Cramer's Star Outshines His Stock Picks [View All]

[Joanne98]

JIM CRAMER'S CELEBRITY IS BIGGER THAN EVER. As financial markets came apart in October, more than 600,000 viewers turned to his Mad Money show -- the biggest crowd since the Nielsen Company started tracking the CNBC series. He is giving advice to huge audiences on NBC's Today Show and getting awestruck coverage in Esquire magazine.

And why not? An earthquake has hit Wall Street, and the 53-year old broadcaster has spent more time there than most any TV journalist. The guy is a hardworking genius with a word of advice for everyone...many words of advice, actually. He dispenses thousands of Buy/Sell recommendations a year and has declared that those stock picks will help you get rich.

The only regrettable thing about any of this is that CNBC and Cramer won't meaningfully discuss how his advice pans out.

Cramer's recommendations underperform the market by most measures. From May to December of last year, for example, the market lost about 30%. Heeding Cramer's Buys and Sells would have added another five percentage points to that loss, according to our latest tally.

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