CNBC Madman Jim Cramer's Dec 2007 top ten predictions for 2008

[Ichingcarpenter]

1. 'Goldman Sachs (GS) makes more money than every other brokerage firm in New York combined and finishes the year at $300 a share. Not a prediction—an inevitability. In fact, it’s only January, and I think it’s already come true".................... LOL!!!



(I found this small print amusing at the end of the article)

"At the time of this writing, he owned Goldman Sachs, Transocean, and Citigroup for his charitable trust."



The other predictions can be found here
http://nymag.com/news/businessfinance/bottomline/42392/index1.html

[Liberal_in_LA]

1. Jim Cramer is a braying pile of crap! gawd knows how he got a TV show

[PassingFair]

2. He spouts the corporate line.

Really melted down when his
corpo friends were on the line...

[Liberal_in_LA]

3. yep. n/t

[Ichingcarpenter]

4. "No! No! No! Bear Stearns is not in trouble."

-- Jim Cramer, CNBC commentator, Mar. 11, 2008



Five days later, JPMorgan Chase (NYSE:JPM - News) took over Bear Stearns
with government help, nearly wiping out shareholders.

[Warpy]

11. Same reason O'Reilly did

He tells the sheep what they want to hear while threatening to have a stroke on the air while he does it.

White trash melt downs are popular.

[Tandalayo_Scheisskopf]

5. I came into possession of a rough draft of these predictions.

Running a website like WNT has it's advantages. One of the predictions they edited out was "I will increase my Cocaine input to 1 ounce a day of the finest shit I can find".

Something tells me he succeeded.

[On the Road]

6. He Also Predicted:

2. Oil goes much higher, maybe as much as $125 a barrel. That sends gasoline to $5 a gallon....

3. The Fed arranges an Arabic Heimlich maneuver on Citigroup, so the banking giant doesn’t choke on the worst mortgage portfolio in the country....

[Uzybone]

7. Boy he sure was wrong about cable too

He was right about oil, but any idiot could see that one coming. No one saw it coming back down to $40 though.

[anigbrowl]

8. I think you're being a little hard on Cramer here - he was on the money with many other things

I rarely watch Cramer and am not really a fan (he's too loud for my taste) but when you turn off the yelling and screaming and look at his actual guesstimates for the year, he did no worse than a lot of other commentators. He certainly had the right instincts about both the auto industry and the severity of the mortgage meltdown. I'd never rely on him (or anyone) for actual price predictions, but he made some good guesses about which way the wind was going to blow.

1. Goldman Sachs makes more money...

well wrong.

2. Oil goes much higher, maybe as much as $125 a barrel.

...pretty much on the money. He underestimated the rise and subsequent fall, but you can bet this latest Middle east spat will push the price back up somewhat during the spring.

3. The Fed arranges an Arabic Heimlich maneuver on Citigroup...

...true enough.

4. Verizon becomes your cable provider.

Didn't happen, but it wouldn't surprise me over the next 2-3 years.

5. In the first real debacle of the private-equity era, Cerberus Capital Management, the quiet hedge-fund king, fails in its bid to resuscitate Chrysler <...> Call the Chrysler failure a lock. The bailout? I’d say 5 to 1.

Again, not far off what has actually happened.

6. Google continues its dominance and becomes one of the top three companies in the U.S. in market capitalization.

Well off on the stock price (currently ~$300), but still dominating its industry.

7. European companies, eyeing the weak dollar, snap up New York real estate, and offer to buy Merrill Lynch and JPMorgan...

Called too early, but this wouldn't surprise me in 2009.

8. Apple completes its dominance of the music business, as the music producers decide no longer to produce new CDs...

Again, overstated but he's right about the trend.

9. The New York Times, after spending several hundred million dollars buying back its stock while it was in the $30s and $40s, slashes its dividend in half because of a cash shortage....

Wrong...they slashed it by 75% rather than 50%. Basically, he called this one correctly. http://www.nytimes.com/2008/11/21/business/media/21times.html

10. An Army of the Foreclosed marches on the White House, then launches a siege at the Federal Reserve, before camping out in front of the Washington Monument.

Again, not there yet literally speaking, but not nearly as reality challenged as some make him out to be. Metaphorically, he read this pretty well.

[Ichingcarpenter]

9. I guess you made a killing following Cramer

He called the bottom of the stock market was in July 2008
http://clusterstock.alleyinsider.com/2008/8/you-bought-that-cramer-bottom-crap-dow-headed-below-10-000

Do you know how many bottoms he's called this year? He was a housing market bull a few years ago and now that Real Estate has crashed he's finally come around. Go to his site, get a trial membership and just listen to the vitriolic comments from his members. He's a FRAUD. He had NYX as his "stock of the year" in 2007. It's down over 50%. He called this year the year of natural gas and that's tanked too.

Tell me other than speaking loudly to give himself more credibility than he deserves, why should he be listened to? How many mistakes can this man make and still be given ANY credibility?!

His Action Alerts subscription portfolio is down over 15% this year. Please, do some homework on the guy. He recommended Citigroup last year and told everyone that Countrywide was a good investment. Not to mention Thornburg Mortgage. He said there wasn't a subprime problem last year when New Century Financial's stock failed last year.

I beg you, don't give Jim Cramer any more unneeded publicity. He's already lost too many investors money that thought he knew more than him.

Look at these YouTube videos from Don Harrold exposing Jim Cramer http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dt8pd9xd2h4

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Udjx0f93Wbk

It's totally irresponsible to give Jim Cramer any credit for being accurate. The guy makes so many predictions he's bound to be right some time, but he's wrong more than he's right.

[anigbrowl]

12. Well, I don't follow any stock pickers

Cramer is just an extreme example of what's wrong with that whole approach to financial 'journalism'. Really, I can't figure why anyone would take Cramer seriously...I mean the guy is so obviously a clown. I'm not even sure Cramer takes Cramer seriously...but in any case, it's this sort of punditry I object to, rather than Cramer himself. He doesn't seem any much the worse at it than anyone else...indeed, if his portfolio is off 15% I'd say h'e strimmed his losses much better than others (ie a lot of investment banks).

As many have said, 'it's difficult to make predictions, especially about the future.' that's true for everyone from Jim Cramer to North Korea's economic planning team.

[Renew Deal]

10. Well, there are at least 3 trading days left this year.

:silly:

At some point this year his prediction changed and he predicted that Citigroup is going to go under. :crazy:

[TexasObserver]

13. He was screaming BUY BEAR STEARNS days before its collapse.

He's an idiot. A loud, annoying, wrong idiot.