129 and sold it at $2 six months later.
I do not have the url for the vid. but I am sure you all have seen Cramer admitting that he created artificial action while at his hedge fund and said it was a lucrative crime. Regardless of whether all who can afford to do this or not is of no relevance, who would admit to it? The worst part about this amateur mistake is Cramer went to law school.
Between these inconsistencies, his connections, and the Barrons data illustrating some front running of his daily picks, I can't understand why Fed's are not looking closer into him. Stock Manipulation is still a criminal offense, or so I was led to believe.