I don’t know anything about Cramer’s new book, but I do have subscription to his Web site (realmoney.com). Cramer definitely has a lot of knowledge about stocks and investing. He’s been in the money-running business since the late 70s I believe. I believe he started off at Morgan Stanley or Goldman Sachs as a broker after graduating from Harvard Law. He eventually started up a hedge fund with a partner and ran other people’s money for several years. Now, as far as I know, he has his TV show, his Web sites (realmoney.com, thestreet.com, etc.), and a “charity” portfolio that he manages. In any event, he definitely has a lot of financial-industry experience and knowledge.
With all that being said, you can pretty much find any stock he talks about on either the new 52-week high list or in the Investor’s Business Daily 100. Cramer is all about the momentum stocks. You also need to keep in mind that Cramer is a salesman. I doubt he could have had success as a stock broker or a hedge fund manager without being to sell himself. You can see his salemanship on his TV show with the way he’s excited about every stock he recommends.
I wouldn’t recommend Cramer for advice on long-term investing. I don’t believe that has ever been his forte. However, Cramer is worth reading/watching to learn about how the stock market works, how the financial industry works, and to just help yourself get acquainted with a variety of stocks.
For long-term investing, The Retire Early Home Page has some good articles on how various portfolios have done through various periods in history:
It’s pretty tough to beat the market return, so probably the best thing you can do is to make regular contributions to an index fund (S&P 500, Total Market Index Fund, etc) and maybe some type of bond fund.
Making regular contributions to index funds can be pretty boring, so you can use resources like Cramer, financial Web sites, and Investor’s Business Daily or the Wall Street Journal to find individual stocks to invest in. There are also various stock-screening tools out there. Last time I looked, there were some decent screening tools on MSN Money. I generally invest in index funds through my 401(k) and individual stocks in my personal account.
