I was reading one of Jim Cramer's articles today in which he was telling how he had of course forseen this and that, and I thought I would check out how his portfolio was doing. I knew he had taken his followers off the cliff in a few names, but for a guy who can see the future so clearly, that must be an aberration, perhaps explained by crooked mutual fund managers out to get him. I searched the RM site high and low and couldn't find any mention of it, except of course for the extra cost premium product. Have they just dropped it from the RM site? Can anyone tell me how Jim is doing?
I like Jim..but he's lost his edge. From '88 to 2000, everyone made $......it's now that seperates the boys from the men. Cramer's got a loud mouth...except when it has to do with is losses.
i just did cramer free trial.i got a look at his port. as of last week he was down about 2-3% for this year.if i remember right he was down about 13% last year.he is always early and rides his losers down 40-50%. some of the bigger clunkers are:tyc from 40s,aol from 35 ish,cnxt from 14s,csco 24s,cmcsk 33s,vz hi 40s,msft 65s,. he had some nice winners too.unh from 55s,bby 60s,mo 45s. overall i came away feeling he is no better than 50-50 and cant be trusted to be right. check out the new newsletter from arne alsin on the site.he has great record.he picks value while cramer seems to chase.
Babak, Good article. I was travelling and missed it. vhehn, That's the data I was looking for. Not terrible, just not very good.
The one he wants his listeners to believe or the one he really trades, which is probably a mirror image to the short side. I don't trust a word that comes off his forked tongue. Oh yeah, TYC wasn't good at 33 but it's even better at 23. And the MLNM, CNXT and NOK crap. First you have to lose half your money in the short term before profits can run? He can stuff his portfolio in his ass along with his radio show. He sounds like "Chief Economist" (wahtever the hell that 's supposed to mean . . . intelligence??) Marci Rossell on a caffeine overdose. Maybe HE doesn't short stocks but his minions do per his orders. Come on, Jimbo, the investing public is wising up to this BS courtesy of Merrill soon-to-be Lynched. He and CNBC deserve each other.
I enjoy his commentary but lets look at the record. a few posts ago it stated he was down for this year and he was down last year. When the street.com went public the New York Times said Cramer was a triple threat, as a fund manager, and internet guy and and stock analyst. Barons did not like the Times integrity as they had just bought 10% company a few weeks before the IPO. And warned readers that Cramer was a triple threat. He had a dismal perfromance as a hegefund manager. Showing 1-2% when everyone else was up big. They also put down the two other prongs of the triple with Baron's normal low key sarcasm. So we know that in at least 3 of the last five years he has a poor record. Can anyone fill in those other years.
jem, Cramer has claimed many times that his fund returned mid-20's compounded over 15 years or so. Those are pretty good numbers but I would like to compare the more recent years with the earlier and see how they stack up. Also I think he did very well in 1999-2000. Of course, we have no backup for any of this. The problem I see is that he is selling a portfolio service that really is not the way he made his money. You know from reading Todd's diary that they did lots of gamma trades, they did IPO's , they no doubt got the call before crucial analyst announcements, they got the heads up from desks about order flow.
Cramer is under some pretty strict rules now that he is on CNBC with regard to his holding periods, I mean he can't blast out of his losers...the contract he signed forces him to hold everything for 3 months I belive. Something like that. I just finished his book BTW....it was actually pretty good....the comparisons to Liar's Poker fall a bit short, but the guy actually can write and if you look at whe did as far as being editor of Harvard's newspaper then working all those reporter gigs after before making some headway at GS...he actually is a pretty damn good writer, he was the first person I ever read that expained what pinning the strike on options experation mean AND HOW IT WORKED. Before then it never made sense to me no matter how many times i head guys talk about it. never made much money from that knowledge though. Avalanche...