Stick to stocks, Cramer. You don't know anything about medicine. You don't know anything about politics.
Do you know how many times I heard that this weekend as I, like many, tried to figure out the conflicting stories about what was going on with the president this weekend?
Let me start out by saying I would love to stick with stocks. I covered politics as a cub reporter and I despised it. Like many, I don't care for Washington. I would much rather be examining companies, trying to figure out how their stocks should trade.
But to do that and do enough of a good job to talk to you and help you with your portfolio, I have no choice. So what do I do? I lean on my network of CEOs and doctors to try to figure out how to recommend or reject stocks of otherwise very fine companies. If you have been at it like I have, either your network is good or you should retire. I am staying on.
I found this out the hard way. When I started out as a hedge fund manager I didn't pay much attention to politics at all. I just followed stocks. Over and over again, though, I would get hit on the head from something from Washington. That's because I tried to pay little attention to what the Federal Reserve was doing. Isn't that what Warren Buffett tells us to do? The fact is, though, if I stuck with his stocks - American Express (AXP) , Coca-Cola (KO) , Wells Fargo (WFC) in particular - I would have crushed my investors. Yet somehow, the twitter peanut gallery accepts that I am to divine the Fed but nothing else.
Now let's go over what I would have missed if I listened to the twitterati. I will list them:
First, I would have failed miserably at identifying the Covid-19 story. I flew back from Miami, the day of the Super Bowl, because I wanted to tell the story that I saw a vast pandemic coming our way that could kill many people, a pandemic unleashed from China that would not be stopped by just banning flights from China. I made that call because I thought that both the medical community and the White House were woefully prepared and the CDC had been stripped of credibility. Those were not stock issues. But they prevailed in identifying the Cramer Covid 100.
Second, I recognized that the first stimulus plan would save the economy from a Depression. I recognized that because I worked hard to bring to you both sides of the story in Washington, the story of Secretary Mnuchin, whom I have known since he was a boy and whose father was my boss, and from Speaker Pelosi, whose grandson was my stepson's roommate. I grew tired of the President's name calling so I decided to approach it in a scolding way to the President but it was taking totally wrongly and I failed miserably given my long respect for the Speaker and her multiple times on Mad Money. Sometimes you screw up. I apologized professionally and personally but given that the cook whom I love in town gave me a free Taylor, Egg and Cheese Sandwich for free Saturday because of my comments, I did a bad job, despite a lifetime of championing women's rights. Oh well. At least I got the big story right.
Third, I knew that Remdesivir was a loser for Gilead (GILD) after its initial hype and the stock should be avoided. I knew Regeneron had the winning combo and recommended it. I am not up 595 points for viewers on Regeneron.
Fourth, I have followed the energy stocks and the EV stocks and even thought the President is wildly pro-fossil fuel, I told you to sell everyone, from oil to gas to pipelines, hammering home that Exxon (XOM) and Occidental (OXY) were particularly vulnerable despite the President's pro oil and gas stance BECAUSE his stance led to a glut. I would have missed that one entirely.
Finally, I told you to stick with FAANG, which I created for heaven's sakes, because they all do BETTER in a pandemic, every one of them. If I believe that the pandemic would be over, like the President said it would be, several months ago, I would have crushed you. It was important to know AND to dismiss the President's view. I follow these stocks closely and I am confident in saying almost no one else got them right.
So, if I stick to stocks, I would have buried you. I knew that because I bought my first stock 41 years ago and I didn't fall off a turnip truck of algorithms and trash talk and second derivatives. I am sticking to what matters. What are you sticking to?
