No wonder people don't trust CNBC's Jim Cramer

Monday night, Jim Cramer was the picture of caution.  In the face of a 777-point drop in the Dow, the Mad Man of Wall Street told viewers not to be taken in by what some might see as an ultimate 'buying opportunity."

Uncharacteristically, Cramer was seated as he offered advice to neither sell (too late) or buy (too early).  In fact, he said investors should sit on their hands, and do nothing.  And Cramer was sitting on his hands, himself.  The message was, "This is not the time to go into the market.  It will go lower.  Do nothing."

Tuesday night, he began his show shouting "The stock market made me rich!."  And then, for an hour he preached, "You can't win if you're not in the game."  It was a 60-minute exhortation to get in there and buy stocks, even speculative ones.  Done right, it's OK to take chances, he counseled.

How's that for whiplash?  "Do Nothing," one night. "Go All In," the next.

What's going on?

Well, despite the lower-third video text crawls 'splaining how Tuesday was an almost 500-point UP day, it was obvious to anyone with media programming experience, Cramer was not in the house.  Or the studio.  This was an "evergreen" show, the kind of "Fundamentals of Trading 101" show Cramer does when he goes away.

The likely explanation is that Cramer was not on vacation, but off for the Jewish holiday.  And so, running a canned show was certainly acceptable.

But ... GEEZH!  CNBC, how about some scheduling smarts?  Is there no one watching Cramer's continuity?

This programming embarrassment, ironically, also came the day after CNBC's biggest maven apologized to his audience for getting taken in by Wachovia Corp.'s CEO who, two weeks ago, said the company's bad loans totaled "only" $10 billion.  Monday, we learned the number was $42 billion.  Cramer flogged himself for being gullible.

Let's hope he's equally contrite on Wednesday's show, lest Tuesday's viewers believe their leader has changed from bear to bull in the middle of the stream.

Disclaimer:  As a co-founder of MarketWatch.com, I competed against Cramer's TheStreet.com.  Before that, I freelanced for the Street.  Cramer he fired me one night.  He hadn't liked what I'd written about his company's marketing strategy. I was rehired the next day by Dave Kansas, the editor. 

Comments

[Cheryl Cain]

so what should we do with the cramer books we got for christmas?

:)