A must see video – Jim Cramer is calling a great stock market for the rest of 2007 and 2008 as late as 3 months ago, when it was absolutely obvious that the game is over. He was not just making the bad calls, but the worst is that he was lying that he did not, as if there is no record. Well, there is. The great Rick Santelli is putting him down.
It’s amazing, Cramer has his own show on CNBC, but each time I look at him (or at most of his colleagues at that station) – he knows nothing about investing and stock market. Nothing. And this is amazing that, apparently, it doesn’t matter
The Theroxylandr in Flame 
January 24, 2008 at 2:30 am
It was rumors of a bailout of the bond insurers that drove the late advance.
Leading US banks are under pressure from New York state’s insurance regulator to provide as much as $15bn to support struggling bond insurers,…There is widespread concern that rating agency downgrades of the specialist insurers known as monolines could force a fresh round of writedowns by banks, which could damage already battered investor confidence. This has led to speculation that banks would band together to prop up the insurers, which guarantee payments on thousands of billions of dollars worth of bonds issued by municipal governments and other borrowers.
Huh?
Are the banks supposed to supply the capital so that their bond insurers, to whom the banks paid insurance premiums, can pay them back?
Where will the banks get this money? Was this scheme the reason for the emergency rate cut? If so, what will the banks put up as collateral for the loans? Please don’t tell me it will be their ‘insured’ bonds. Or is the money going to be just given to the insurers? If it’s going to be loaned to them, what is the future cash flow projection for repayment?
January 24, 2008 at 3:10 am
Next on the Worry List: Shaky Insurers of Bonds
The notion that the failure of even one big bond insurer might touch off a chain reaction of losses across the financial world has unnerved Wall Street and Washington. It was a factor in the Federal Reserve’s decision on Tuesday to calm investors by reducing interest rates by three-quarters of a point, to 3.5 percent.
January 24, 2008 at 5:53 am
Cramer is an überjerk — let’s just leave it at that.
Note this:
We will retest the recent lows and most likely PLOW right through them.
I am starting to wonder if a taxpayer bailout of the bond insurers (‘monolines’) will be the ultimate outcome of any “stimulus” package. I think it was Fitch’s downgrade of Ambac last Friday that caused the selloff in Asia on Monday. I think there is no way to find enough capital for ABK to meet its insurance obligations; the talk of having their own counterparties — e.g. banks whose bonds ABK (supposedly) insures — provide this money is just crazy nonsense. And it is clear that writedowns and losses triggered by more downgrades — and worse a failure — of bond insurers would be catastrophic. So the only thing that makes sense is for taxpayers to assume those obligations. As unthinkable as that would be in normal times, it will be clearly seen as the lesser of two evils.
If that happens, or if talk of a bailout persists to the point that it seems we are moving toward that, then we have definitely seen the bottom.
January 24, 2008 at 8:03 am
Cramer is an entertainer. He is not your investment adviser. He has no responsibility to anyone but the advertisers that pay to run 30 second spots during his show.
If your source of education is the television, then I would expect you to know a lot about Britney Spears and not very much about complex financial issues.