Jim Cramer’s Manipulating Futures 101

Thomas Kostigen:

[...] [Jim] Cramer was smart enough to realize that the capital markets are played just like a professional sports game. He decided some time ago to become a commentator. So it should be no surprise that he would spill some dirty little secrets from days gone by, such as manipulating futures to get quick gains in the options market, false-feeding the media and taking advantage of the “moron longs” — all in an attempt to enhance profits and get a bigger bonus at year-end. “What’s important when you are in that hedge-fund mode is to not do anything remotely truthful because the truth is so against your view, that it’s important to create a new truth, to develop a fiction,” Cramer says.

[...] In the Web interview with TheStreet.com’s executive editor Aaron Task, which is on YouTube and has been blasted all around the Internet, [Jim] Cramer gave advice on how to keep a profit on a short-position by driving a stock price down. He gave a number of different examples of manipulation, which he admitted might be illegal, but said it didn’t really matter because “the Securities and Exchange Commission never understands this.” [...]

Full Title of The MarketWatch Story: Jim Cramer, the boisterous host of CNBC’s “Mad Money,” recently bragged in an interview about manipulating stock prices when he was a Wall Street trader, proving all too directly — and stupidly, I might add — that investment professionals profit off the backs of the naïve investing public.

Addendum: Jason Ruspini tells me that YouTube has deleted the Cramer video. “This video is no longer available due to a copyright claim by TheStreet.com”.

Addendum #2: Another copy of the video is on YouTube at another URL.

Addendum #3: Barry Ritholtz (of The Big Picture) has just blogged about this Cramer scandal, and has re-published the video on its own blog.