Inverse Cramer Strikes Again

[nutildah]

Going all the way back to 2008, "Mad Money" Jim Cramer has perfected the craft of being an unironic reverse indicator. Yesterday he managed to do it again; except this time it was for our beloved Bitcoin.



"This thing is... you can't kill it," said Cramer on CNBC yesterday. "It's a reality and its a technological marvel and I think people have to start recognizing that its here to stay."

The comments led to a near-immediate drop of over 8% in the price of BTC. It has since recovered slightly and is now down about 5.5% over the last 24 hours. The drop was likely due to people anticipating some kind of even bigger drop because of some kind of information known only by Cramer and those who told it to him.

How does Inverse Cramer work? The thinking is that he manipulates his audience into becoming exit liquidity for himself and/or the firms/individuals he deals with behind the scenes. These entities sell into the FOMO created by Cramer's recommendations, or buy in the case he is telling his audience to sell.

The earliest and most famous example of this phenomenon occurred in early 2008, when he assured his audience that Bear Stearns, one of the biggest real estate brokerage firms was not going under, despite clear warning signs that the housing bubble was beginning to pop.



Just a few of the other ridiculously wrong calls he's made:

- fading Tesla's IPO at $17 a share
- predicting a probe into Coinbase in July 2022 which he said was "very bad news" (the stock went up 50% a week later)
- in June 2021, he said Bitcoin was doomed "because of structural reasons" (price reached an ATH of $69k in Nov.)
- in Feb 2023, he recommended buying Silicon Valley Bank -- it collapsed weeks later

He also frequently makes several suspiciously-timed wrong calls about the same stock, yet for some reason anybody keeps taking him seriously:



This Twitter account chronicles all the times Cramer blew it... They have over 6,000 posts:

https://twitter.com/CramerTracker

So what do you think? Does Cramer's endorsement of Bitcoin mean something terrible is about to happen? ETFs rejected or delayed, institutions pulling out? Or is it all just a superstition?

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[mk4]

To be fair though, what he said wasn't necessarily even that bullish, just on the scale of 6/10 in terms of bullishness.

Pretty scary how close the timing was with the recent cascading liquidation event though, that was presumably started by the MatrixPort article.

[Darker45]

This man is funny and entertaining. It's hard to take him seriously. That his predictions are the exact opposite of what's to come makes his presence and statements light and bearable. And for this skeptic to finally say something positive about Bitcoin just before the price plunged made him a lot easier to handle.

But I don't think he's playing with the market. I don't think he's carefully weighing his words because he's got positions and he's trying to manipulate its volatility. I guess it isn't intentional. All is most likely coincidental. He also mentioned those pro-Bitcoin words seemingly in passing. He's probably just an unlucky man who got most of his predictions wrong. He's a jinx.

Also, if we take his words as the opposite of what's to happen, rather than a spot ETF rejection, there would be an approval. Right before he mentioned that Bitcoin can't be killed, he actually predicted that there won't be an ETF.

[hd49728]

To be fair though, what he said wasn't necessarily even that bullish, just on the scale of 6/10 in terms of bullishness.

Pretty scary how close the timing was with the recent cascading liquidation event though, that was presumably started by the MatrixPort article.

High probability of Bitcoin Spot ETF approval is like 90% just rumor.
Possible rejection of Bitcoin Spot ETF applications from MatrixPort article is only rumor.

People love rumor but they forget that "Buy the rumor, sell the news".

A magic principle for them in Bitcoin market is, ignore news, buy and hold your bitcoin in your wallet. Time will help you get profit when you are not affected by rumor, news.

[mk4]

High probability of Bitcoin Spot ETF approval is like 90% just rumor.
Possible rejection of Bitcoin Spot ETF applications from MatrixPort article is only rumor.

People love rumor but they forget that "Buy the rumor, sell the news".

A magic principle for them in Bitcoin market is, ignore news, buy and hold your bitcoin in your wallet. Time will help you get profit when you are not affected by rumor, news.

I don't think that's what "rumor" means at all. A person thinking something will happen/not happen is an opinion; and just like both of those, they're just opinions by these "analysts". Just like us thinking that bitcoin will go up in the future is an opinion, not a "rumor".

[Poker Player]

There are many more examples. I remember when I was still buying individual stocks talking about how well AT&T was doing and how safe the dividend was, shortly before the board of directors announced the dividend cut (after 35 years of consecutive raises). After that he went on a rant against the board, logically. Funny how a guy with so many failed predictions is so popular. That's probably why there are a lot of people who enjoy watching him.

[adaseb]

He actually made a prediction like 2 weeks ago and it was also before bitcoin hit $45K and was sent down to $41K. And after this tweet of his, I also got nervous and was hoping he wouldn’t be wrong but a few hours later it was proven he was wrong as usual.

I don’t understand why he has such a bad track record. Only reason I can think of is that people watch his show, they buy the stocks he picks and then it causes price to go up a little and then all the smart money gets out then because he tweeted or mentions the stock on his show.

[Majestic-milf]

 Well, he's not been known as "Mad money" for nothing! Anything to make the dough. Truth is, he himself knows some of this sayings rarely hold water and it's sad that there's investors who take him seriously. From research made it shows he makes his money from hosting two shows on CNBC, profit made from his old hedge fund,  surprisingly having an investment club and also selling investment books and being paid just to make speeches; so one can understand why he makes this God awful predictions! It's just for the cash.
 I feel he garners much viewership simply because his viewers don't really know anything about effective market hypothesis cause I doubt one would bother to sit in on such shows except for the laughs.
 
 Cramer has a lot of insider investor knowledge but one has to be careful when these guys share their secrets to success stories with the public.

[Smartvirus]

Funny how a guy with so many failed predictions is so popular. That's probably why there are a lot of people who enjoy watching him.

It’s that simple,
He’s got the nerve to take his predictions to the mainstream, to the media and he’s bold enough to say it yet again and for a second/third time. He’s always out there saying things and people are out there listening. Even still, people have built a correlation to his prediction in an inverse relationship after a move towards what he had said.

We can’t always expect all that falls off his mouth to be false and even now, I don’t believe he has had he’s say on Bitcoin based on what he knows or out of his own complete thought on the innovation but, an outburst based on what’s been perceived and this time, he just might be right and buy himself some more listeners.

[davis196]

Do you really believe that all the Bitcoiners know who this Jim Cramer guy is and they base their buying/selling decisions on his ridiculous predictions? I don't know Jim Cramer and I don't trust all those "buy this stock because bla bla bla..." famous TV hosts in the USA.
Maybe some crypto whales are taking Cramer seriously(in the opposite way  ) or maybe there's not enough support for a 45K USD price and many traders simply decided to sell some BTC and take the profits before a price crash occurs.
Do you really think that, if Jim Cramer says "Bitcoin is garbage!", the BTC price will hit 50K USD in no time? I don't believe in this BS.

[Yamane_Keto]

The press is creative in creating news from things that may not seem related to each other. Jim Cramer may be making some wrong analyzes or intentionally saying some rumors that lead to smoothing the market, but he does not have the influence of people who have influenced the altcoin market, such as Elon Musk, and his influence is no more than Peter Schiff and the memes that are made around him.

[Julien_Olynpic]

It is known that there is even a “Reverse Cramer Foundation”. This fund makes investments and trades based on Cramer's recommendations (does the opposite). However, sometimes statistics on the results of this fund (expressed graphically) come across on the Internet. So, it cannot be said that this fund was very successful. Rather, it is a curve going up, but very slowly, through a series of dips. The assumption that Kramer can always be right or always wrong and you can get rich just by watching his show and betting against him is quite strange. We can say that he is good at guessing the desires of retail traders on the stock exchange... but this is also quite doubtful.

[NotATether]

Nobody is really concerned by whatever Jim Cramer says except for other investors, and "traders" (I LOL at this word when it is used to reference the crypto community because hardly anyone here is a professional trader, but anyway). HODLers need not to worry about what he says, since they will be holding through all the dips and peaks in the first place.

But yeah the current mini-run is unsustainable and will deflate eventually.

[kryptqnick]

Huh, I didn't know about this guy and this thing about the opposite of what he says. There's a real investment fund that, it seems, does the opposite of Cramer's recommendations and predictions, called Inverse Cramer. That one could have some impact on the price. But there are also probably tons of people following the 'Inverse Cramer' principle who took his words as a signal that it's time to sell.
I think the main effect is a self-fulfilling prophecy, with maybe a hint of intentionally saying the opposite of the vibe in some investment circles at a particular moment in time by Cramer.

[nutildah]

There are many more examples. I remember when I was still buying individual stocks talking about how well AT&T was doing and how safe the dividend was, shortly before the board of directors announced the dividend cut (after 35 years of consecutive raises). After that he went on a rant against the board, logically.

Many, many such examples.

Funny how a guy with so many failed predictions is so popular. That's probably why there are a lot of people who enjoy watching him.

So he makes an otherwise dry subject entertaining with gimmicks, but other than that, yeah I don't understand it. Other than most people are dumb.

I guess he slips by because he is not wrong 100% of the time, but there is definitely something suspiciously odd about how hard he blows it sometimes, yet he maintains any credibility. Kind of like Tom Lee from Fundstrat: he's always wrong in his Bitcoin price predictions, yet CNBC trots him out every time they need some kind of "expert" to give their opinion on what will happen with the price of Bitcoin.

[Natsuu]

Cramer's always talking about stuff, but his predictions are like wild rides and all around. His track record, from dissing Tesla to calling Bitcoin's doom, makes you wonder if there's more to it than just market talk. So does Cramer pumping up Bitcoin mean trouble? Maybe, but remember, markets have a mind of their own. It's like predicting the weather because you never really know until it happens.

[SamReomo]

The guy just make inverse predictions and most of the times who are following him know that fact and that's the reason for those sell orders I guess in case of Bitcoin. I don't trust him and his predictions because they make no-sense at all but if someone favors Bitcoin for any reason then I will definitely appreciate that someone. Bitcoin isn't dependent on someone's predictions and even if someone with inverse predictions says something about Bitcoin then again the inversion fails and Bitcoin will go up and up again.

Although, Jim Cramer is the king of inverse predictions but I'm with him if he supports Bitcoin because the cure for curse of inversion is Bitcoin. The guy will relieve from that curse this time because he found the best remedy in the world. Ah, it's not a cruse but a game done in background by the Cramer but that game won't work this time for sure.

[buwaytress]

Man I haven't heard this guy since 2018 -- you sure he's still been performing the same all these years? Kidding of course, I know how cherry-picking works for humour.

I won't deny it, I myself gave in to the dip yesterday and slid into some exotics just for the hell of it. I'm a DCAer myself so it doesn't matter if it slides down 50% or pops the opposite direction, I can't really buy/sell extra but yesterday's ticking down happened just at a time I was selling some coin so I popped out the cork. No research, nothing. Would have bet it all on football otherwise...

[nutildah]

I know how cherry-picking works for humour.

It's not at all "cherry-picking." Its a long-standing, well-documented behavior that is consistent & powerful enough for fund managers to have opened an Inverse Cramer Tracker ETF. People are regularly betting millions that Cramer will continue to be a reverse indicator, even when it comes to his calls on Bitcoin.

This of course offsets the Inverse Cramer phenomenon, albeit only slightly.

"Cherry picking" would be looking at only one subset of data and coming to a conclusion. I am talking about the fact that he has more wrong calls than right calls since 2008.

https://www.askmoney.com/investing/jim-cramers-stock-picks
https://medium.com/@luuisotorres/jim-cramers-recommendations-a-six-year-analysis-e8a59675135e
https://seekingalpha.com/article/4615583-inverse-jim-cramer-strategy-q2-2023-update

[adaseb]

He always had bad stock picks. I remember he ended up going on some talk show after the global financial crisis and was basically called out because he gave horrible stock tips and people ended up losing everything.

His most famous prediction was that Lehman Brothers are fine and then a few days later they were bankrupt. People listened to him and put their entire life savings in his stock picks and ended up with nothing pretty much.