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channao
08-26-2006, 03:30 AM
Can You Make Money From Jim Cramer's Picks?

Saw this article on http://www.bearmode.com

An article on the Internet Stock Blog states cites a study by the Department of Finance at the Kellogg School of Management. In summary:

"Results of the study

When Engelberg and his colleagues tested the market data for each of the 246 Mad Money buy recommendations, they discovered the following consistent outcomes for Cramer's stock picks:

- significant short-term price increases (between 1.96% and 5.19%) after he recommended them, but those gains were nearly all reversed within 12 days after the episode;

- large increases in trading volume and buy/sell imbalance over the short term (trading volume for small firms was 3 times larger than normal on the day of the recommendation, nearly 9 times normal on day 1 following the recommendation and 4.5 times normal on day 2); but

- no significant change in bid/ask spreads -- this suggests that the market makers and institutional investors did not regard Cramer's blessing as improving the value of the stocks in question.

When the Kellogg researchers discovered this consistent pattern of Cramer recommendation/price jump/price decline, they realised it created a different opportunity to ring the register. To quote page 9 of their paper:

Given the extremely high abnormal returns from selling Cramer's recommended stocks on day 1 and buying them back a few days later, we expect some traders to be aware of this strategy and to exploit the mispricing by shorting the recommended stocks.

Original source found at http://internet.seekingalpha.com/article/11461

zyzzyva57
08-30-2006, 08:47 PM
The weakness to Cramer is he has a nightly show, and he has to many times fill time to separate the ads. After a year + of watching him, I am good at picking out his filler crap and stocks worth a paper trade, and then maybe a buy. (I want stock in the $10 area.) For example, I played with his recommedation of "q" and "abb" for a long time, wanting the latter for the hurricane season and the former for growth. I got into their metrics, but more importantly, their psychology (I maintain a stock has a psychology.). Before the hurricane season and when the August doldrums hit, I bought both stocks cheap. At this writing, I am being rewarded.

I view Cramer as my Master, because he imparts, sorry for the word, but the psychology of Wall Street, and the tricks of the trade, e.g., how the big players use Convertable Bonds against us. If you get the raw definition of Convertable Bonds, you yawn. However, he explained how this bond is used against us. Indeed, Cramer now that he spends more and more time educating me, I am getting better at stocks. I am a firm believer in his point: DO YOUR HOMEWORK!! If you do, then you stop being the lemming I once was vis-a-vis his show.

The bottom line is Cramer is all we have who will explain. Daytime CNBC is packed with big shot gamers who do not show us how they do their tricks, albeit legal tricks usually--THEY ARE PULLING ON US!

The Cramer on "Meet the Press" and "Imus" is awesome in his calm mode and not the idiot he plays on TV, which masks so much powerful, powerful information...

peatmoss Head
09-19-2006, 01:38 AM
I have learned a lot from watching his show but I don't buy what he suggests because I have a dividend agenda that he doesn't play.

Jim VS Others: I have a TIVO home hard disk recorder and started recording essentially all the investment shows on TV. After a while I found that they were worthless New York dribble and patronizing of neo left and right wing attitudes, a sort of tunnel vision New York think tank plus some glitz.

Cramer is the only hands on practical guy with insider knowledge and the nerve to stick his neck out. Like any of these TV guys they will eventually step on you with one of their opinions and you'll get mad at them but over time I find Jim worth watching and the others nearly worthless. Now I only record Mad Money every day and none of the other shows.

aj14
09-19-2006, 11:01 AM
Cramer is a trend chaser, as much as he tries to pretend that he is doing original research. I don't think he has the stomach to trade the short side of the market, so he is only going to do well in extended moves to the upside, which are not likely until we retest the May lows.
Like the studay above suggests, there is no advantage to trading with his ideas. There is another site somewhere which pitted a monkey against him (to be polite, it is basically the random walk approach), and Cramer finished second in that matchup as well.
We make money doing exactly what the study above suggests: let the sheeple chase the price up (they especially do this in afterhours trading where the volume is thin) and then scale into shorts. Wait a few days and take them back in. It's a good trade with lower risk after he pumps them up.

Mad Money Machine
09-26-2006, 06:35 PM
I'm thinking of starting a portfolio smackdown that pits shorting Jim's picks against a balanced index-fund portfolio. I have a feeling that shorting his featured stocks can make money, but will it make MORE than the index funds?... I'm eager to find out.

I have already found out that buying his featured stocks long didn't work. Get details at http://MadMoneyMachine.com/portfolios

Paul