The Cable Gamer knows that some people may smirk--or worse--at Bill O'Reilly's tagline, "I am looking out for you," although obviously millions of people, and a high percentage of the overall cable news audience, think that Bill is, indeed, looking out for them, and their interests, and their values. That's why they watch.
And then there's CNBC's Jim Cramer. I think we can all agree that Cramer is most definitely NOT looking out for anyone--except maybe himself. As TCG, among others, has noted in the past, Cramer's record as a stock picker is terrible; the most one can say is that Cramer is entertaining, for those who enjoy that sort of entertainment. And many have wondered aloud whether Cramer is playing his audience for suckers--telling them one thing while doing another.
But perhaps every now and then, we need a reminder that Cramer is absolutely NOT to be trusted as a stock-picker. As Reuters' Aaron Pressman reports, Cramer was among those pushing investors toward BP stock, weeks after the oil spill. The Gulf of Mexico oil rig blew up on April 20, yet on May 10, according to the Reuters reporter, Cramer praised the BP stock and said that he himself would be buying some for his charitable trust. Since then, the stock has gone down as low as 29, and is currently at around 31. That's a decline of 40 percent, in just a month, a wipeout of $100 billion. (See screen grab of BP's stock over the past three months from Google Finance, above; as you can readily see from the big read arrow, Cramer's May 10 "buy" recommendation came right in the middle of BP's stock plunge.)
Pressman concluded that 27 of 34 analysts were recommending BP stocks, even as it was going down, which makes one wonder about either the intelligence, or the honesty, of those stock analysts. Were they selling when they were telling the rubes to buy? Just wondering. But in any case, Cramer appears to the only one of the 34 analysts with his own TV show. Thus the question: Shouldn't CNBC put some sort of disclaimer in the lower third of Cramer's show? Say, "This man is disastrously wrong"?
With such a disclaimer, if you like to watch a middle-aged man yell a lot, then by all means watch Cramer on "Mad Money." But if you do watch, remember: keep your wallet or purse in another room, where Cramer can't reach it.
