Transcript
American Express Representative (0:00)
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Bank of America Representative (0:17)
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Jim Cramer (0:48)
My mission is simple, to make you money. I'm here to level the playing field for all investors. There's always a bull market somewhere and I promise to help you find it. Man Money Start Hey, I'm Kramer. Welcome to Man Money. Welcome to Kramerica. If you want to make friends, I'm just trying to make you some money. My job is not just to entertain, but to educate and teach you. So call me at 1-800-743- CNBC or tweet me imKramer. Whenever you're listening to anyone's investing advice, you need to consider the source and ideally you want to know where that person is coming from. That's why tonight I'm going to tell you exactly who I am and how I got here. No, not the standard introduction. I'm Jim Cramer, host of Mad Money. Co host, the squawk of the Street Chief of the CNBC Investing Club. What I want to do tonight in an extremely special show by even biwacky standards, is trace the arc that brought me to Mad Money. Not for some autobiographical ego trip, but to kind of give you some money making lessons from the phases of my various careers and explain, of course, how you can pop your phone. Remember, in the end, this is Cramerica and everything we do here is about trying to help you make money. In short, I'm giving you the Investor Kramer guidebook called that the skinny one. How I learned to be a good investor and how I continue to learn every day so I can help you become better than I ever I want you to be better than I ever want to be. By the way, that's our mission in the investing club too. Let's start real early. My love of stocks didn't Begin after law school or college or even high school? No. My love for stocks started back in fourth grade. That's fourth grade. You see, my dad would bring home the old Philadelphia Bullet, and, boy, that rings about a long time ago, that was. At that point, the Philadelphia Bull was one of the largest newspapers in the country. He'd have it when he came back from work every night and give it to me. I wanted the comics and sports. I was a ridiculous Phillies fan back then. I still am. It's a lifelong eclipse, I guess. Although I have pivoted hard toward the Eagles, I was also a curious kid. Curiosity's always been both a blessing and a curse for me. Not unlike the proverbial cat that's always probing, looking and occasionally jumping on some hot stoves. Anyway, there was always this solid chunk of the paper that seemed impaled, impenetrable to me. The business section, it was impenetrable because it had these giant lists and names of an agate type that seemed to go on forever. There were the other tables, different from the batting averages, tables and box scores. I scrutinized regularity when I read them from left to right. They made no sense to me whatsoever. Open, range, close. I mean, what? What's open? What range? What closed? What were these strange things? Why did they matter? I asked my dad, who I knew dabbled in the stock market because occasionally I hear him get mad when he heard prices that were mentioned on the radio. And particular, Oyster seemed to get angry when I heard something called national video and how it went out. I don't know what video did, other than go out and why it went out. I don't know if Pop did either, though, but I know it made him furious. I wanted to know why. So he sat me down one day and explained that each of those lines represented the performance of a stock at a company on a different day. The open was where the stock opened in the morning, the range was how low and high it traded during the day, and the close is what it was worth at the end of the day. That fascinated me. I mean, how could there be so many companies? And why the heck did they trade in ranges? He told me that each day people tried very hard to figure out which stocks would go up in value, and they wanted to buy them so they could make money from those moves. Frankly, this struck me as downright silly. I told him that when I looked at baseball tables, I was always trying to figure out who was hot, who'd go up on average, who'd go down and what it mean for the teams I like. Specifically, of course, the Phillies. He said it was pretty much the same thing with stocks. You studied the companies like you studied the players. Some players were doing just okay. Some were hot as a pistol. And of course, others were. Were just plain duds. I told him I wanted to figure out the stock market too. I wanted to figure out which stocks would go higher just like everybody else. I wanted to know if I could learn something from just following the ranges and reading the tables. He said, why don't you try? It seemed in my house, the radio was always on until Pop put the TV on in time for dinner. We always watched the news while eating, even as I admit I hated it because most of the news was about the war. And that meant the Vietnam War. And it was rarely seen going well at all. But right after the world news on the radio or tv, they always mentioned Dow Jones industrial averages. And they either talked about or showed the most active stocks than the ones that had done best or worst. National video. Pop stock was off from the worst list. And that's why, I guess, my dad was so angry. So what I did was write down the names that I heard and I tracked them, kept them in a ledger. I still have. What a terrific game it was, trying to figure out the next move of a stock, not a player. Even as all I really knew was the name. Most of them were defense stocks, and they went up a lot in tandem with the war. After a year, I decided that was such a cool game that I wanted to introduce it to my fifth grade class. And so I did. Going in show and tell with the Philadelphia Bold and showing them that ledger invited them to play to see who could find stocks that would end up the most during the week. Needless to say, not everyone was into it. But the darnest thing happened not long after. My dad's company at the time, National Gift wrap and Box Company represented 3M, then known as the Minnesota Mining Manufacturing Company in the Philadelphia area. He sold tape and sasheen that was a fancy ribbon that bowed easily. Remember, there was a time when you had to make your own bows. Triple M, as we called it, was always innovative, coming with new product lines, which it still does these days. It's also plagued, unfortunately, by major litigation issues. Right about fifth grade, Pop came home with a new line of 3M products. He was selling games. That's right. They got into what was known as 3M Bookshelf Games. He said, perhaps I might want to learn more about the stock market. And he had Two games that he was selling well about business. One was acquire about takeovers and the other was stocks and bonds. I always cry when a good friend bought me this recently. I love that game so much. And at one point I even asked the old CEO of three and bring the games back here, they're on the rights anymore. But the point of mentioning all this from my own makeshift stock game to stocks and bonds is the stocks are fascinating enough to get your kids started on them right now. And I'm urging you to do just that. It's easier than ever. Pick some stocks, maybe some stocks and companies that your kids are familiar with that have them track those and guess which will do best over time. So here's the bottom line, the bottom line at least of my childhood stock market obsession. Get them started early and they may play for life. Because alas, the stock market, it's a long term contest. The earlier you get in, the more you can potentially win over the long haul. Let's go to Dave in California, please. Dave.