Читать книгу Mutual Funds For Dummies - Eric Tyson - Страница 83

If you ever watch CNBC, you’ve likely come across Jim Cramer, a former hedge fund manager, who hosts an investment show at the network among other endeavors. If you’ve seen it, he yells and screams and jumps around while pounding on various sound-producing buttons.

Cramer rose to fame through his strongly opinionated buy-and-sell recommendations on regular CNBC stock market programming and his supposed extraordinary investment returns from his days running a hedge fund bearing his name. But there’s a problem: Despite repeated requests from me, Cramer’s former and current firms have been unable (and unwilling) to produce any independently audited tracking of Cramer’s claimed returns.

Compounding this lack of any proof is a uniformly poor to mediocre track record of his stock picks and pans in recent years. Several independent tracking services have found that his stock market predictions have underperformed the broad market averages. (See the “Guru Watch” section of my website, www.erictyson.com, for the details on Cramer and other investing pundits.)

Also, I had no trouble finding numerous folks who shelled out $400 yearly for his online newsletter and were greatly disappointed. One reader said, “I got caught up in watching his nightly show and then I paid for his Action Alerts service. That service sends email alerts every day telling you what to buy and sell. Well, after nine months, I lost a lot of money, and his portfolio is currently showing a 1.3 percent gain for the year to date (ever notice he doesn’t mention that on his shows!). I could’ve just purchased the S&P 500 and would be way ahead. His trading ideas do not work, and his recommendations to not use mechanical stop loss trades have resulted in huge losses in my portfolio.”

The notion that most average people and noninvestment professionals can invest in individual stocks with minimal effort and beat the best full-time, experienced money managers is, how should I say, ludicrous and absurd. But it does seem to appeal to some people’s egos — until the returns come in (or don’t come in, as the case may be).

Deciding what portion, if any, of your own portfolio you’d like to invest in funds versus stocks or other securities of your own choosing is a personal decision. There’s no “right” answer. I do, however, strongly suggest that you keep your individual stock picks to a small percentage of your overall holdings. The most successful stock pickers I’ve observed over the years do their homework and don’t actively trade. They are patient and humble realizing that they are playing a difficult game and what they get out of it is more educational and challenging rather than financially lucrative.