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Hello and welcome to another episode of the Odd Lots Podcast.
I'm Joe Wisenthal and I'm Tracy Allaway.
Tracy, something I think about the market these days is that in the media there is this incredible drumbeat of experts and ads that support the media, et cetera. All these experts that they say, don't try to beat the market index, index index, and actually induxing is great because like it's cheap and indexes of performed incredible returns. And now though for the last several years, it's like the public is becoming unshackled and doing the exact opposite of everything.
And we see the most extreme form of you know, day trading and trading on Robin Hood individual named zero da memestocks options. It's like the public has revolted against this message that it's been inundated with for years.
Well, you know what I think is really interesting is not only is retail sort of going out on its own, but Wall Street and the institutional investors are kind of copying what retail does, right, because retail was the first into something like zero day or one day options, and then it became institutionalized and you saw that big professional volume follow on. So it feels like retail is a really important part of the market now. And rather than retail trying to do what the experts do, it's kind
of the experts trying to catch up. Yeah, catch up with.
Retail, understand what retail is doing. And again, like I love an index fund, and I don't like having you're.
An EMH guy. I'm just gonna remind.
You i'd like an EMH guy. Yeah, I love it, But like I do feel like there's this huge tension and it only feels like it's accelerating because now there's more and more things to bet on, and there's crypto and pretty soon on your robin Hood app you're gonna be able to like bet on a prediction market on what the that is going to do. So we live in this world of trading against what all then is like myself sometimes.
The four pros.
Yeah, well, anyway, we really do have the perfect guest, someone I've wanted to speak to literally for years, someone who has long been preaching in public that the individual can pick stocks, that picking stocks is a good thing, that you don't have to accept the idea of just being boring and being average and getting the average return.
We are going to be speaking with Jim Kramer. He is the host of Mad Money on some network called CNBC, never heard of it, and he is the author of a new book, How to Make Money in Any Market. So Jim thrilled to have you on the Outlaws.
First of all, that intro of what you're talking about justice is the fundament of what I'm talking about. But I want to spend a second talking about the person to my life, Joe, Joe, my wife, my wife, my wife, the book, door Bookstor And she goes, Okay, you got today's show, and you got Joe, and Joe is some one who's gonna get it going for you and wake up and he's going to probably know the book and he's going to know your stuff. And Tracy, I tell you,
when you do these things are pretty soulless. So when you get something like you guys, I mean, I just laugh. And you know, my dad sold corrugated. That was his job when I was a HEADGS front manager. I just went exclusively with him. Let me reference to the last week's show. But I do want to talk about totally much really about what you're talking about. I wrote this book.
Well, I just say the first line of the book is congratulations, you've just bought the most radical book about investing ever in classic creamer models.
Sure, because understands. But it's true that everyone's been taught these days you can't pick stocks and you just have to be in the next one. Thank you word Buffett for that too, although his stock was the one you should have picked. And what bothers me is people are going to do it. And you talked about zero day and he's like that they're going to do it. If they're going to do it, why not help them. I mean, one of the premises of the book is is that
I know that people want to speculate. So look, I say, own an index fund for half your money. You got to be saving constantly, and then take five slots. Try to find four really good stocks and a speculator. One you want to go to the nuclear power, you want to go through blue energy for hydrogen fuel cells. I'm not going to stop you, provided that you try to find the next fang. And I'm fortunate enough to create a fang because it was just something that seemed funny.
But you know, I do that too. But what I'm trying to do is accept the fact people want to do this, do it right, and if they do it right, maybe they do it long term owned stocks. Like I use the term compounding. How do you compound if you're a day trader. You can't. You can't. So I mean, I look at this show, and this show is about
trends and about long term trends. Like I find that most things that I read about are about trading, and you can't beat the machines trading, but you can beat them if you compound long term in really good stocks. And I mentioned it's crazy, but I went over one hundred years. There was a study about over one hundred years and if you held vulcan materials rocks, you made a fortune. I don't really emphasize it. But if you held Philip Morrise, she made the most money and he's stuck.
Philip Moore. Oh yeah. They have a whole episode on Danny de Vich. You broke that company up as one of the greatest breakups ever. But I don't like this talk. But I lost my father in law that cancer from smoking. Wanted a cigarette on his death. But you know that kind of nonsense. So I feel like that long term is good provided you do it right. And I let
people pick stocks because they want to. And by the way, there have been six hundred thousand millionaires created by individual stocks in the last year, and I want the people who read it to be the next ones.
I think it's fair to say, whatever you think about overall performance and the efficient market hypothesis, just putting your money in the s and P five hundred is kind of boring, right.
Well, that's it. You see, people they want something, they're jonesing. I have to keep them from jonesing on the wrong thing because I don't even want jonesy. I actually want investing. I was the one to show the other day that guy said, why do you encourage day traders? I was a hedge fund manager for many, many years, and when I quit, I said, you know what, I have got to change this because people keep thinking they can come in standing start and buy Micron and you don't know
anything about Micron. Do a standing start. Why not pick a great stock that's down because and it's got a good yield and you can own it for a long time. You see the big secular trend and if I can do that and get people to stop day trading. That's the win they can't do. You guys think that they can win day trading at home. No, No, it's correctly Okay, they can't.
Look so your argument they can't win day trading, but they can win picking stocks and holding.
Yeah. Well, I think that things have changed from when I got in the business. I used to go to the New York Commercial Library and read microfiche that was a couple of months old. Couldn't get any reports. It wasn't available. Now everything's available, and I do recommend look chat GPT perplexity. You can find out more than you get. I mean I was watched within five minutes. They have everything. Yeah. I just think that if someone wants to do it right,
they can do it right. They got four slots away from the speculative. I show that one or two if they hit, can make up for all the losses. I accept the fact that they're going to have losses because nobody's that good. But in every kind of schematic I did, the index fund didn't do as well, and yet we revere the index fund good. We get one really good. Well, you have seven good ones in four ninety three bad. Well, that's what you and that's not my style.
It is true. I am kind of partial to the argument that because so much of the debate and the story is online now that the guy who's like day trading from his basement probably has a very good finger on the pulse of the market and possibly better than some of the professionals.
Stundus, then you're you're more revusrat that I am. Yeah.
I think you saw it during the memes stock era. Yeah, exactly. Is it weird to go from a professional hedge fund guy, a legit hedge fund guy, to the sort of poster boy for retail day traders.
Yes, but I was hedge fund manager. Everything was to try to figure out the patterns and now the machines do because that was pre machine and now I'm kind of a spokesman for the individual investor who is completely not the professional. And that's because the show may have Money's pron for twenty years. It's a six o'clock show, and what happens it's all about what the individual's trying to do and what I'm trying to explain. Let's give
you example tonight, give you a little preview. I'm gonna talk about the multiple and why I went talk about the multiple because that's the secret sauce. And yet people don't understand I'm and I invoke my mom in the book. My mom is a person who you meant we were talking about injured knew it. My mom is someone who says Pepsi's was at one hundred and forty right now Coca Cola is sixty seven. I've got to buy coke.
It should never be as cheap as pepsi. Coke should be double And like I would say, Mom, no, that has artifice. Is the price sar which is Jimmy, listen to me. It's ridiculous to Pepsi's a one forty period, end of story. And she didn't know that it was a ratio. And she would call in at nine point thirty when I was a goldman and buy I want
to buy three shares of Giant Food. And that was not the why I was a goldman, just not to do the three Sure, But I am incredibly cognizant in the book that people don't know how to read a baluantie. So I actually take the risk of twenty pages about how to read a balance sheet. I take it now when I did the book, they were like, whoa hey, and I said, no, no, I got to go there.
If I'm telling people to own individual stocks, I have to help them with chat GPT and how to analyze balance sheet and how to actually go line by line, because I don't want to be irresponsible and say what you ought to do is say, you know what, Coca cola is pretty good here You've got to understand why. And that's a big part of the book.
You mentioned a Memestucks as someone who has spent a career advocating this for this idea that the individual can trade like now in twenty twenty five, Like, what do you think about that specific time? I mean, arguably it's like multiplied since then, But have you ever do you ever stop and think like, do you ever think this has gotten out of hand? Do you ever think this is a monster that has gone beyond where it's like? Do you ever have misgivings about the degree of public participation?
I had a moment where I had had some serious back surgery, so I was out heavily medicated for three days, and when I started this game during GameStop may Well, GameStop was about one hundred but when I started, and when I came to basically and stopped using the whatever kind of heroin that they give you these days. It was a Thursday and GameStop had quadrupled. I had a Catherine.
Did you think you were hallucinating?
Well? I had, yes, yes, I thought that maybe something in the midnight guy slipped something. But I had Catherine me and I couldn't reach the TV. It must drive me crazy. I finally just pulled the Catherine out, which is really not a good experience. You really like to be more of a pro. And I called in to Karl and David, Carl Continua and David Paper and said, it's just ridiculous. Everybody has to sell. After that, it was twenty four to seven Bodyguard because I destroyed the
chain letter. Game Stop shouldn't have been a four hundred. We all know that it is an industry that game Stop is still fighting, and they've got you know, they've raised a lot of money by doing that at the money sales, the.
Death threats and stuff like that.
Oh, I've had a lot of debt, right, I'm sure I was supposed to.
Maybe over maybe we'll talk a little bit about both of us need to learn a little bit more about how to handle public.
But yeah, well you've always been you've been straight, and we know that you're fearless. And fearless means when you're with your guards, they say, listen, you gotta stop being fuels. So I owned a restaurant. Yeah, and one of the guards said, look, here's what we're going to do. First, you're never going to your own restaurant. That's the most VISI. I said, I own the restaurant. I like to go in Tuesdays and Wednesday. Said okay, you got to vary the day and you got to go and no time
after after seven. I said, well, it doesn't open until seven. We have to be a little more cogniz especially in this year, this horrible ear that we're seeing.
Joe, do you still dream of owning a restaurant? Didn't you talk about.
Doing Okay, I gotta tell you. If you can have a mixture of alcohol, yeah, you know, you can make money.
Yeah.
Yeah, we made money.
Just on the alcohol.
You also a business, which we should.
That's why we had to switch because we saw the people buying mescal like man, so we pivoted. Wow, you really fought well. Of course, you. You're knowed, the knowledgeable chase. I've not worked with you, I've listened to you, and you're completely enjoyable and terrific. And this is a show. I was telling Joe beforehand, what a cool thing. We haven't taken seven commercials yet. Do you realize that we.
Might have once listened be published?
Wait?
Okay, sirious question.
We've been serious the whole way, right, haven't we?
Sure you touched on the information? The plethora of information sort of leveling the field for professionals and retail. And then earlier this week we had Trump suggesting that public companies should report every six months instead of quarterly. Oh what would that do for the retail investor? And there is also this trend towards more private markets, more companies that are not ipoing, less information available.
Well, this has been a great soul searching moment because having run a public company the street the quarterly follows cost this a fortune. We didn't have that much. It was like our whole profit went to the auditors and they were real paying the butte because we didn't know how to do it. And the CFO at a huddle, we lose that person for twenty days. But as an investor,
I want all the information possible. So I kind of feel like, look, you can give us two reports, but you've got to give us support that would make us in the non secit make us understand why we should be paying X for you. Again, the price Durnings motable, because that's that's what people need to be able to make decisions. This was a harder one than I thought because the president really does speak to a lot of CEOs and this is what they talk about.
Yeah, I'm sure they complain about it.
Oh yeah, because look, one of the things that I hated about the being a public company is the conference call. What are we going to say? Do we do well? What are you going to predict? Are the Martins going up? Martin? I mean, and I just we can't give a forecast. No, if we don't do forecast, then they won't like us. But if we do the forecast, we'll miss the forecast.
And these kind of silly discussions, they're really silly, and I think that they I think they're a shame because they suld take a lot of time and they're very very misleading.
You said there's something in your book speaking you read.
The damn book. Good about it. I read a good one reason my wife. My wife said, I bet you read it. I bet you read it.
This is something I wondered about in April when the stock market plunged after Liberation.
Yeah, even they came back.
But you talked about the fact that like politicians by and large, actually Trump is a little different than most politicians, but they don't typically run on the stock market, and they also like don't run about like the shareholder as a class of society that deserves to be represented, right, as you mentioned in your book, like Joe Biden was sort of proud of the fact that he didn't have much money. You never really hear, well, what about the
shareholder class? Okay, as an individual? And I'm curious why you think that, especially now that so many people are into stocks. It's so much part of pop culture, et cetera. Why don't people talk about the shareholder class.
I saw Decresso on the floor yesterday, and you know, I used to go around the country with him talking about the shareholder class and ownership. We just talked about ownership. That was kind of pre the idea that everything had to be traded. When I was a goldman we talked about ownership, and ownership means compounding, and compounding is a very boring word, but it is what makes you the biggest money. And I think we have to encourage ownership now.
In terms of President Trump, I was at judge on The Apprentice for a very long time, and before that he had been on Mad Money multiple times, and he always said, look, I don't do stocks. Give me some stocks. I want on some stocks. And that's a totally fraud situation. You don't want to offer him, you know, alcola. So I always just said listening utilities, and he said, good, good,
this is what I wanted you because utilities. Frankly, you're not blowing your head off with ae with marcollucture power. But he didn't pride himself in not knowing stocks. He wished he had more time to learn stocks. I think that he this time around when I spoke to him, he's not really into the stock market as a barometer
of his success anymore. In the old days, when I spoke to him as president first go around, he thought that the tal you liked the down when the Esva the Dal determined it was the great if he didn't be if the dal didn't go up, then he wasn't a good president. So it was the great determinant. And I always tell him, please don't do that. It's too hard. You're not really one for one with it. Like yes,
he liked that. It was like the Nielsen's and I have to tell you that doing the Prendice was quite quite enjoyable.
Wait tell us stories. I want to hear the behind the scenes gossip.
Well, I mean, what would happen is is that you had to monitor tasks. I'm not going to mention they would have a task. I'm not going to mention individual names because I've had a non disclosure, but i will tell you there's some people who do the task and some people who want you to do the task like me. And I was like, no, I'm just a judge. But we would go through it and I would have to out the person who did nothing or out the person
who said they were doing something. And you know, maybe the two people were doing it and one was doing nothing or didn't show. There were some of those instances, but in the end they used my verdict, I'd say maybe half the time. And I wish they'd used it more because I spent a used amount of time looking at it. But the president had a he had views, he had strong views, and they views did conflict with mine. Often.
Here's a question. It's sort of a media naval gazing question, but also a serious one. So you've been doing the show for twenty years, which is phenomenal. I heard also that you get up at three am every day to go to the gym and then do the show, which is well three fifteen, three fifteen or the extra fifteen minutes.
I always, because I'm a competitive guy, I always said I get up earliest so that I beat everybody else. But that's losing its charm.
Frankly, how do you benchmark your own performances?
How do I bench because I know I doing two fifty initially, I'm sorry? How do I bench bark my own performance?
Your own performance when it comes to stockpicking? Because frankly, like twenty years of content, multiple stock picks, I don't even know how you keep track of all of them, Like I can't remember the episodes we did two weeks ago.
Well, okay, I mean I have a charitable chest, so you can look at it. You can't really compound if you sell, you have to give the profits a way in the difference of given way. But it's all pretty public. But I would gauge me by what I talk about endlessly. And now this is not people think that's anecdotal for twenty years. It's empirical. If you talk about Apple thirty two times a week and you talk about Newcore one time a week, and you're graded equally Apple and Newcore,
that's farcical. I was with Tim coleclass Friday in Howardsburg, Kentucky, and he introduced me to someone as Jim owned don't trade Apple Cramer, and that's how I feel. And the best one I've ever had was Jensen Jensen Wong. When the stock was too I said, we're done trading it, please stop trading it. And then I renamed my dog. He was Everest and I named him in Vidia. And I go all over the country and I.
See confused was the dog?
The dog? Dog was an idiot. I had state I always had to have steak in your hand with that idiot. He was a half pitball, half who knows what. But I do think that when you look at the number of India millionaires, that also is empirical, not anecdotal. Now, there are people who want to say, Jim, I really do want to measure what you said about Blue Energy last night and the verse what you say about Apple,
and you know what I say, knock yourself out. I mean, if it was really wrong, I would have been canceled. I mean, I'm like twenty years. Means either that I've fooled the whole damn world every night, or maybe people like it and then they learn, maybe they learn.
You mentioned you get up at three fifteen. I used to get up at four am every day and people still think I do. So they think I have this crazy work. I think I've been sleeping in a long time. No, but but you know a lot and the only way to know a lot is to read a lot and to work a lot. Can you give us like a day like okay, you wake up at three fifteen? Yeah, like you read and work like crazy. Give us a little crup that goes into your show.
Here while I start with the Ft. Okay, because the Ft has one breaking news story every day, just one, but it's great and today was the end.
What time do you read it? You're up at three fifteen.
I do have to I mean I have a four o'clock workout. Okay, that's an hour and a half. So I have a tight schedule for the first forty five. I look at the future, CBC dot Com, Bloomberg, New York Times, Wall Street Journal. I spend a little more time on the Wall Street jour in the State because I feel like that they're a little more in tune with what the market's doing. And then I go and I start looking at my email, and the email is just a series of PDFs.
How many emails do you get a day?
Seven hundred?
Wow?
I look through the pdf Yeah, and I.
Look, you read all the sellside research.
I read everything I think is relevant, and I'm looking for something to say. I have a memo that comes out ten things I'm looking at. I have to have that in seven to thirty. So that's my overlord. And then after that I have to do Squawk on the Street. And then I start again and I start writing the show. And I've been writing the show with my sister's kid since he was in high school. He's now with me
for twenty years. Stuff. Mason, he's a genius and he's I mean, the guy can just I think he has two PCs going all at once, and he's remarkable and we have a really good time doing mad money.
Wait what time is this hour?
Oh, this is beginning. This is beginning at ten oh five.
And when are you reading like all the conference calls and earnings, because you really one of the things, you know, details of the calls and earth During the.
Day, I spend a huge amount of time. I mean, for instance, I'm in the house on moment here because the only thing I read I had to read this poet was Channel Mills, and I will read more of that because they talked about how the consumer is hurting, and you know, if you're hurting maybe because Blue Buffalo it actually was plus six. But if you look at some of the brands, proprietary brands, they can be knocked off. It's not like when Costco couldnt knock off Coca Cola.
There's stuff more fungible, there's more elastic. But I spend you know, I'm a couple hours a day on.
The and then after hours earning. Okay, so then like Apple reports earnings and then you do the work. Talk to you.
I have a great marriage. I put that out first because I wreck it every day. I finished the show at quarter six, it's taped lib tape. I come home, I have a bite t eat. I mean I had to go out to dinner ten and then I say good night to my wife.
Wait, what time do you go to bed?
I go to bed at eleven. She goes to bed at like a normal time. So that's when I really wreck the marriage. That's not the plant. I don't set out to do that. Did that previously bad strategy, But I just find that I have to do that. And that's like during when you have that rush now earning season no longer is the season because.
Companies feels like it goes on forever.
Doesn't it. It's kind of perma. But when we have that week where JP Morgan starts in Wells, does it? That weekend is just miserable. Fortunately, during the summer a garden. My weekends are just filled with this one.
I love gardening. We should talk ardening. Are you vegetable or a gardener? Decorative flower gardener?
You should.
I used to have a vegetable patch actually, but then I moved to a new place. I need to restart one. How do you choose your sound effects?
Oh okay, hey, I had a radio show. This show and you know where that radio show pure the greatest radio network in the world, Bloombergh and the Mayor run ran twice a day because he thought it was it was a lot of it was educational.
Mike loves the radio, Oh he really does.
He was my biggest you know, look, I think if I say he was my biggest backer, that sounds like a joker. But he loved what I did. And the sound effects got people going, and it was drive time and he was so supportive, and I love him. I mean, look, once you leave, he's not as supportive. But what can I say? I mean, this is Bloomberg and you.
Should try to reintroduce sound effects.
Radio may because he wanted people to listen. You know, bull bear, she sounds imagine incorrect. A buzzer, but a guillotine for they had to cut their numbers and that kind of thing.
We only have one, which is the Monopsony Clackson, which isn't exactly that producer insert the.
Very proud, a proud fellow a lot.
Great to be substantive and great to be able to explain and educate. And no one said education doesn't work for the numbers.
Do you actually do you think of yourself more as an educator versus as a stock picker.
Yes, this is really like let's say, last night's show, I tried to explain that what matters today with the FED is what way will the curve change? Will start going up on the long end or down? Long and down is the big win. Long end up is what happened last year. We had the starter step and then we had the December crash when Pal just said, listen,
we're done. That's going to be the judge. But I had to use all sorts of analogies because the curve you can't ever mention the curve like the every Sydney Homer the curve you can't ever inside the curve by Sydney Homer.
A lot of it's tracy.
I have also most of debates book about it.
Most of it is charts. That's what people don't understand. It goes by really fast.
It's all. But I listened to you kind of yeah, you're a hitter the shows. It's okay to say I like this, sh yeah, No.
We're going to use this on scissle reels of promotion for years to.
I see these people that I've worked with here you know, Will Donna and these are the queen of the crop. And you know I was at the street everybody who was good. I actually encouraged them to come here because they start to start the street and the idea is top and you want to go to a place where people can be thoughtful. And look, I'm not saying this to suck up. I'm saying I worked here and that's what the essence was.
Man Garde Street, Alum, have come through.
Okay.
I was gonna like say, you know, when we were going over what we wanted to talk about, and I was gonna bring this up, and then you're like, no, I don't bring up what we're going to talk about. A complete uh surprise. Were you in college age spartacist or Trotsky? I like, tell us about you mentioned it once, I think in a video, but then the video. You've also tweeted about your uncle Vlaud about one hundred times, with whom you do para passing resemblance. Give us what's the real.
Ill used to be stopped by as uncle Lad all the time. Yeah, Okay, mine was spartacist because I believe that, yes, the Workers United should never be defeated because we're about the workers owning the means of production, so therefore we should own the company. Yeah, and now Trotsky obviously gravely misunderstood including the ice pick. The ice pick very bad, Yeah, suboptimal day the ice pick. But I just think that that made a lot of sense, and I went that.
Way when you're at Harvard.
Yeah, okay, we had pretty pretty big following, and there were not that many Leninists. I mean, you know, Trotsky was a pretty good writer. Yeah, and Lenin was He wrote what is to be Done? His version number two, what is to be Done, and that that's a good read. But Trotsky really was a very thoughtful guy and also a great army general. And people forget that the train the train man only the money train, the Armedian money train in shield, and that train really worked.
Yeah.
Well, I guess the fugitive train crash was a good train cash. I like Union Pacific.
Here way, I like seeing you.
Well, I just wanted to help it. I was a laborer, I thought, because you've also.
Talked about you once, little wildcats.
I ran a Wildcats strike at the Phillies where I felt that we should have look, we're doing all the work here. I talked to these guys. We're doing all the work here and yet everyone else the overlords. By the way, can I just tell you you had to do a kickback when you're selling ice cream, Hey, ice cream and all the chocolate. One third of your money went back to the guy. So you didn't get strawberry ice cream because you can't sell strawberry. Nobody wants strawberry.
That was the big threat. Hey, listen, shut up, Kramer. You're gonna get strawberry. But I had a seventh level concession that I paid everybody. I paid everybody not to come up to seventh level. So I owned it. But we had Steve Carlton then a long time ago, probably no, but he used to pitch games in an hour and a half. I was always long a huge amount of ice cream in July. It was just dreadful. But so I let the wildcat strike and it was very good.
They called me in and they said you're fine. I said, well you can't do that. Well, you're not going to get any ice cream tonight. You can come while you went to this, but you're not getting ice cream. And that was it, and that was bad.
So when did you see the light though?
From Okay, actually a really great question. The light was when I helped I helped strike J. P. Stevens. JP Stevens was a terrific towel company, linen company, with JP Stevens being his great Princeton alum, and we knew where he lived and we targeted the management. Really thought we had it going and we were crushing it and I was like coming up from the South to help. We're going on. And then they closed the company. Rather than
deal with us, they closed it. And that was when I had a change of heart because I said, wait a second, I just helped take away the livelihood, the healthcare, the dinner for thousands of workers by trying to get them more money. And I really had to rethink it, and I just said, well, maybe the sparta's is thing more focus on the matter at hand, which is covering a homicide. But I really felt awful about what we did. We closed the company. That was not the intent.
Well, there is this tension though, between like workers having jobs and shares actually going up. Right, Like you have companies. The easy way to boost your share prices to cut costs, which means laying off workers. How do you square that?
Well, I think that you guys did a piece. I think it was you Joe, about how that you've been thinking a lot about the billionaires, thinking a lot about that. And I think that the way I square that is has said. If I go back to President Reagan, he was disgusted by how much the CEO has made and the difference, and now the CEOs did never had to pay the price, and the workers had to pay the price. And you're talking about Reagan. And funny that Elizabeth Warren
reminded me about this when I saw her. I just think that it's a travesty. I met with President Clinton over a plan which said, look, I think that workers should get shares if they're laid off, because typically a stock goes up if they're laid off. And what he did was he gave me a can of coke, died coke, said this is the greatest idea in the world. We're going to run with it. And nothing ever happened. President Clinton, well, they all said it didn't matter which president. Nobody ever did.
But I said. President Biden was hilarious. We meet him on that train. He said, honestly, I am the poorest of the hundred. Why do I need your information. I said, you don't need it at all. I mean, I'm not going to take them to minus five. I do think that President Clinton was very smart about the market, understood that laid off workers were the tender to get a stock higher. He was really smart about the market. President Bush number two not that smart.
Wait will you rank presidential market?
Well? First, I would take Andrew Johnson because he was insider trade. Now I don't know. I mean, did you read any of these books about Jay Gould and what he did? But I don't think this Grant, Oh my god, he found out that goal you know where they were on the gold standard knee comp come. There were there were many many stories about presidents I think helping by mistake. So I would have to give those guys.
So as a what do you think about? You know, there is this sort of particularly in New York City, this very energetic nascent leftism. They wouldn't characterize themselves as communists. I don't think Zorn is going around calling himself a trust gat I don't think he is. No what do you what do you make of like? What do you make of this? Are we gonna like? Are we at a revolutionary moment. Are the conditions of past revolutions present here in the United States?
No, they're not, because we have great job growth and the revolutions have typically been preceded by famine.
Okay, well then how serious, like when you you know, what do you what do you think about the DSA and so forth, like, because I think you've said, you know, like, do you consider them to be dangerous radicals or are they like a sort of different shade of liberal democrats.
I think different set of liberal democrat. I mean, I remember Occupy Wall Street. Now you used to go to it every see what's going on to interview people, and they didn't know that where they were politically because they were so confused, and we all in the media kind of felt that they were communists or leftists, and when to tear down Wall Street, they just I mean they were just sleeping on a cold stone, trying to saying listen, we're unhappy, and their ethos was zero. I think that
this is the Marrow race. I mean, look, I care about defunding police versus police because they care about public safety. And I saw what happened in San Francisco.
Zoran has changed, I mean he has changed his mind about that.
That's why I don't think that we're going to be San Francisco. And I also think by the way we went to trains on time, we went public safety, and I don't think that that's I don't think they're in play. I just really don't. Now I'm a New Jersey citizen, I have to love the governor of New Jersey was my boss at Golden Sacks. But look, I just want everyone to be able to recognize that the town has
made a great comeback. There's just so many great places, and I hate to see anything devolved into San Francisco, which is getting better, but was a nightmare to the point where I stopped going. I used to do four times a year of my show. But I saw a guy pull a knife I was in front of I was behind him at Walgreens, got all the money, and then the cops arrested him outside and they released him, and I said, what are you doing? He said, well, we are you a hunter? I said, I'm a fisherman.
He said, well, we do the same thing. We catch and release.
Jim, I gotta tell you, we just got a message saying Mike Bloomberg wants to say hi to you after we record the show.
I don't believe that. Seriously, what a selfius ridiculous.
Even though you left the company, he wants to see it.
I left the company, but it wasn't my idea. I didn't want to leave the company to very specific. But he became mayor, and look, I always worshiped him. What can I say? And I won't even talk about the myriad charities that he really did fun because that's not why I did it. And I always admire that more than anything. He never wanted anyone to know. In New York, it's so it's so predominant. You go into a building and the guy's got his name on it, Well, there's
no you know that is not Mayor Bloomberg. Mayor Bloomberg was I remember giving an award for what we did at the Brooklyn Bridge. I don't know if you guys the Brooklyn Bage Park. But this city's been be dumb, and a lot of it is that mister mayor. He's mister mayor.
Back to finance for a second, were you ever tempted to recommend the inverse Kramer etf Okay?
So that guy got crushed. He was just denial but.
Had you recommended it, they would have had to short themselves. Right, Oh my god, right, what.
A cool idea. Yeah. I didn't want it, and it was one of those things this is. Yeah, you go through and your wife says, I don't want you acknowledge him. I said, well, the guy's a total joke. I don't want you to acknowledge him. And a lot of times what happens is you do go back to your home and you ask your wife what can do or your partner what's right? Because everyone has got an agenda at work, but my wife's agenda is me, and so I always
knew that she was just like a good lawyer. There's you know, attorney client privilege, there's why espousal privilege.
Yeah, that must me feel so good. I'm looking at the ticker and now it did terrible and then they liquidated it in February twenty twenty.
Yeah, how do you look?
You know, I don't. We don't get a fraction of it, but we get a little bit. Do have you ever like for your mental health, like public abuse or public's did you ever give any tips?
Okay, sure, I mean there were some.
People make fun of my voice of the Apple Notes coming out, the NBC told me to be on John Stewart and I didn't know the show, and I didn't know he would I didn't know he would be unfair, and I didn't explain.
They were telling me basically that he would be convivial. So I didn't come with my A game. I came with my F game, and it was mortifying and terrible, and every time I looked out. I mean, I always tell people, look at me. Now, there's a whole generation later. Yeah, he did sixteen years now, and I meet younger people and they've never heard of it. But those people never realized that the New York Giants were good football team.
It kind of happens like that. Yeah. My most important tip is to say they're not thinking of it when they talk to you. In other words, you're thinking of it, but give yourself a break. Most of them are not mean. I would say, like, but she goes she the whole time she was thinking about Joss. I know she was thinking about to No, you're not a mind reader. Take people's face value. He was a very mean person. And that's a word that my daughter used in fifth grade.
But I don't know how else to define someone who wants to take your livelihood away, and he wanted my lively had taken away, and I didn't want it taken away. And to take away someone's lively, as I mentioned with JP Stevens, it's a terrible thing, and I didn't deserve it. But that's it's like it's like the movie Unforgiven. It deserves got nothing to do with it.
Speaking of the financial crisis, though, you did have a series of like memeable moments, let's just say, in two thousand and seven, two thousand and eight, including the rant about Barrister. Yes it's famous.
Well there's a nice article in the FT about it. When the actual not the minutes, but the actual transcript came out about how they laughed at me, and they actually mentioned this said, yeah, we laughed at him. He said, oh, Kramers though he's really funny. It was about speaking to a lot of people who were saying, you got to get on the case here. You guys are just oblivious.
You're acting as if it's a regular market. And my friend arn Burnette was going on about a regular thing and I just had to interrupt and I said, look, they know nothing, they know nothing, and that was speaking about bember Nanke, which who really I think did know nothing during that period, and I was widely cascadd. I had to go on the Today Show the next day where Matt Lauer whatever said you were off, you were off your meds. I want to hear more about this. Now.
See when you say that someone's off their meds, that presumes that you were on your meds. And again I mean like, look, am I used to being demeaned? Does it bother me? It doesn't bother me like you used to. But I do say that that Ran holds up and I'm practice Ran.
Yeah.
And then I did that other thing where I went if you have any on the Today's Show, if you need your money anytime? The next five years and the market fell forty percent after this. They used to take it out now because I didn't want people by the way, it took five years to get to market back to where it was. I was worried about people fixed income fixed on meeting. They own General Mills and they own Chevron, and I just felt like that it was just really
the wrong time. And then the next day they had me back and Curry asked me, look, you said this thing on the show. Do you want to take it back? And I said no. I mean sometimes when you yell fire in a crowded theater, there's a fire. I want to get out as many people as I can. And these were moments that at the time, you'll you'll really appreciate this show. When I did these, Uh, Subsequently, I was so ridiculed that I that I would say to myself,
why the hell did I ever do it? Yeah, and you know, I knew it was right, but no, I had such angst even though I was right. I was attacked by so many people. But now, of course it's a dish best taste. How long did you do this for?
Like three fifteen? Like, I don't again, I don't work as much. No, but I like feel like my health is I have the even the years where I got up super early all the time, like they took me us.
I mean, because you stub out all the time. Yeah, God, I love it so much. I do. And I was doing something last night at dinner and I really wanted to get home because I want to formulate a thesis on d rams. Well there you go. But I am so fixated on this and I find the puzzle so difficult and fabulous. The Nvidia puzzle, the puzzle this morning we have about what's going to happen. I have to I'll write my top right after the FED and this is such an exciting day. You get twelve of these,
so I don't know. Look, it's a great question because I don't know how long you can do it, and I do want to see the world. And I don't take as much vacation. I mean, I'm offered six weeks. I take four. But it's because I love it. It is because I love it. It's not a sickness, it really isn't.
So how has your research process changed over the years, because again you've been in the game for decades.
So I go out to dinner with Jensen Wong and he says, I know you spend all your time reading these reports. I just urge you to chat Gibt the Advanced and get the concise version and then see if it's one you want to do. And that has changed my life because there'll be ten. And it turns out that Paulti Home was important, not because of Bill Poulti is not involved, and Stanley Black and Decker was important, and Best Buy was that important and then the others.
I read the concise version and I could move on with my life. And that was a great break for me because it allowed me during the real earning season to have fifteen reports and just say, Okay, I'm only going to do Cat and Proctor.
Yeah. I think Tracy and I both found like there are a lot of things that CHATCHI Pig still isn't good for. But there is no question in my mind that for a research process, whether it's finding the right document, whether it's just it's very.
Tried, perplexity finance.
I used perplexity maybe ten times this morning, but it's short or quicker kirchs from me onto it.
I think it's impressive.
It is very impressive. I wanted Apple to buy him. I was pushing that jump forever. I mean, I was talking about that with with Tim Cocomfrada. I really think that they need something. But because of the of the Google decision, the judge Meta decision is possible, someone could pay them.
We talked about China a lot on the show. Are they are they just to conavi?
Wow? No, I got that.
I had never heard that.
The eighth Army is Yeah, the eighth Army favoite. What is this?
I only saw that because I was reading through all your old tweets. What is this the conovit movement and what does it have to do with contemporary was the.
Guy who won the award for for shoveling the most cold for steel and Stalin loved him.
Kind is obsessed with steel. I always wondered why they always.
Wear every plan. The five year for China's was the same. They're long a lot of steel there. China's wrecked the steel market. Presidents deed right on the transhipments by old buddy, Peter Navarro's right on the tranships. It's wild that that he's my old buddy, But he's my old buddy. And he went to jail bad not yell jail, because he went to toughs. But I do think that when you look at China sometimes I'm very harsh about them, okay, And that's because my father worked for Saint Regis and
Climax Union Camp. He worked for a Champion, he worked for paper company. He sold gift wrap and carget it and every single time he did well at one of these, they closed it. And they closed it because the Chinese targeted the gift wrapped industry. If you go to Costco, all you have is Chinese gift wrap. So my father, at the age of seventy three realized that's it. They wiped us out. He called a company that does from China who had an American rap and said, listen, I
want to work for the Chinese. And what he did was he would sketch logos restaurants and suggest that they used doggie bags that have their own name. And he had a drawstring doggie bag that the Chinese made for two bucks. He sold it for and he then had the run of his lifetime. From seventy three to ninety two. He worked until the month he died. He actually had a good last month. And what's incredible was the Chinese treated him like kings and when he died, they gave
me the proceeds for three straight years. And they were the best bosses in the the world and they had no idea neither.
You called China the greatest capitalist nation of.
All it is, they just crush it. God, you really read me close.
It's the headline of this episode going to be Jim Kramer on communism.
No, it is very funny because I do think they're the biggest threat. I mean, what they're doing in video, well you grow. I do want in Vidia to be the platform, but I haven't been to China, so I'm Secondarily. My son went to China to camel surf and he broke his uh well, he hurt his shoulder and they were going to operate immediately, and I said, look, I got to speak to the head of the hog. But no, no, no, no. My wife flew him over for shang I came back.
But the Chinese are a conundrum for us because they work harder than we do. But we may have them here. I know the exports for really, the export numbers are really good for them away from us. But I think we had to take some action because there's too many fentanyl towns. I got a Fentel town right next to me, and I can tell you it was a great town when I was growing up, and now it's a town where I can't believe it. I can't believe what happened.
The mills close, you know, the mills, the mills, the mills. I mean, now you can't bring back the pirates mill. It's good Peeps by George Packer in Atlantic about that. But I know we're really rambling hearing. I shouldn't ramble anhim.
Let me ask one cliche question. Lots of talk like the show, lots of talk about market valuations. At the moment, froth in the market we're recording this, I should have said on fed Day, September seventeenth, do you see froth? Do you see a bubble burring?
Yeah, there's two markets. And that's one of the reasons why I wrote the book, because there's this market where that is a musical chair market. I make fun of it. It's a palaeer market and accept the fact that who want to speculate go do palenter because Karp is you know, Karp is one of the greatest. His ontology work is incredible. It's better than scientology ontology. But I want people to stop. I can let it be one of your holdings, but
don't do all because it will be crushed. And when it happened, I do believe it, And when it happens, you'll lose everything. And then I would anything I tried to do be wrong. It's like when I was at college. I used to go to the racetrack and then there was a guy Andy Bayer, who was pet was a he was teaching a course. He said, listen, if you're going to go speculate at the racetra, at least know how to do it. And I never forgot that. And if you're going to speculate, I will show you how
to do it. But I really want compounding. And I want compounding because well, we know that that really is Einstein did not call the it's one of the world, but we know that that is a much better way to make money, much better.
I have one last question. It's very closely related to this, but why are you.
Wearing a button down? Why aren't you wearing French collar? It was it was not wrinkle.
We're gonna have today.
No, I like that. You don't have to press that because it has some sort of weird Did you buy that all right?
I'm pretty sure that was an insult.
Yeah. No, no, no, because I know I would never I'm very much I would have said I. I bought my wife's lingerie on she and thank god we use you know, match light. Don't have anything to put kazl in on the you.
Know, one last question. It occurs to me that like one thing I thought many I got into did in the market in the late nineties. At any given moment, in a boom or a bubble, right, there are moments that feel like the top, and then a year later you're like, oh, that was nothing, that was just they're like, oh, you know, it's like a few a couple of years ago.
They're like some C three AI is like booming, this is crazy top and so things like that, or like, you know this meme stock went up, doge coin is railing. We must be in a bubble. But all these things feel like a top in the moment, and then you realize they were just little hills on the way to a much bigger mountain.
So you've got to there's a simple solution. You take out over time your cost basis, and then you play with the houses money. And then I'm okay because I'm a first you know, harm guy, a hippocritic oath, and I can tell people listen, if you want to do that for your one slot, be my guest. But as it goes up, you got to take your cost out and then I don't care where it goes. It's fantastic, but you are so right, that's what happens. Look some
people feel that Google's at in video. I mean, I worked enough on video another Teragram.
People were going Google bubble in two thousand and five, two thousand and six.
Well, I mean, look, I recommended Google at eighty eight, and I was investigated by the CNBC General counsel for why I used eighty eight it's so so big, And I said, because I didn't use three hundred.
Didn't you get out of the dot com bubble early as well?
I did? I was short. I went I went on percent short.
Dot com chicks first spotting.
Because I am owned the big I was the biggest share hold on the street dot com and we're going from sixty three to two. So I had kind of a premonition. I mean, when it was a sixty three, the New York Observer said that I was three hundred, drew a picture of me as a pig and said, the three hundred and sixty million dollars man. By the time it came out, I was two sixty, and then a year later I was two point six.
As a Trotsky. The pig cartoon must have hurt.
I was overweight.
Then, yeah, Jim, we gotta we're gonna talk for a long time. Thank you so much for a thing on. I wanted to be honest for a very long time.
And I know that I got the exception because of my book to be on. I told you that I was writing the book, and I'm a man of my word. To come back because I always want to be in your show, because you're just a thoughtful guy. And when I when you were the stalwart, you were the first guy I read.
Thank you.
You know that no id to get up and read the praise that because it was the best. Thank you so much, absolutely, thank you. Guys should really appreciate.
It, Tracy. One thing I will say about Jim, and I've always felt this, I've only met in my handful of times before, but one thing I'll say is like that public persona is not an act. No, the mad money vibe is that is Jim.
No, I can believe it. He has a lot of energy. It's yes, I feel like he's chaotic neutral maybe in D and D.
I just can't like, I couldn't sustain getting up at four and that was just for a few years. And the fact that he's still up at three fifteen, well he goes.
To the fact that he goes to sleep at eleven eleven. Yeah, that's four hours to sleep under. Yeah, And that was a fascinating discussion. And I think one thing you can say is that in some respects Gym's been vindicated by you know, the rise of retail trading totally. Everyone takes it more seriously. Now that wasn't the case in like the nineties or the early two thousands. It's really changed.
No, it really is striking. I mean, it does seem like, you know, he talked about needing to get a bodyguard during game stops. So it's clear that to some element there is a part of the retail investor world which has metastasized into something sinister.
When people are.
Making threats because you don't like this dock, it's really interesting. People are just like any sort of negativity is so fought back against online when it comes to stocks these days, it's really striking. So but also you know, obviously when and then other things such as that they know nothing rand or the liquidation which I hadn't even realized that you mentioned it of the s Jim etf. Yeah, some good wins under his belt.
Man.
I really wish he had recommended that. I know that would see what would happen to you?
The exception? Yeah, okay, how do you? How do you?
I don't even know if an etf ken short itself, but I guess you would find out.
I don't know how you go about that fight. Now, I'm glad we finally made that happen. And I read about half of his book and it's a very fun read.
I'm looking forward to it.
Yeah.
Shall we leave it there?
Let's leave it there.
This has been another episode of the Odd Loots podcast. I'm Tracy Alloway. You can follow me at Tracy Alloway, and.
I'm joll Wisenthal. You could follow me at the Stalwart. Follow our guest Jim Kramer. He's at Jim Kramer. Follow our producers Carmen Rodriguez at Carman Arman, dash Ol Bennett at dashbod and Cale Brooks at Kale Brooks. For more Odd Lads content, go to Bloomberg dot com flash Odd Lots, where the daily newsletter and all of our episodes, and you can chat about all of these topics twenty four seven in our discord Discord dot gg slash on lots.
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