I will tell you how to play CNBC. If they really start hyping a certain market sector, then that sector is good when they first start hyping it. Every one of them to include Cramer, Greenberg, etc. always start pumping the same sectors at the same time.
For example, staples. They started pumping staples in June and look. PG up 19% from when they first started desk pounding. Then they started pounding the desks for large cap and that sector started to rise. Now they are pounding the desks for small cap.
If you watch CNBC religiously, you will see these transformations. You can tell when it starts, but it will end suddenly somewhere.
I was at a party over the summer and there were many traders there from big name institutions. They all said that they have CNBC on all day long and all of the traders seemed young. So Im guessing that some of this stuff gets into their heads.
When they have pumped a certain sector for about 2-3 months, then you know there will be a turnaround somewhere along the line. . .Example. They pumped short caps Fall 2005 and Spring 2006. I remember they even brought a retirement specialist on suggesting that everyone buy into small cap mutuals and forget about the large caps. This was clearly a contrarian sign.
Some of the picks on CNBC can be outright *dangerous*. Example. Before Ford had its black trading day, they had a money manager on stating they are advising their clients to buy the stock in the 9s and they believed it will go much higher. Fast forward 2 days, it was early morning before the market open. All of the reporters started trashing Ford and they had another money manager on who said they were advising their clients to sell at these levels End result, Ford went from 9.5 to 7.8 in a day. If you had bought in on the first money manager, you would have had a huge loss to deal with...
I have lost thousands of dollars listening to CNBC. Do not listen to what they suggest especially Cramer...Yes, sometimes the plays do work out, but other times they simply dont. Its a gamble. For every Cramer play that works well, I can show you one that went terribly wrong. You dont know what their agenda is or who they are in with.