To a degree. He never mentions his buy Dow 14,000 call. His buy XLF July 2008 call. His $80 stocks go to $120 calls. He got these dead wrong and he never has mentioned them again. So I wouldn't call him much better than anybody else in this regard even though he tries to play it up like he is so honest.
True that. I've also see him make some very good calls. I remember he told people don't buy at the 8,000 level that in fact we're going closer to 6,000 on the DOW. That was also very correct and was about a month out, even though a lot of individuals on TV were saying 8K is the bottoming of the market place. And again, what about his huge rant that caught lot of attention, he was screaming his head off at how 'bad it was' out there, back before things got even worse. Not sure why people like to rag on him so much, perhaps they lost money on his calls and now complain? What about good calls, better than the ones by his colleagues? Like I said, the guy moves around a lot (on stage) and will of course get ridiculed, even for the simple fact that people don't like the way he runs his television program, much less his stock picks. -Avoid one way tracks -troll
The reason I hate him is because he does the following: 1. He will give two opposing calls on different days but fairly close together in time. For example, "take any money out of the market that you will need in 5 years", then a month later he says to buy. Then he has selective memory - whichever way the market goes, his "call" was right. 2. He says not to buy his stocks in the aftermarket after he recommends them but then the next day he will say something like "Wow what a great pick I had last night, my stock is up 10% today! What a great call!" And the thing is that there is no way you could have gotten a fill on his recommendation at the price that he recommended it. But he acts like you could. 3. However, if the stock goes down on a recommendation, he will claim that you should have waited 5 days before buying it. Anyway, he has a repeated pattern of duplicity in all of his calls and then he just "goes with the flow" and claims that one of the two possible outcomes was what he intended. I find this infuriating. At this point, he has probably tricked himself into believing that he really is a great stock picker and that he can't believe anybody could actually be losing money on his advice.
Here is the reason Cramer is on teevee: Every time his name is mentioned, it generates a huge thread. EVERYONE has an opinion on him. He draws eyeballs letting his employer SELL ADS. That's what he's there for. It doesn't matter what his track record, he is there to attract attention.
He's left a huge paper trail, and it's going to trap him. That's what I'm waiting for. We cannot just say, "aw, shucks", to the scourge(s) who created this mess. He's part of it. That's my opinion. Let's see what plays out. But, just looking at him lie on TV, not thinking anybody has an old tape, shows you he's got some crossed wires somewhere.