www.MadMoneyRecap.com

Do you think "Jenna," "Rachel," and "Gia" are impressed with the work of Jim Cramer, successful former hedge fund manager, founder of TheStreet.com, author of Confessions Of A Street Addict and Real Money: Sane Investing In an Insane World, host of the daily radio show Real Money, and energetic, Ken Kesey-esque ringleader of the nightly televised stock circus that is CNBC's Mad Money? Here's the first thing you see when you arrive at their website, MadMoneyRecap.com:

THIS IS A DEDICATED FAN SITE CELEBRATING THE REFRESHING LOGIC THAT NOW FLOWS FREELY ACROSS CRAMERICA!

INVESTORS EVERYWHERE ARE THANKING MR. CRAMER ... BOO-YAH TO THE MASTER!

Let's take that for a "Yes."

Full disclosure: I've long been a fan of Jim Cramer's ever since reading his anxious "I don't know how long this bull#$*& can go on" missives from late 2000 at the then-completely free website, TheStreet.com. What Cramer provides more than anything else is that coveted glimpse of the world as seen by insiders. It doesn't matter if it's sports, entertainment, or the stock market - we all have a sense that it is one thing to figure things out for ourselves, but something else entirely to have somebody who has the real inside skinny on what is really going on.

Even if the conclusions of a given insider only serve to confirm suspicions, ideas, or facts we've already held, developed, or uncovered, the benediction provided by one of those "in the know" is irresistible, as legions of those who have been reading, listening to or, now, watching Jim Cramer in action can attest.

For all of Cramer's histrionics - alluded to in his autobiography, Confessions Of A Street Addict, and on full display thrice-daily on CNBC - what the man has always been good at is spinning a yarn. Even before the days when he was, as he calls it, "making rich people richer for Goldman Sachs," Cramer cut his teeth as a journalist in a Los Angeles that looked and sounded a lot more like the LA of extreme crime noir author James Elroy than the more sun-kissed variety. Whether it is because of Cramer's time as a beat reporter covering homicides ("In just a few months I found myself covering for the Los Angeles Herald Examiner everyone who died violently in California," according to his autobiography), his time at the now-defunct American Lawyer, or even his less than entirely studious years at Harvard Law School, the man spins yarns better than anyone on Wall Street. And because those yarns have for the past several years involved the fortunes and misfortunes of some of the most interesting companies and corporations in the world, Cramer deservedly has garnered an audience as diverse and broad as his own prodigious knowledge of the stock market.

So what's up with this website? For those who are fans of Mad Money, Jenna, Rachel, and Gia provide daily summaries of the show. The summaries are listed on the home page by date and day of the week (helpful for those keying in on Cramer's Friday "Week in Review" segments) and currently archive back to November 1, 2005. Each individual daily summary consists of a table that tells readers whether Cramer's comment on a given stock was positive ("pro") or negative ("con"), the stock symbol, the closing price the day Cramer mentioned the stock, the opening price the following day, a few excerpts from Cramer's actual comments on the stock, the target price if any and a link to the website's "Lookup" tool. The Lookup feature lets traders and investors enter the symbol of a stock and if Cramer's mentioned it, the feature will provide a list of daily summaries that include mentions of that stock.

And that's it. The developers of the website are as close to pure fans (as in short for "fanatic") as you are going to find in the financial arena, pointing out that the site is not affiliated with "Jim Cramer, NBC, CNBC, or any other network or broadcast entity." In addition, the only revenue the website generates is through advertising links and a click-through arrangement with Amazon that sends the website developers a few rubles anytime someone buys one of Cramer's books from their website. Nothing more, nothing less. As the ladies put it:

This is a fan site dedicated to doing our best to report the stock mentions that Mr. Cramer indicates on his weekday show, "Mad Money." As anyone who watches the show loyally as we do knows, it is sometimes hard to hear everything that is said given the sound effects and varying caller clarity, but we are doing our best for you.

So what's a technical trader to do with a guy like Jim Cramer, whose well-known attitudes toward technical analysis are probably a lot like Martin Luther's attitude toward stained-glass cathedrals? First, know that Cramer's bark is far worse than his bite when it comes to technical analysis. Cramer's wife - whom he affectionately referred to for years as the "Trading Goddess" until she insisted he stop - was a consummate technical trader. Not only did Jim Cramer and Karen Cramer (née Backfisch) work together in the hedge fund that Cramer cofounded, but he unabashedly claims that Karen, his technician wife, was the one who taught him how to trade. As Cramer described it during his radio program, he figured out what stocks to buy or sell and she - using technical analysis (among other strategies) - figured out when to do it.

That, I should add, is how I use Cramer's insights. Tuning in nightly, firing up the PC, and with one eye on the TV screen and the other eye scanning the candlesticks, volume bars, and stochastic waves of my Prophet.net price charts ... I'll cop to being a little koo-koo for Cramerica. And if any of that describes you too, then consider bookmarking MadMoneyRecap.com to help you catch those shows that slip between the cracks.

-David Penn, Technical Writer

--www.madmoneyrecap.com



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Originally published in the April 2006 issue of Technical Analysis of STOCKS & COMMODITIES magazine.
All rights reserved. © Copyright 2006, Technical Analysis, Inc.