Investors will soon have the chance to go contrarian against the popular Jim Cramer, whose prognostications on CNBC’s “Mad Money” have long earned him both adoration and derision.
Matthew Tuttle of Connecticut-based Tuttle Capital Management has filed a prospectus with the Securities and Exchange Commission to sell a security called the “Inverse Cramer ETF.”
An ETF is an exchange traded fund, or a group of stocks developed around a theme that is similar to a mutual fund, but trades throughout the day like a stock rather than just once a day. ETFs have grown to an astonishing $5.75 trillion in assets since the first one was introduced in 2002, according to investment manager Blackrock.
“The Inverse Cramer ETF seeks to provide investments results that are approximately the opposite of, before fees and expenses, the results of the investments recommended by television personality Jim Cramer,” the prospectus states.
Describing its principle investment strategies, a requirement with the SEC, it says at least 80% of the fund will be invested in “the inverse of securities mentioned by Cramer.”
It says the fund will monitor the one-time hedge fund managers stock picks on television and Twitter throughout the day and either sell those recommendations short, meaning placing bets that those stocks will fall, or buy derivatives like futures, options or swaps that produce a negative correlation to “The Street.com” founder’s choices.
“The Fund goes long on stocks or ETFs that represent sectors that Cramer is negative on. The Fund uses Index ETFs and inverse Index ETFs to take the opposite side of Cramer’s announced market view,” the prospectus states. “Under normal circumstances, at least 80% of the fund’s investments is invested in the inverse of securities mentioned by Cramer,” the document said.
Tuttle’s ETF will trade under the ticker symbol SJIM, for “short Jim.”
Cramer, the founder of TheStreet.com, famously told his audience that “Bear Stearns is fine. Do not take your money out!” on March 11, 2008, just days before the longstanding investment bank collapsed and was bought by JPMorgan Chase for $2 a share.
When he recommended investors not subscribe to the Tesla IPO, Elon Musk joked, “We’re no Bear Stearns, but I think we’re going to do okay.”
In October 2020, Cramer recommended a basket of stocks he dubbed the “Magnificent Seven,” Forbes noted, that included pandemic lockdown darlings Netflix, Zoom and Peloton, all of which have since tanked. He’s gotten crypto calls wrong as well.
In November, a Twitter account with the handle @CramerTracker launched, describing itself as “tracking the stock recommendations of Jim Cramer so you can do the opposite.” It now has over 111,700 followers.
While a fun concept on Twitter, it’s notable that the prospectus comes with a warning: “The adviser does not in all cases perform fundamental investment analysis of securities bought, sold and held by the Fund as the primary factor for engaging in such transacting in such securities or related securities is the fact that they are mentioned by Cramer.”
