A Reddit user slammed Jim Cramer’s stock picks at the peak of the Dot-Com bubble, saying that the CNBC host’s suggestions cost him a decade of retirement.
Cramer’s Suggestions ‘Were Destroyed’
On Saturday, in a post on Reddit’s “/r/Stocks” subreddit, a user who goes by the name “SpellAccomplished541” called out Cramer’s viral “10 stocks to own for the future” list in the year 2000, just weeks before the dot-com bubble burst.
According to the post, Cramer claimed that he was buying these stocks “every day, especially if they went down,” insisting that their “valuations were old-fashioned” and the picks were “guaranteed” to surge 10 to 20 times.
These were the stocks on Cramer’s list, and as it is now evident, none of them have managed to deliver the kind of returns that were promised.
| Stocks | Performance And Current Status |
| 724 Solutions Inc. | Acquired by Mobixell Networks in 2010. |
| Ariba Inc. | Acquired by SAP SE (NYSE:SAP) in 2012 at a significantly lower valuation. |
| Digital Island Inc. | Acquired by Cable & Wireless in 2001 for $3.40 per share, down from its peak of $57.37 the prior year, at the height of the bubble. |
| Exodus Communications | Filed for bankruptcy in 2001, with the stock price dropping to $0 from a peak valuation of $32 billion. |
| Infospace | Acquired by Openmail for $45 million in 2016, down from a peak market cap of $31 billion. |
| Inktomi | Company sold to Yahoo in 2003 at $1.63 per share, compared to its peak of |
| Mercury Interactive | Acquired by HP Inc. (NYSE:HPQ) in 2006 for $4.6 billion. |
| Sonera Corp. | Acquired by Telia Co. (OTC:TLSNY) in 2002. |
| VeriSign Inc. (NASDAQ:VRSN) | Up 5% since 2000, following a steep decline during the Dot-Com burst. |
| Veritas Software | Acquired by Symantec in a $13.5 billion deal in 2004, down significantly from its peak valuation of $55 billion in 2000. |
Only one of the stocks in Cramer’s list 25 years ago has managed to remain as an independent company, and that is VeriSign, and even that only managed to reclaim its dot-com era highs earlier this year, delivering a meager 5% gain since his original call.
The user says “Cramer’s choices were destroyed,” noting that their life savings of $100,000, divided equally among his ten picks, would be worth just $46,850 today.
“By contrast, the same initial $100,000 in a passive S&P 500 index investment would be worth ~$712,600 today,” they said, adding that taking Cramer’s recommendations instead forced them to work 10 extra years before they could retire, noting that this is not hypothetical, but a “true story.”
They concluded with a warning to younger investors, saying, “Young people may not think this is a big deal… but having to work 10 more years is painful.”
Jim Cramer made cost me 10 years of work
byu/SpellAccomplished541 instocks
Neither Cramer nor Mad Money immediately responded to Benzinga’s request for a comment on this matter. The story will be updated as soon as we receive a response.
Cramer Was Bearish On Legacy Giants
These picks were given out by Cramer during the 6th Annual Internet and Electronic Commerce Conference and Exposition in February 2000, when he managed the hedge fund, Cramer Berkowitz & Co., before beginning his stint as the host of CNBC’s “Mad Money.”
Over time, calls like these helped fuel the running joke in finance and investing circles, known as “inverse Cramer,” which essentially refers to doing the opposite of whatever he recommends.
This has since prompted the creation of the Inverse Cramer ETF by Tuttle Capital Management, which allows investors to make bets against Cramer’s picks and suggestions. The fund has since been shut down.
Cramer, however, has defended his stock picks over the years, saying, “As always, I welcome people betting against me. I have done this for 42 years.”
He said, people betting against him “would have been betting against Apple at $5, Google since inception, Meta at $18, Amazon at $10, Nvidia at $25 and AMD at $5. I welcome all comers.”
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