Arrived Lausanne

Fake it until you make it. Wealthy benefactor, insider trading, market manipulation, and salesmanship. ( )

Cramer is a maniac, but this was a very informative read. What's useful here is the explanations of how the market works and how everyone games it, as well as the views of what was going on in the boom and bust cycles. He makes a good case for the superiority of hedge funds over mutual funds, and analysts don't come off very well. The best character is his wife and the "Trading Goddess Returns" chapter is so much fun, I read it three times.

An entertaining book in a holy-cow-what-a-ridiculous-way-to-live sort of way. The author follows his professional passions in excess for roughly twenty years before personal reflection leads him to leave an incredibly demanding, grinding career as a hedge fund manager. Cramer really has two professional passions; in addition to investing, he loves to write. And he writes well in this book. He describes in effective detail the highs and lows of his professional life, and his ending chapter is especially enjoyable as he describes the things and relationships that are now more important to him than his past professional obsessions. ( )

The first 45+ years of James Cramer's life is laid out in the so very Cramer style (as shown on TV): volatile, theatrical, egotistic, and somewhat humorous. The book can be broken into 3 main acts.

Act 1: The self-proclaimed boy genius who naturally loves the market and is natural at picking stocks. Meets Marty Perez and begins to manage his money. Gives up law degree and ends up at Goldman Sachs as a broker/salesman.

Act 2: Jim strikes out on his own. Builds and runs a hedge fund, first with his wife ("the trading goddess"), then Jeff Berkowitz. High return (claims 24% annual return) comes with high stress. Crash in '98 almost wipes out fund but came out alive and strong. Begins to become the Media man he is now known.

Act 3: Co-founding TheStreet.com, firing the dumb/backstabing/imcompetent CEOs one after another until he regained control of the company. Sees through the "new" internet economy and the tech bubble.

Running the fund and participating in TheStreet.com are intertwined chronologically. There is little direct market tip, but one could gain a bit of insight into how a hedge fund is run. No one denies his fund's performance, but only God will know if he's lucky. A lot of his "insights" sure sounded like hindsight. I still don't know if Jim favors fundamentals or technicals (seems to be the later).

A few central themes he repeats and focuses on:
1) Jim has super-human work ethics, i.e. he works harder than anybody.
2) Jim is a temperamental SOB and erupts more often than an active volcano.
3) Jim makes good money.
4) Jim loves to write and loves TheStreet.com.
5) Jim either loves you or hates you.
6) Jim did do wrong a few times, oh but that's so rare and not entirely his fault.
7) Jim is screwed by quite a lot of people and he wishes them to hell.

At least now I know the (real?) man behind his Boo-yah! Not something I would read again, but was entertaining in some parts. ( )