Let me emphasize the finer points of Cramer's article. Does this sound like a person who manages a few hundred million, went to Harvard, worked at Goldman Sachs and has over 20 years experience in the stock market? Everything in the article, every word, was completely and utterly false.
"Most of these companies don't even have earnings per share, so we won't have to be constrained by that methodology for quarters to come."
"And if I had my druthers, I wouldn't own any other stocks in the year 2000. Because these are the only ones worth owning right now in this extremely difficult, extremely narrow stock market. They are the only ones that are going higher consistently in good days and bad. I love every one of them, just as I loathe the rest of the stock universe."
"To answer that question, you have to throw out all of the matrices and formulas and texts that existed before the Web. You have to throw them away because they can't make money for you anymore, and that is all that matters."
"That's the secret of the quintessential New Economy stock: Cisco (CSCO:Nasdaq - news). This giant networker has the ability to control its own destiny. It can, as my colleague Adam Lashinsky says at TSC, buy any company it wants to. It can pay any price. Because it has a currency that it better than U.S. dollars: It has Cisco stock. It can do that because it raises the bar every quarter!"
(NOTE: 1 month later, CSCO started tanking)
"But what about the Old Economy stocks? Can Merck (MRK:NYSE - news) raise the bar? Can Pfizer (PFE:NYSE - news)? Can U.S. Steel (X:NYSE - news)? Or Phelps Dodge (PD:NYSE - news)? Union Pacific (UNP:NYSE - news)? No, no, no, no, no and no."
(A portfolio of just these stocks would have done a lot better then the fabulous ten up until today)
"So, whom does that eliminate? First, any company that is a commodity producer simply can't be owned, no matter what."
I guess oil companies which have doubled and tripled since 2000 were not the good stocks to own...or those that produced copper, gold, steel and silver.
http://finance.yahoo.com/charts#cha...ine;crosshair=on;logscale=on;source=undefined
"An outfit like priceline (PCLN:Nasdaq - news) will change the very nature of brands in this country. It won't destroy the premium brand, but it will force everyone else out of the market. Why? Because the way priceline works is that we are trying to buy the premium brand for the price of the off-price brand. That means the off-price brands, whether they be Colgate (CL:NYSE - news) or Dial (DL:NYSE - news) or Hunt's or Ralston (RAL:NYSE - news), are simply doomed by the Web."
Priceline closed at 450 dollars on the day of the article and has since NEVER recovered. I think DL and RAL got bought out and CL did alright.
"How can Bank of America (BAC:NYSE - news) compete with Nokia (NOK:NYSE ADR - news) as a way to bank? How can Goldman Sachs (GS:NYSE - news) compete with Yahoo! (YHOO:Nasdaq - news) as a way to invest?"
BAC and GS are 2-3 times higher now then they were then. YHOO and NOK never recovered.
"A-ha, that just leaves us with tech. That's why we keep coming back to it. That's why, despite the 80% increase in the Nasdaq last year, we are looking at another record year now. It is by that process of elimination that I have picked my top 10. And my next 10 and my next 10 after. Only those companies are worth owning. The rest? You can have them."
So if I had constructed a portfolio from the stocks he dissed, I would be up maybe 200%. If I had constructed a portfolio from the stocks he was bullish on, then I would have pennies on my dollar.
As for your blog and your calls about predicting the tech bubble, let me tell you my thoughts on that:
1) I dont care and have no idea why your volunteering such information. Your a complete stranger to me and that information doesnt fit into any part of my life. It actually scares me that someone is volunteering such information as in any social gathering its not typical telling me your probably an asocial type of person.
2) I dont believe a strange random person on a messageboard especially this site which seems to feed great contrarian information.
3) Im not impressed and have no plans on subscribing to your blog.
4) Get a life.
Quote from Brandonf:
Whats your point. I was unbelievably bearish from the first week of March 2000 and I made a good bit of money from it, so did my subscribers at the time who I told to get off margin, not be long and at the very least go to cash if not short. I was right on that call, but its one trade, one idea. Over the course of his career vs my career Cramers earnings would make me look like a janitor. You win some, you lose some...and traders move on.
Brandon