Saturday, January 19, 2008

Jim Cramer Loses $50K Bet to Eric Bolling: Financial Services was NOT 2007's Hottest Sector

Jim Cramer is both an entertainer and a gentleman for making good on this bet wtih Eric Bolling over his prediction last year that financial services would be the hottest sector for 2007. Bolling, disagreeing with Jim, placed his money on oil and gold.

Well, financial services were hot in 2007. They were so hot they melted down!

The Post is absurd to suggest Cramer is in any way responsible for the subprime meltdown. They would be correct to say Cramer was surprised like the rest of us that great institutions like Citibank and Merrill Lynch were caught with their hands in the cookie jar and were too stupid to sell this toxic paper before the "stuff" hit the fan.

Today's NYPost has a story: " 'MAD' JIM CRAMER LOSES GOLDEN $50K BET


"Should stock jockey Jim Cramer be locked up for aiding and abetting the subprime market meltdown? The host of CNBC's "Mad Money" now owes $50,000 after losing one of the worst wagers of his entire career to rival trading wiz Eric Bolling.

Cramer, who favors the phrase "Boo Ya," made an on-air bet with Bolling about a year ago that financial services would be the hottest sector of 2007. Bolling, a former trader at the New York Mercantile Exchange, placed his money on oil and gold.

Investors who took Cramer's advice would have taken a 30 percent hit to their portfolios as the stocks of financial titans such as Citigroup and Merrill Lynch got hammered by the mortgage crisis. On the other hand, investors savvy enough to follow Bolling's bet on gold and oil would have hit the jackpot, as the hot commodities jumped over 60 percent in the same period.

Cramer, through a spokesman, blamed his loss on Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke's failure to cut interest rates more aggressively. "The bet turned on Jim Cramer emphatically calling for the Fed to ease rates. The Fed didn't follow Jim's advice, and as a result he'll be happy to write a check to the charity of Eric's choice," a spokesman said.

I am glad to see Jim Cramer made good on his bet like the gentleman he is. The NY Post is... the NY Post.

See Jim Cramers "They know NOTHING" rant video with Erin Burnett here.

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