TV investment shows

Let's see what Jim Cramer says about his own advise (his disclaimer):

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Prediciting the future is notoriously difficult.

There are two kinds of events in life:deterministic and random. A

10:1 gear train is pretty deterministic. The weather or the number of baby boomers to die each year is random (and may be described by statistics well to some extent). You can determine the price at which you will buy a stock. You can't determine the price you wil sell at unless it happens to show up. You generally can't determine the dividends. Investing is strongly affected by random events and will never be a slam dunk.

If time allows think that it's a good idea to read and listen to Suze Orman (TV and books), Clark Howard (radio and books?), Dave Ramsey (radio and books?), and Scott Burns (newspaper and other?). I do not agree with every bit of advice each gives, but the overlap tends to indicate where there is consensus. The non-overlap is thought provoking and IMO helps with decision-making. All are focused on financial planning in general.

Jim Cramer does not seem in the same category as those above. This goes for his media vehicles such as thestreet.com. He's focused on individual stock picking advice and IMO shamelessly promoting himself, for profit, through antics related to stock picking and easily misinterpreted by the less informed.

"sandybeth" wrote

I like Cramer for the entertainment value. However, I've tracked a few of his ideas that sounded good to me, but none of them panned out (this is not to say that none of his ideas pan out).

-Will

william dot trice at ngc dot com

Ormand does not do an investment show. It's more of a financial management show. She doesn't tell people how to invest, just how not to overspend.

My $0.02:

It depends on what information you want to glean from the programs. For basic financial management Suze provides a primer that is GENERALLY accurate. However, if you apply her advice to your exact situation, and your situation is not perfectly typical, you may find yourself "mis-invested". Suze acknowledges this and is even guilty of it herself (she is invested almost entirely in treasuries).

Does she give bad advice? No. Is it always applicable to your situation? A resounding NO!

Admittedly, Suze rubs me wrong because of her stance that nobody should EVER buy a variable annuity. That's simply wrong (google: NIMCRUT). She may be right 95% of the time on that one, but that other

5% done a dis-service. That's why I claim she is good in general. She is not a substitute for certified financial planning.

Cramer is a story of "the guy with the loudest voice gets the most attention". Will pinpointed the problem with Cramer when he stated, "I've tracked a few of his ideas that sounded good to me, but none of them panned out (this is not to say that none of his ideas pan out)." Textbook example of the efficient market theory and active investing.

I see that as good, not bad. If you have a base that is greater than critical mass, you should invest that base conservatively. After all, Suze once had a broker mis-invest her money, and she lost her entire fortune on a market downturn. You can expect that she knows very well what her current risk tollerance is as a result of that experience.

-john-

Presumably, the goal of a rational investor isn't to end up with the most money possible, but to achieve lasting financial independence (reminds me of the people who mistakenly put minimizing taxes above maximizing after-tax return).

If one has enough assets such that investing them entirely in US Treasuries throws off enough income to provide lasting financial independence, then doing so is an excellent idea, not a bad one. You're financially independent. Why risk that by making unneeded investments in risky assets?

I've thought about this myself -- if I ever won some mega-jackpot like PowerBall, many tens of millions of dollars are going to go into Treasuries -- so that even if I somehow managed to lose all the other money, I'd still be able to indefinitely live quite comfortably on what those Treasuries throw off.

-- Rich Carreiro snipped-for-privacy@rlcarr.com

I see her investment decision as suitable also. That's my point. It's prudent, yet it's contrary to her normal advice. Why? Because she's not the typical investor. A small percentage of her viewers are also not typical. THEY (but not the majority) need to take her advice with a grain of salt.

I say again, Suze gives perfectly acceptable advice IN GENERAL (afterall what more could we ask than that?). However, she is not a substitute for individually tailored and unique professional advice (or even learning all the ins and outs of your personal situation on your own).

My observation on Suze Orman. I stopped watching/listening to her back in

2000, when she observed that while the general investment advice is to buy low and sell high, she recognized that prices were indeed high at the time. Her advice? Buy high and sell higher! Yes, she, at least occasionally, gives bad advice.

No doubt about this. Above, Will observed he likes Cramer for the entertainment value. I don't watch Cramer because I don't call it entertainment to have some guy yelling at me. There is no reason to spend any portion of my life having someone yell at me. I am astounded that he has even one viewer.

Elizabeth Richardson

I would do the same Rich and I think Suze is also proper in doing so. I did not intend to imply her investment was unsuitable for her just that her advice is not universally applicable.

I guess I take a somewhat pragmatic view of the issue. The few people that really need a customized financial plan are most likely going to know who they are. And if they don't know, then they are not likely to be candidates for doing something exotic.

In the long run, I think just about everyone can benefit from the core of what Suze advocates, and that is living within your means and saving for retirement. I think far more people can benefit by doing that than can benefit by paying big money to perform financial gymnastics.

-john-

Well put and agreed John. I look at it this way, far fewer people would harmed by following Suze's advice than would be harmed if they followed the opposite of her advice. For that reason she is decidedly good for us.

But I believe the average poster on this group is above "J6P" level simply by virtue proactively being here. Given that, they are more likely to fall into an "exotic" position. Therefore I say "take with a grain of salt".

I made some really big money from Wall street week with Louis Reykeser-and made still -he told me 6 or so years ago to get into commodities-so I bought oil-which is doing well -I have not found another show since then- but I sometimes watch Cramer and mad money but I am way overweighted in oil right now

>

My issue with them is that the "information density" is very low - same problem TV news has. You can get less from watching the Weather Channel or network news for 1/2 hour than from spending a few minutes on the internet. I'll take the extra 26 minutes a day please!

For most people learning about mutual funds and insurance is not entertainment, it's on par with figuring out how to file your taxes. You want to do it as efficiently as possible, and get to more enjoyable things. And you can get so much more information from reading, in much less time.

And if Suze answering questions about variable annuities qualifies as entertainment...well maybe it's time for some serious reflection, a new hobby, a Netflix subscription, or all of the above!

I don't think it applies to Suze, but many of the money shows by nature focus on investments du jour instead of the long-term strategies most people will do better with. When someone on TV barks about a stock that just popped or gold or whatever, it lends legitimacy to the idea that you need to care, and react to it.

-Tad

I call this entertainment, but my wife agrees with you...

-Will

william dot trice at ngc dot com

The follow on to Louis Reykeser program on CNBC may as well be "Kudlow and Company", although as someone said the info density is low and admittedly the yell-fests can be a distracting annoyance. Kudlow had taken over the banner of against-the-grain optimism in the last 5 years of market growth, and following the sector advice, etc would have lead you to a vortex of high returns. Now overly immersed political commentary so maybe best handled by recording and later skipping to the market highlights.

"Suze" is a mess re: investments - her editor must clean up her book advice. She's made specific fund ticker recommendations on-air along with rationale that didn't match the ticker. And the rationale itself being a mistaken interpretation of old platitudes that then backfire for her over time, which she eventually changes for another mistake! Much of the rest is a freak show of people who've made reckless self destructive decisions, so hard to get interested in despite some useful tax and misc info.

"Cramer" sometimes has a good capsule of market trends in the first couple minutes. Maybe once a week he adds some useful rules of thumb on investing. His interaction with callers may be the most annoying rituals on TV, possibly to make it unseemly for them to be frank and say the reason they are calling is his recommended stock has gone way underwater for that caller. Not that Cramer picks are mainly bad, but if you pay attention the calls often seem to be about stocks he pumped but went really down. He plays the tough guy, but has repeatedly been a cry baby running for defensive stocks at countless little blips on the long past uptrend.

"Fast Money" combines a quite unpromising format with a neer-do-well host, and somehow comes up with entertainment and value! I'm a little disoriented by this, but kudos to Dylan and the way it seems to give quite useful sector calls and explanation/education even when discussing stock details that I wouldn't ordinarily care about. Try their free "word on the street" podcast by seaching for cnbc in Itunes

- isn't at least the beginning provocative and useful for close market watchers?

There is also the Bloomberg channel, which is improving from a slow start. Best of all is CNBC Europe from London, like Geoff Cutmore's Euro Squawkbox program. The web mainly seems to list some novelty stuff from him like

butit is a class act. His probes into US and world markets makes the USside of CNBC seem in comparison like a tribe of jabbering monkeystrying to make sense out of an Apollo moon launch. Geoff's show, onthe other hand, is more like watching the same launch in theinsightful company of the late Werner von Braun while sipping yourfavorite beverage.

Elle wrote on [Tue, 8 Jan 2008 17:47:16 -0600]:

Or perhaps that she has enough money and is now only trying to keep ahead of inflation, with no need to take as much risk as her risk tolerance might be.