Going all the way back to 2008, "Mad Money" Jim Cramer has perfected the craft of being an unironic reverse indicator. Yesterday he managed to do it again; except this time it was for our beloved Bitcoin.
"This thing is... you can't kill it," said Cramer on CNBC yesterday. "It's a reality and its a technological marvel and I think people have to start recognizing that its here to stay."
The comments led to a near-immediate drop of over 8% in the price of BTC. It has since recovered slightly and is now down about 5.5% over the last 24 hours. The drop was likely due to people anticipating some kind of even bigger drop because of some kind of information known only by Cramer and those who told it to him.
How does Inverse Cramer work? The thinking is that he manipulates his audience into becoming exit liquidity for himself and/or the firms/individuals he deals with behind the scenes. These entities sell into the FOMO created by Cramer's recommendations, or buy in the case he is telling his audience to sell.
The earliest and most famous example of this phenomenon occurred in early 2008, when he assured his audience that Bear Stearns, one of the biggest real estate brokerage firms was not going under, despite clear warning signs that the housing bubble was beginning to pop.
Just a few of the other ridiculously wrong calls he's made:
- fading Tesla's IPO at $17 a share
- predicting a probe into Coinbase in July 2022 which he said was "very bad news" (the stock went up 50% a week later)
- in June 2021, he said Bitcoin was doomed "because of structural reasons" (price reached an ATH of $69k in Nov.)
- in Feb 2023, he recommended buying Silicon Valley Bank -- it collapsed weeks later
He also frequently makes several suspiciously-timed wrong calls about the same stock, yet for some reason anybody keeps taking him seriously:
This Twitter account chronicles all the times Cramer blew it... They have over 6,000 posts:
https://twitter.com/CramerTrackerSo what do you think? Does Cramer's endorsement of Bitcoin mean something terrible is about to happen? ETFs rejected or delayed, institutions pulling out? Or is it all just a superstition?