This just in! Jim Cramer has been named the winner of the inaugural Basher Busters Dastardly Babbler Award. This dubious distinction is reserved for the market analyst with the most misfires and manipulative behaviors in a given year. It was a tight race, but in the end, Jim Cramer of C N B C edged out his buddy, Herb Greenberg, to win the award.
Cramer won primarily on style points and sheer determination. Not only did he amass a number of notable miscalculations, he did it with his usual panache and exuberance. This self- promoting, so- called market genius whiffed on his Dow Jones prediction when he declared it would hit 14, 500 by year?s end. He swung and missed again when he dubbed Sears a buy at two hundred dollars per share. Sears stock stands at ninety dollars today. Depending on how you look at it, that Sears call was a terrible miss or a sucker punch to the abdomen of the individual investor.
Add to his bad market calls the fact that he targeted America?s youth in a whirlwind tour of Universities, selling them his Cramerica Kool- Aid, which is spiked at best and poisonous at worst, and you can see how Cramer set himself apart from his competition. Throw in his now- famous rant declaring that ?the Fed knows nothing,? add a dash of his pill-popping mockery on the Conan O?Brien show, and he distinguishes himself even more.
But the coup de grace, the final straw, the cherry atop the whipped cream was his confession to having fun with stock manipulations. He pulled the wool over America?s eyes and laughed in our face at the same time.
And there you have it! The 2007 champion Dastardly Babbler. Congratulations, Jim!
Veracity Jones
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