Product Description

Jim Cramer is the champion of the middle-class investor. Every night on Mad Money, he provides valuable information about stocks, steering investors away from danger zones and leading them to the investments that can turn a lackluster portfolio into a powerhouse of profit. In his new book, he shows investors how to take the advice on his TV program and put it into action.

Cramer walks investors through the key decisions they have to make: understanding their tolerance for risk and defining their goals, doing the essential homework on a stock, and knowing how to buy and sell stocks the right way -- the Cramer way. This is a true nuts-and-bolts guide to investing, from Cramer's detailed discussion of the sort of homework investors must do to his own guidelines for knowing when and how to sell stocks.

Mad Money is a hugely entertaining television program, but it also offers valuable information that can be the basis for a winning portfolio. Cramer shows how to turn the "Lightning Round" into a terrific tool for investing; it's stock-market strength training. He reveals how he can assess a stock in only seconds -- a valuable skill that every investor can acquire and put to good use. He explains what to look for in his CEO and CFO interviews, and how to use those conversations to make successful investment decisions. He reviews some of his best calls made on Mad Money, as well as some of his worst ones, to extract ten lessons from each that can profit every investor. And for the Mad Money junkies who just can't get enough, Cramer goes behind the scenes to explain everything from the reason behind his deliberate mispronunciations to his notorious chair abuse to the zany props and buttons that keep things humming.

From the first "Booyah" to the last roar of the bull, Mad Money is every investor's favorite television program, and Jim Cramer's Mad Money is the book that can turn a TV program into a top-notch stock portfolio.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #56351 in Books
• Published on: 2006-12-05
• Released on: 2006-12-05
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Hardcover
• 240 pages

Features

• ISBN13: 9781416537908
• Condition: NEW
• Notes: Brand New from Publisher. No Remainder Mark.

About the Author
James J. Cramer is host of CNBC's Mad Money; cofounder of TheStreet.com, where he is also an online columnist; and "Bottom Line" columnist for New York magazine.

Excerpt. © Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved.
Introduction

Investing well isn't easy, but it is possible. My goal in life is to make it easier for you to make money. I want to help out regular people with paying a mortgage, or college tuition, or hey, if we really do well, maybe buying a boat. Picking the right stocks is one of the hardest parts of investing, and every night on Mad Money, I try to take some of that burden off your shoulders. If you watch the show, I can give you good stocks. I can help you understand where the market's going. My last book, Jim Cramer's Real Money: Sane Investing in an Insane World, gave you the disciplines and insights I had developed over the course of my long career as a money manager. Since I wrote Real Money, it's gotten harder to be a regular investor. We live in a more dynamic, more economically integrated world, and that means it takes more effort to know all the facts you need to invest wisely. In this book, I'll show you how you can best use Mad Money to make money in this new, more complex global economy, and I'll also teach you the many new lessons about investing that I've learned from putting the show together every weekday for more than a year. I hope Mad Money, and this Mad Money book, can give you a life that's richer in wealth if not necessarily in spirit.

But if you think just watching Mad Money alone can make you rich, you're dead wrong. If you think that watching the show and maybe doing a little research on the side can make you money, I'd bet you're off the mark there too. It's not enough just to process what I say on the show. You need to know what to do with it. And that, my friends, is what this book is all about.

I want to help you take the advice I give out on Mad Money and show you how you can turn that advice into money in your pocket. That's what I'm all about: helping everybody get rich. There's a method you need to use, there are protocols to follow. Sometimes you'll need a translator to understand what I'm saying on the show, because I get a little caught up with the idea of being on TV and start making lots of incomprehensible references to things only a few hundred people have ever heard of. But if you watch the show, and if you use this book to turn my advice on the show into real investment strategies, I think you'll be able to make yourself some serious dough. I don't want to knock the show -- it's fun to watch -- but there's more to investing than I can convey in an hour a night of TV, especially when I have to keep from being too didactic in order to hold everybody's attention.

This book is about maximizing what you can do with the market advice I freely distribute on the show -- advice that comes out of two decades of experience playing the market, and playing to win. This book is the necessary complement to Mad Money, and the even more necessary sequel to Jim Cramer's Real Money: Sane Investing in an Insane World. In Real Money I wanted to help individual investors make money in the stock market. I wrote that book before I had Mad Money, and in the last year and a half, things have changed. I learned more in the first year of making my show than I learned in any five years I spent running my hedge fund. Now I've got a new approach to stocks. It's pretty simple: there's no such thing as the market. Whenever people talk about "the market," they're really talking about a very small group of large institutions: hedge funds and mutual funds. Because these funds control so much of the money in the market, they're the ones who determine stock prices. A stock is only worth what the big institutions are willing to pay for it. Mad Money and this book are both meant to help you, the individual investor, understand what these big players are doing and to help you try to beat them at their own game. In this book, I'll tell you how to make the best use of my show in light of my new philosophy, and I'll teach you the important new lessons I've learned since I wrote Real Money. The market's changed; my new rules will help you capitalize on my most recent experience with stocks, and they'll help you deal with a stock market that's gotten harder.

Now, sometimes I've got to toot my own horn just so you guys will listen to me. I have a few talents: I am a pretty good stock picker and a successful investor. Just so you don't think I'm conceited, I'm also not the most considerate guy on earth, and I'm a bad sport when playing Monopoly. The point is, I know how to make money in the market, and I want to help you make as much money as possible. I'm not doing it to be famous, and I'm not doing it for the pay, because I've already got more money than I feel comfortable having, and I say that as an incredibly greedy capitalist. I need to make you rich. I don't know why, maybe it's out of a pervasive sense of guilt, maybe I'm a nice guy -- it doesn't matter. You will need more than just Mad Money if you're going to make the money I want you to make.

Originally, back at the end of 2004 when we first started throwing ideas together to make the show, I had a plan. There are a lot of people out there who need reliable, honest advice about stocks. You can't be sure about research from this or that brokerage house. They've all been tarnished; they've been tarred and feathered and ridden out of town on a rail for colluding with their clients. And business journalism has the same problem as every other kind of journalism. Nobody ever takes a side, expresses an opinion, or even evaluates the validity of the press releases they get. No one ever puts his neck in doctor guillotine. Instead, they present these bland pseudo-analyses that in the end tell you nothing. Reporters want to tell you the news. You can't make a dime off the news unless you know what to do with it, and that's why Mad Money was born. I wanted to do something different and more helpful.

My goal is to create hundreds of thousands, maybe millions of people who diligently invest their money in stocks and come out of it with some mad money. I happen to think my TV show is great. I think it's the best thing on TV short of 24, The Shield, and most of what's on HBO. Good as I think it is, you need more. You need a supplement, you need something that lets you convert what I give you on the show into money in your pocket, and that's why you need this book.

Here's how it all comes together. I may play a total madman on TV, but I'm really just a very unbalanced guy at home. However, when it comes to stocks, I believe in being rigorous and methodical, not crazy. There's no madness to my method. If you want to watch Mad Money and then turn around and make yourself a fortune, you have to understand that method. You have to know what to watch for -- which observations are significant and which ones aren't.

That's the way this book will make you money. The great thing about Mad Money is that it's an up-to-the-minute show. Real Money, my last book, has great general advice about the strategies you should be using to make money in the market, but it has no up-to-the-minute, immediate component. What you're getting in this book is a way to take the detailed, immediate recommendations and observations from the show and turn them into money in your pocket.

I want this book to guide you through the nitty-gritty details of researching the stocks I recommend every single night on the show. I don't just hand you money on a silver platter. I wish I could. I wish it grew on trees, but it takes hard work to make money. I think I'm giving great advice on the show, but you still have to do your homework if you're going to turn that advice into the one thing we're after: money. So in this book, I'll tell you how to do the homework and how to decide which stocks are for you and which stocks you should stay away from, given your age or your personality. I want to guide you through the process of purchasing the stocks you like and then deciding when, where, and how to sell those stocks. I never have time to get into this sort of thing on the show, but it's just as important to know how to buy and sell the right stocks as it is to know how to pick them. I want to take some of the more complicated concepts and ideas that I use on the show and break them down for you, because knowing how to decode genuine Wall Street gibberish, and genuine Cramer gibberish, will improve your game.

I'm writing this book because I want you to feel like you've got me sitting right next to you, guiding you every step of the way when you buy and sell the stocks I pick on the show, or when you just try to implement my more general advice. But I want to do more with this handbook than just teach you how to follow my marching orders. Just as I do on the show, I want to educate you. Making Mad Money has been an education for me, and I have twenty new rules for investing, rules that I've formulated by rigorously analyzing my successes and failures. These rules explain how to invest in a market where the big hedge funds and mutual funds run the show. They're new disciplines that will let you anticipate the behavior of the big institutions. If you can do that, you can get rich. I'm not repudiating my rules in Real Money -- they're still valid -- but the world has changed. My twenty new rules are a supplement to my Real Money rules, not a substitute for them.

That's not all. If you want to get the most out of Mad Money, you need to understand how I operate. Every night I take dozens of calls in the "Lightning Round," a segment where callers ask me what I think about their stocks. I don't know what the stocks will be beforehand, but I still manage to give out decent advice. In this book, I'll show you exactly how I can tell people whether to buy or sell something with only five or ten seconds to think about the stock. I'm revealing all the secrets of the "Lightning Round" and all the tricks I use to pull it off every night. Not only that, I'll even show you how to do your own Lightning Round -- not in order to impress your friends, but because the preparat...

Customer Reviews

Don't buy the hype
Wow, what a disappointment this book was. I own Cramer's other books, have read them, and am familiar with his investment style. I found his last book, Real Money, very insightful and have learned a lot from it. What I found when I read this book, however, is a poor superficial treatment of the topics he covers in his previous book.

Anyone with an ounce of sense should immediately see that this book is meant to piggyback the success of Cramer's TV show Mad Money. It has the same name as the show, the NBC icon is prominently featured on the front cover, and the subtitle "Watch TV, Get Rich" is obviously a plug for the show. It's sad to see Cramer stoop to such levels, given that his earlier books contained much of substance and are very good reads. Cramer himself is an excellent writer, but this book was ghost-written for him by his nephew. This fact is also readily apparent and this is the first of his four books I've had to force myself to finish.

If you want a thorough treatment of the Cramer style of investing get his earlier book-don't waste your time with this one. This book is a series of hit and run treatments of the various aspects of investing Cramer-style-just enough to hurt new investors but, more importantly, get them to watch his show. While I credit Cramer for getting me excited about the stock market several years ago I also realize that trading stocks is not all stuttering booyahs and Bowie knife attacks on chairs-you've really got to know what you're doing or you'll get wiped out. This book will not teach you what to do, make no mistake. The hype may be great and it may look easy and fun, but the truth is that there is nothing in this book that will help you really learn to invest. Do yourself a favor-stay away from this book and get Real Money if you have to get one of Cramer's books.

What Can You Say - BRILLIANT & ENTERTAINING TOO!!!!

Forget all the craziness, and loud shrieking voice coming at you. This man is the real thing. He was a hedge fund manager for years, and made BIG MONEY doing it. He simply prefers to cultivate a national image by being in the media. This in no way negates the wealth of fabulous information that he imparts to people on a daily basis. Cramer is a TEACHER too, and that's what you need to know.

If you listen to him, and then take the time to study what he is saying, it is the same as pursuing an MBA in stock picking. The difference is that in this case, the professor is giving it away for FREE. As you know, very few people ever appreciate that which is given away. If you charge for it, people's ears will perk up. They will strain to hear what you are saying, but give it away for free, and what happens? They just sit back, and say ENTERTAIN ME.

Cramer is loud, and frankly has gone Hollywood. He probably feels compelled to act in this manner in order to draw a big crowd to his television show. By doing this however, he may be taken less seriously. It probably also ensures however that he will gather a larger and larger audience, although there will be a lot of people watching that can not appreciate the contribution this man is making to improving the stock picking abilities of hundreds of thousands of people.

The truth of the matter is that anyone who is a real stock investor should be paying money to sit in a room with this man, and listen to what he has to say. If you listen to any great thinker for a long enough period of time, something becomes quite evident. People always have to reveal themselves, and reveal the truth in the process. A person can only put on a false front for so long. The façade has to come off, given enough time.

This is why Jim Cramer is so worthwhile, with a great show, and a fabulous book. Cramer is the REAL THING, and don't you ever doubt it. I run an enormous amount of money, both as the Founder , and the Senior Managing Partner of Rockefeller Capital Partners, LLC. I talk to some of the smartest people in the world. If necessary, I write checks in order to be able to consult with them. I have probably absorbed the contents of over 1000 different books on finance, investments, and money. Cramer's book is the work of a man who has paid the price in money, stress, and brainpower to learn what he has to teach. I know because I have been there.

When all is said and done, I find Cramer to be an absolute joy to listen to. This book Mad Money is even better than listening to him. In this book whether Cramer intended to or not, you have some pearls of investing wisdom that are individually worth a 100 times the price of this book. Here are several of them:

· A stock is only worth what the big institutions are willing to pay for it (p3).

· You can't be sure about research from this or that brokerage house. They've all been tarnished... for colluding with their clients (p3).

· Tips are for waiters (p23).

· Learn in very precise terms how a company makes its money (p25).

· Nothing is more important than the sector a stock lives in...half of what a stock does is totally dependent on the its sector (p27).

· The actual stock price means nothing without context (p32).

· You can't make money until you sell (p55)

· If the stock is growing faster than its competitors but has a lower P/E, then it's a slam-dunk. I'd give it a triple buy - we're done, next caller. (p69)

· I don't like inside information, both because it's illegal, and because it makes you sloppy (p75)

· Almost all analysts have been trained exactly the same way, so they think in lockstep (p75).

· We don't love stocks -they're just pieces of paper (p81).

· Whenever a CFO is cautious, I'm cautious. If a CFO is negative, I'm negative. You can take that as gospel (p114).

· It's these institutions that set prices, because they do most of the buying and selling (p121).

· Resisting the business cycle is futile.... if you buy a secular growth stock when we're in a cyclical upturn, or a supposedly cyclical stock when we're in an economic slowdown, you will lose (p121)

· You can't trust companies that are coming out of a leveraged buyout. The investment banks favor the LBO firms because they do a lot more business with them than with the average investor (p127).

· Latin America is always a trade. If you hold onto Latin American stocks for long enough, your gains will evaporate (p130).

· Not everything is worth betting on. Don't be afraid to say it's too hard (p133).
· When a stock is cheap, it's usually cheap for a reason (p137).

· Past performance is not an indicator of future success.... it's like black jack; the cards have no memory, especially when shuffled. (p139).

· Never invest on borrowed convictions. Make your own mistakes. You never want to lose money because you borrowed someone else's convictions (p143).

· Usually people have decent reasons for buying and selling stocks, and you should understand those reasons thoroughly before you try to game the supposed "stupidity" of your fellow investors (p150).


You need to read this book because the biggest problem an investor encounters today in the BATTLE for PROFITS is TOO MUCH NOISE. We have too much information coming at us, and we have to be able to sift through that which is pertinent, and that which is extraneous. It can take a lifetime to develop the ability to do this - many never do, and they pay a dear price for it.

You also have to realize that you will never, ever have all the information you want, prior to making the investment decision to buy or to sell. You will always be dealing with an imperfect decision. What you need to know is, that's OKAY. If you have 80% of what you need to know, you are going to more than probably be calling it right.

If you are using Cramer's approach than more than likely, you are a MOMENTUM player. You can make big money very quickly with this approach, and lose it just as quickly. You have to be ahead of the crowd both on the buy side, and sell side to handle this technique correctly. The best I have seen at this approach is Michael Steinberg who founded, and ran Steinberg Partners, the hedge fund for years.

At the time, Steinberg once mentioned to me that he was giving away $50 million a year in commissions to Wall Street. This meant that he was getting everyone's best idea, and his results showed it. Steinberg was the ultimate momentum player, and he always looked 10 or 15 years older than his age whenever I would run into him. In this business the stress ages you.

As an individual investor, you can do very well in the market. I believe you can blow away professional manager results if you are up to it. It takes time. It takes intensity. It probably takes what Sigmund Freud had in abundance. That was the ability to be BRUTALLY HONEST with yourself as to your strong points, and your weaknesses. Very few are capable of such honesty. Only in Wall Street do so many talk a good game, show poor performance and then make millions for themselves in the process.

Those who have been successful like Cramer are the rare individuals that LOVE THIS BUSINESS. They wake up in the morning, and think about stocks. They go to bed at night, and think about stocks. Whenever they are in conversation, fairly quickly, you can bet that the conversation is going to turn towards stocks. They never stop talking about them. They never grow tired of the subject. That's what it takes to make a fortune in Wall Street, and I respectfully suggest to you that Jim Cramer is showing you how to do it. Good Luck.

Richard Stoyeck
richardstoyeck@gmail.com

Guide book for how to watch Mad Money on CNBC
If you are a fan of Jim Cramer and Mad Money this book is an absolute must have. Jim goes into more detail in this book about how to invest than he has time for on his TV show.

You will learn the following from this book:
Chapter 1:You must know yourself and your goals to decide whether you should buy a stock. Do you like to take risks with aggressive growth stocks with P/E ratios of 30+ or do you fell more comfortable buying Dow components at a value price and low p/e? Only buy stocks that fit your personality type that you feel comfortable with.
Chapter 2:Only own between 5-10 stocks at a time, and only if you are willing to do one hour of homework on each, every week. Buy and Homework instead of Buy and Hold.
Chapter 3:ONLY use limit orders to buy stocks, so you use your price, you will be gouged by brokers if you use market orders. If at first you miss your buy price try again.
Chapter 4: When your stock rises 20%-50% take some profit, do not give your gains back to the market. Bulls make money, Bears make money, Pigs get slaughtered.
Chapter 5:The secrets of how Jim does the lightning round are revealed. The main indicator of whether he will give a buy or sell is determined by what sector the stock is in and where the economy is in the business cycle. This determines his decisions 50% of the time.
Chapter 6:How to play the lightning round yourself.
Chapter 7:He explains how to listen for clues during CEO interviews on whether to buy or sell their companies stock. Can they explain in great detail why their stock will rise?
Chapter 8:Here he explains all the new lessons he has learned from all his recent bad calls he has made on Mad Money.
Chapter 9:Here you will find all the lessons he learned from all of his successful calls on Mad money.
Chapter 10: Explains how Cramer gets his ideas for the show buy reading the WSJ, IBD, NY Times, the Economist, his local paper, 12 trade journals and by watching Oprah.(The Oprah effect)
Chapter 11: Here is where you learn why he throws chairs (He thinks they are for the lazy), where booyah came from (a caller from New Orleans) and what every buttons sound effect means.

You will also get two useful appendixes with this book a great stock worksheet that gives you all the questions to ask before you buy a stock and the best chart I have seen for what cyclical sector stocks to buy during each stage of the business cycle determined by interest rates.

I have returned over 20% in my investments over the past 4 years and Cramer is one of my greatest teachers. I highly recommend buying this book and watching Mad Money, let Cramer keep you up to date in the market.