Is Cramer a Fraud - Recent Allegations! MUST READ***

[calven]

http://www.thestreet.com/_tscfoc/markets/marketfeatures/10270634.html

cal 

[shipman]

  Interesting thought--not much meat in the article.  I don't think he's a fraud, he actually gives good advice on how to look at the market.  But, I find that his picks are often untimely.  Alot of them run up afterhours when he announces them, or gap up the next morning.  He only picks stocks which can be shorted.  And, I think that if you tried to follow these fundamental picks at the time they are mentioned, you wouldn't be too profitable in the short term.  The facts are that Cramer discloses that you need to let alot of these picks 'come in'.  So he's giving you the fundamentals and leaving the technical entry and exit up to the listener.  Kind of a safe recommendation.  He never gives specific entries or exits, just 'mon backs' and 'house of pain'.  So if you're not a lemming or wannabe you could probably profit with patience.  That's the reason I just listen to his rationale and learn from his thought process.  If you really want to make money, with detailed entries and exits, in the short and intermediate term, you subscribe to 3SOF.

[john b mcginnis]

Crammer is entertaining, that's how I view him. I never bought any of his picks. But, here is a recent pick of his with a short term gain that i've watched. It closed at 6.92 prior to his recommendation. Closed yesterday @ 8.68. Might be luck! BKHM, He said it would double in price!

                               http://finance.yahoo.com/q?d=t&s=BKHM

[Quasi]

Crammer a crook, I don't know.  I do watch him occasionally, but only for a few minutes as I find him a bit irritating.  I also agree that timing is a bit of a problem, too many people issuing market buy orders at the open the next day.  You need to do some DD and see if you agree with the  fundamentals, if so then do some TA and wait for a low risk entry point after the dust has settled from it being hyped on Mad Money.

I find the same thing happens with all the free news letters that seem to get ahold of your email address, they are all pumping something and trying to sell subscriptions to their letter or picking service.  My opinion is you can play some of these stocks, but its a bit of a musical chair game, as mostly its just the people following the letter who are buying & driving it up, then more emails saying look how great it is, and up more.  OK you gotta use some TA to figure out when to get out and it probably better be before they tell you to get out, otherwise buyers will be long gone.

Good Example
A few years ago, when they still allowed telephone sales people to make cold calls to people at work.   A friend got a call, the guy seemed OK and dropped lots of names of other people in the company he had done investments with and was making money.  Talked him into a small $500 trial investment.  Stock went up, a while later the guy talked my friend into buying some more stock, this happened a couple of times.  Then the friend thought maybe he should sell or take some profits as the stock price was up about 100%.   Called the guy up and he agreed that maybe it wouldn't be a bad idea to take some profits, however there was only one problem, he wasn't sure who he could sell the stock to as my friend was the one and only shareholder!!!!

Actually the above story is just a joke, but I think it does illustrate the point quite well.

On this same topic, it is illegal for us to pump and dump or do anything which would manipulate the price of a stock in the market and can be charged by regulators.  But the media can do this quite easily with their articles, stories comments etc.  The public seems to think it must be true because of where it came from.  But I find in these days of gotta be first with the story on the internet they are not doing the same kind of research, cross checks, verification, and checks for liability.  Seems like you can just print whatever you want and have no liability and trust me these articles can often create huge price swings.

More than a few times I've emailed writers at Barrons, The Wallstreet Journal, news wire services and others, pointing out major errors in an article.  These are usually on stocks I own, so I know whats going on and find it very upsetting that this type of info can get published from supposedly credible sources.  Often seems like a teenager with ten minutes of research and no knowledge of the subject, prepared the story and had the authority to hit the publish button.   Now maybe 20% of the time I get an email back saying, yes we looked into it and you're right, sorry.   But never have I seen a correction  published to the article, guess that would be a liability admitting they were wrong or misleading.

About 5 years ago, when I first started getting out of Mutal funds and doing my own investing, I used to watch all the TV stock talk shows.  Now that I've been into TA for a few years, (just a newbie, we never learn it all),  I hardly ever listen to those guys, just call em Anal-cysts, talking heads most of the time, as they flip flop their story or position daily to fit the current market condition of the day and then extrapolate it a year into the future stating this is what will happen.   Now don't get me wrong there are some good guys out there and some excellent articles, just hard to find  em.   I also use these guys as a bit of a contraian indicator, ie if a whole bunch of buy recommendations from different houses come out in a short period, I prepare my exit plan, or look into put options.  Usually they are way off on timing for any short to medium term trader.

Sorry for the rantings, just filling in some time till I have to pick up my daughter from swimming.

Happy trading / investing
Quasi

[tokyopua]

I am not sure if he is a crook, he could well be, but I credit him for knowing a lot about the market in general from a fundametals perspective.  Listening to his show gave me the motivation to trade, but using a lot of his picks back then did lose me more money than it made me, because I wasnt doing the "homework" he suggests.  The problem is that the picks tend to me more long term, and its hard to determine when to sell if you dont know anything about technical analysis, you would just have to hope the stock gets mentioned again at the right time and he says to sell. 

I agree you usually cant buy his picks the next day due to the automatic price rise that happens.  Sometimes you can buy a Friday pick that wont pop much on Monday morning, maybe not as many people watch the show then.  In any case, you really have to look at the chart on the stocks he picks.  Now that I do that, I make more money off trading his picks than I lose.  The best so far has been ATI, I have over 50% gain on that stock after buying it in January.  Have also made money off GOOG, AMTD, even a short position in NMTI which later crashed horribly after I sold it knowing it was risky (Cramer said it was to be bought only with "Mad Money", that was a clue for me to "get in and get out quick").

I recently started subscribing to his Realmoney.com blog and if nothing else have been impressed about his predictions about what will happen in commodities after the various selloffs.  He is though a bit too staunch about defending his old stock picks like UNH, etc.  Overall though I feel I am learning a lot about the fundamentals side when I read his columns.

So in summary, I guess the bad thing about Cramer is that a lot of people will follow him blindly to losses because they just buy whatever he says.  In the NMTI example, it was so bad that a company with stock ticker NMT went up in the after hours at the same time as NMTI because people got the wrong symbol.  Talk about not doing your "homework", they didnt even check the company name, they just bought a symbol.  But if you arent so impulsive and know enough about technical analysis to see if his timing is right and if you learn the other intricacies about how his picks are interpreted by the market, you can make money from him IME.  So for me its just a pragmatic approach, I will learn what I can from him, and do my best to make money from that knowledge.

[dennis67]

you either love him or hate him  i think he drinks way to much java

[vic666]

Cramer's a classic "entertainer"...and that's why he is so popular...it's so easy to either love him or hate him..no grey areas in between....and that's why his show is so popular.

those who love him, love his show and get the ratings up for him...those who hate him...love to hate him..and talk about him in the negative so much and that get's the word going about the guy and the haters now watch his show just to find ways to hate him more!!! 

I'd love to see the guy locked up in a 6' X 6' dark cell for 2 days and see what comes outta the door after that.

i watch his show sporadically...i like his entertaining nature, so i guess i like the guy