Here is the article's quote that, in my opinion, is the key to everything: Regarding earnings per share: "We won't have to be constrained by that methodology for quarters to come." SOme high profile, well-respected individuals were calling for a new way to dictate prices. Remember Henry Blodget? Earnings meant nothing.
'In February 2000, hedge-fund manager James J. Cramer proclaimed that Internet-related companies "are the only ones worth owning right now." These "winners of the new world," as he called them, "are the only ones that are going higher consistently in good days and bad." Cramer even took a potshot at Graham: "You have to throw out all of the matrices and formulas and texts that existed before the Web...If we used any of what Graham and Dodd teached us, we wouldn't have a dime under management." Cramer's favorite stocks "did not go higher consistently in good times and bad." By year-end 2002, one of the 10 had already gone bankrupt, and a $10,000 investment spread equally across Cramer's picks would have lost 94%, leaving you with a grand total of $597.44. *page 16 of 'The Intelligent Investor: Revised Edition, with commentary by Jason Zweig'
Many on this forum talk of the connection between gambling and trading. For me, if there is a connection, it is between sports gambling and trading. Both deal with taking positions based on opinions. When CNBC was riding high on the bull market, it offered up Kramer and a lot of others giving opinions which were self-serving and pumping up their own positions. Art Cashin was just about the only one on CNBC offering some sobering insights. I can remember him saying many times, how do you evaluate a stock which has a P/E with no E. This made a lot of sense because we all know in mathematics you cannot divide by zero. I always saw Kramer as a tout much like the touts who prey on sports gamblers. Al Pacino did a nice film on such touts entitled Two for the Money. Kramer used to boast in his television days before the Nasdaq crash, about his days betting on the dog races. The Pacino character nails Kramer pretty good. He is someone craving action and attention, and resigned to his own failures, now makes his money vicariously telling others where to throw their money.
Cramer blew that internut call, but I could have sworn he said to start selling tech after he wrote that article. Not that I like Cramer - I detest him. But I don't think he was bullish all the way down either.
Come on, Cramer sold them all. Hi Tuesday, goodbye, on Wednesday. Cramer was a trader, not an investor.
"Nothing is ever bought on Wall St. It is sold". Jim Cramer has sold himself, and CNBC, being ratings whores, has gone along. "Certifiable Genius"!! They say that. To consider Cramer successful, you have to define success as making a lot of money without regard to method or madness, with no regard to legacy. Some people go for that. But could you live always looking over your shoulder? Mr. Market is not kind to pretenders, and it will not be kind to Cramer. I just hope he keeps bragging about tipping Faber after he bought calls, and raiding the market. Don't think they're aren't people out there tracking this stuff. Eventually, he'll step on his dick big time. I think the SEC subpeona toss almost buried him, and it still might. Stay tuned. I agree with the "Certifiable' part, anyway.
My recollection is that Cramer talked a bullish line on the NASDAQ through all of 2000 and well into the beginning of 2001. He called it a bear market when $COMPX finally reached about 60% down in February. I don't remember much of what he said after that point. I rather suspect he was recommending specific buys all the way down to the bottom in 2002-2003. I remember listening on and off to Kudlow and Cramer during that whole period: they always seemed to have reasons why the latest meltdown was nothing more than a great new buying opportunity. I could be wrong about that, but it's what I seem to remember. I don't think, on the whole, that the pair of them served any of their listeners who happened to be mostly long term investors very well. They should have been advising caution, telling people to take a little bit off of the table, especially if they had a longer time horizon, and had moved into the high flyers in a big way. Signs of a major top were everywhere even before the beginning of 2000. Even I could tell that, by considering some of the outrageously good short term returns that I had gotten, for doing nothing more than buying stocks that looked hot and trying to dump them for a quick profit. I mean, I'ld only started in the mid-1990's. It was just too good to be true. And there were definitely experienced traders around who were bearish in the late 1990's. I benefitted a great deal by listening to them. I was very late doing it, but did manage to limit the drawdowns I suffered in my IRAs, which I had been leaving 100% long stocks. The trouble, to be fair to Cramer, myself, and all of the other permabulls from that time, was that each drop really did look, at first, like it was a buying opportunity. There were some major dips during the bull years too, and each time it had proven correct to buy into those dips. Surprisingly enough, it's not always easy to know when conditions have changed, even once they actually have.
"Surprisingly enough, it's not always easy to know when conditions have changed, even once they actually have." True. But you're not telling anybody you're the second coming of Jesus Christ. This guy is. He should have known. Or, is it that without his network of sources tipping him, he's no good?