Filed under: Analysis / Opinion, Apple Financial
Jim Cramer smackdown includes talk of Apple
I don't know if you watched the Jon Stewart interview with CNBC host Jim Cramer on the Daily Show last night. Stewart and Cramer have been feuding for a week about Cramer's bad financial advice, and the lack of any deep or meaningful reporting on CNBC as the market was melting down. As part of the back and forth (and I suggest you watch the whole clip) Stewart pulled out an old interview with Cramer where he talked about hurting Apple stock by claiming neither AT&T or Verizon was interested in selling the iPhone.
Cramer was a hedge fund manager at the time, and may have wanted a quick short term profit by manipulating stock sales with misleading information. Cramer said it was legal, Stewart questioned the ethics. In the end, the SEC will have to decide.
AAPL seems to be one of the top tech stocks that is buffeted by rumors, good and bad. In this case, here's a guy telling us how it works.
Here's a link to the older interview on YouTube. The part about Apple begins about 3:30 into the clip.
Thanks Jose for the tip and the link.
Correction: One of our readers points out that Cramer was not running a Hedge Fund in 2006 but gave it up in 2001. Thanks Rick for setting the time line straight.
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Reader Comments (Page 1 of 2)
JoeB said 3:08PM on 3-13-2009
Much like Rush Limbaugh, Jim Cramer is only an entertainer and sensationalist.
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jthomp1286 said 3:15PM on 3-13-2009
Agreed!
Jim said 3:45PM on 3-13-2009
Nonsense.
augiedog said 5:09PM on 3-13-2009
And an asshole.
cvbesq said 8:31PM on 3-13-2009
That is funny... I have never found Rush either entertaining or sensational...;-)
willy the impeached said 10:34AM on 3-14-2009
augiedog, I agree Stewart is an asshole. Imagine if he'd been that tough on Barney Frank one of the main guys who actually caused this mess! But he doesn't have the balls for that.
Jeff said 3:11PM on 3-13-2009
Slow news day?
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a ham sandwich said 3:45PM on 3-13-2009
slow news day?! i think this is one of the better posts on tuaw in a long time as they're pointing out that people can intentionally make rumors that can directly affect apple's stock! i think that's really important.
bravo to john stewart for making cramer look like a fish out of water on his show! i thought cramer was gonna break down and cry at any moment.
Jeff said 3:49PM on 3-13-2009
Ok, it ranks better than that post from the other day ("Hey look there's a box of fruit with an illustrated apple on it. Coincidence?!?"), but even on days where Apple isn't doing anything, there's still a ton of Mac and iPhone software out there that can be reviewed and shared with readers
puhsitch said 6:33PM on 3-13-2009
It's a blog, Jeff, not a product review site.
tom said 3:17PM on 3-13-2009
A small part of me felt bad for Cramer when I watched The Daily Show last night, but by the time it got to that clip my pity evaporated. He goes on and on about how he's trying to expose the people who do this sort of thing, and then Jon shows footage of him plainly talking about how he does it.
Priceless.
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willy the impeached said 10:33AM on 3-14-2009
Yep Obama's lap dog sure rang Cramers bell. What kind of an idiot would go on this sycophant's show? John Stewart - showing America how average intelligence, a lot of people playing with video clips, and a general douchbag attitude can keep you on the air and beloved by left wing loons indefinately.
tom said 2:07PM on 3-14-2009
Your hilariously dismissive response had no factual content or merit, and although there are certainly some "left-wing loons", I think the right - as you have so graciously proved with your comment - has a monopoly on the loons department.
Brian said 5:18PM on 3-13-2009
The most educational comedy show I have seen this year. If you own Apple shares it is a must see. If you ever read a rumour about an Apple product it is a must see.
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Schell said 5:20PM on 3-13-2009
Kudos to both of them. To Stewart, obviously, for calling out the frat-boy antics of Wall Street which have gone on since the first day a stock was sold. And kudos to Jim Cramer for having the cajones to go on the show. To call it a smack down shows a very limited understanding of what went on in the years leading up to the interview as well as what took place during the interview. But then I don't expect the average Steward viewer to venture beyond Comedy Central all too often.
Fratboy antics have gone on in Wall Street since the day the first stock was sold and someone figured a way to get the price to go higher (or lower). Making money is sport to these people. And just as in sport, those with overwhelming talent, luck, and drive, succeed. Those without? They complain that not enough penalties were called then write a letter to the commissioner about rule changes.
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puhsitch said 6:38PM on 3-13-2009
Yeah, that was really something that Cramer came on. He knew what he was getting into. It was almost like a passive cry for help...
Spectrum said 7:00PM on 3-13-2009
That video that has been all over the place the last few days, was not from when Cramer ran a hedge fund. It was from Dec. 2006, from his website, thestreet.com, where he talks about this type of stuff in a series called Wall Street Confidential. He was long out of his fund by this time, already doing mad money on CNBC, on the radio with Real Money, published both Real Money and Confessions of a Street Addict (which you should read if you want to know who Jim Cramer is)
Cramer was talking about how he could do that sort of stuff when he ran his fund. And if you watch the whole video, you see that he's not saying he supports that type of activity, but that people do that stuff because the SEC either doesn't understand, or doesn't police this type of manipulation as illegal. Perhaps some managers have a morality issue with this sort of behavior, but by not taking advantage of these loopholes, you risk losing your clients and your fund going under.
Again, this video was in response to a lot of questions TheStreet.com was getting in regards to the fact that AAPL seems to get crushed for no real reason, like clockwork, every year between the holiday season and earnings in Jan. And Cramer is telling you how a stock can get crushed, with no real negative news to drive it.
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Rick Huizinga said 7:03PM on 3-13-2009
The statement that "Cramer was a hedge fund manager at the time" leading up to the iPhone release is false. He stopped being a hedge fund manager in 2001.
The video clip that Stewart choose to play back was edited to portray Cramer in the worst possible light. The context of the conversation was to explain how a hedge fund manager would go about manipulating the market by using a specific example.
A stock picker is an easy target as no one can get every pick right - they would make an infinite amount of money if every pick was correct. By the same logic, a baseball player with a batting average of .400 must be terrible because they can't get on base 60% of the time.
Stewart clearly has an agenda as he was not fair at all. He did not show the "They know nothing!" clip from 2007 where Cramer was talking about the Fed & Treasury not seeing the problem coming with the banks, nor the October 2008 segment on the today show warning individual investors to sell all their stocks before the oncoming market decline. Stewart went on the attack against Cramer because of some remarks he made about the Obama administration in recent weeks.
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Tony Ward said 7:33PM on 3-13-2009
@Rick
While the context of the clip you refer to was seemingly taken out of context, Stewart's intention was not to indict Cramer personally as a manipulator of stocks. His point was to illustrate that Cramer-- the face of CNBC, a "financial news network"-- has long been aware of this type of inside manipulation and has chosen not only to leave it out of the press, but to advise people who are most vulnerable to the damage of these practices to play the game as if no cheating were going on. I thought Stewart did a masterful job of pointing the finger at the media for choosing not to expose the unethical practices which created our financial meltdown in the first place.
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Planeten Paultje said 10:00PM on 3-13-2009
Here's some more material: http://scienceblogs.com/dispatches/2009/03/jon_stewart_vs_jim_cramer.php
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