Who Is Jim Cramer? The Mad Money Man’s 13 Best Quotes

Just who is Jim Cramer? People who are in any way associated with the stock market and its daily fluctuations know that he’s one of the financial world’s most important voices. The host of CNBC’s nightly mega-hit “Mad Money” and former hedge fund manager, Jim Cramer‘s viewer base is dichotomous–half devotee, the other half apathy. On the whole, though, Cramer’s words are some of the most market-moving in the blogosphere, and carry weight in every medium imaginable.

Photo Credit: Tulane Public Relations

A Harvard graduate, Cramer developed an interest for journalism in college, while at the same time, seeding what would become a rather fruitful investment pedigree. He also started giving stock advice through his answering machine, and helped some of his clients make hefty returns. With his success, he managed to obtain a job at Goldman Sachs, in the bank’s Private Wealth Management segment; but that’s not the whole story on who Jim Cramer is.

A manager of his hedge fund Cramer & Co from 1988 to 2001, in what later became Cramer, Berkowitz & Co, he generated an average return of 24% per year over this time, and in 1996, he co-founded TheStreet, Inc. (NASDAQ:TST). MainStreet, StockPickr, BankingMyWay, and Real Money are also under The Street’s banner, and the company also acquired The Deal last fall.

According to the PEG ratio, one of the most popular metrics to derive how investors are valuing a company’s growth prospects, shares of TheStreet, Inc. (NASDAQ:TST) are among the most attractively valued in the Internet Information Providers industry.

All equity analysis aside, Jim Cramer’s daily involvement in the US’s financial markets is a breath of fresh air, and understandably, he’s served up quite a few gem-worthy quotes in his career. We’re going to take a closer look at what his investment philosophy is by way of the spoken word, and in the process, we’ll get a better understanding of who Jim Cramer is as a person. (Sourced from BrainyQuote and SearchQuotes.)

Let’s see his 13 best quotes:

No. 13:

“I’ve lost tremendous amounts of money in various markets and I think that that’s something that makes you better at my job, not worse.”

No. 12:

“We typically hear numbers that there are 34 million households that are in stocks in some form. Well, I say that what’s occurred is if you have a job in this country, you’re in stocks.”

No. 11:

“I will stand up for what I believe and for what I have always believed: Every person has a right to be rich in this country and I want to help them get there.”

No. 10:

“I mean it’s the most objective industry in the world. If your numbers stink, you’re out. If your numbers are good, you get more money. It’s the most Darwinian, it’s beautiful, it’s brutal, it works.”

No. 9:

“I am doing my best to find it. I will find it before the public finds it. I will get out of it before it’s too late. The reason I will do that is because that’s what I’m paid to do.”

No. 8:

“We are all wrong so often that it amazes me that we can have any conviction at all over the direction of things to come. But we must.”

No. 7:

“The danger that we have right now are people who get the same information as I do and, therefore, think they’ll reach the same conclusions that haven’t traded as long, don’t have bear claws up and down their backs like I do.”

No. 6:

“I have never for a minute felt it was my stock picking abilities. I feel that my stock picking abilities aided – I was able to pick out which are the good stocks in the good market, but I have been blessed with a great market.”

No. 5:

“There are tons of people who are late to trends by nature and adopt a trend after it’s no longer in fashion. They exist in mutual funds. They exist in clothes. They exist in cars. They exist in lifestyles.”

No. 4:

“If I can’t be entertaining, no one will watch, … The kind of sector analysis that I do is not only extremely responsible but probably much better than your broker or analyst does, and that would have cost you a fortune.”

No. 3:

“I mean homes are very easy to build and buy. But I think that the idea of saving for stocks is a hard thing that people in this country have embraced.”

No. 2:

“You have a class of investors and you have a class of speculators. The speculators historically haven’t been big enough to cause the investors to doubt the long-term vision of stock.”

No. 1:

“If you can’t find the next McDonald’s, I’ll find the next McDonald’s. But it’s vital to be with people who with looking for ’em, because they do exist. They are created.”