Cramer’s Latest Sleazy Marketing Pitch

Far be it from to to critique Jim Cramer but I have seen enough of this kind of marketing over the years to agree with Henry Blodget over at Clusterstock.

As he notes on Cramer’s marketing spin:

It’s a personal note from “Jim Cramer.”  And it uses the oldest sleazy investment marketing tactic in the book.

What’s that?

Cherry-picking.

In an attempt to get you drooling about how much money you’ll make if you pony up and buy a subscription, the letter describes a few amazing calls Jim has made in recent months.  Goldman Sachs!  Nike!  GE!  What the letter doesn’t do, of course, is describe all of Jim’s terrible calls.

This is what many newsletters (and investment managers) do: Tout their good calls and igore their bad ones.  And they do it because it works.  But for anyone who takes their advice and clients seriously–as Cramer purports to–it’s misleading and sleazy. 

Cramer is not alone here. Without trying to get into the same boat of selfless self- promotion , if you don’t know who the pooch is at the poker table, hire a pro such as Seabank Capital or some other reputable fee-based investment manager who does not have any incentive or bias to promote a product or service….

This entry was posted on 23. July 2009 at 00:48 and is filed under Investor Psychology. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response or trackback from your own site.