CNBC analyst Jim Cramer is once again being pilloried on social media after a clip resurfaced showing the “Mad Money” host recommending viewers buy shares of Silicon Valley Bank’s parent company, which owns the tech-driven commercial lender that swiftly collapsed on Friday.
“The ninth-best performer to date has been SVB Financial (the bank’s parent company). Don’t yawn,” Cramer told viewers during a Feb. 8 episode of “Mad Money.”
Cramer listed SVB Financial among his “biggest winners of 2023 … so far” alongside blue-chip stocks such as Meta, Tesla, Warner Bros. Discovery, and Norwegian Cruise Line.
“This company is a merchant bank with a deposit base that Wall Street has mistakenly been concerned by,” Cramer said in the clip.
Cramer touted the fact that the bank was “less dependent upon private equity and venture capital offerings.”
He said the stock was the “fourth-worst performer of 2022” though it was worth buying because “being a banker to these immense pools of capital has always been a very good business.”
“The stock is still cheap,” Cramer said. At the time, SVB Financial was trading at $320.40 a share.
The Post has sought comment from CNBC.
On social media, critics of Cramer made sure to remind others of the now-ill-fated stock tip.
“One month ago, Jim Cramer urged investors to buy Silicon Valley Bank stock,” one Twitter user observed, adding: “Today, the bank was closed by California regulators, making it the 2nd largest banking failure in US history.”
Another Twitter user wrote: “At first it was funny that Jim Cramer was always wrong.”
“Now it’s extremely sad how many people and families he’s destroyed by always being wrong.”
“The guy needs to be taken off the air for good.”
Genevieve Roch-Decter wrote on Twitter: “Jim Cramer said a month ago Silicon Valley Bank was a buy.”
“He also said Bear Sterns (the investment firm that collapsed in the subprime mortgage crisis) was fine in 2008. This man deserves an Oscar.”
Cramer is a frequent target of scorn and ridicule on social media, where observers point out some of his market predictions that fail to materialize.
Investment gurus seeking to capitalize on Cramer’s poor forecasting track record introduced a pair of exchange-traded funds which are predicated on a strategy that contradicts whatever the CNBC personality recommends.
“If he specifically says either buy, buy, buy a stock, then we’re gonna go short that stock at the next practical moment,” Matthew Tuttle, the CEO of Tuttle Capital Management, which launched the Inverse Cramer Tracker ETF, told Bloomberg News.
Last fall, Cramer appeared on CNBC’s airwaves and offered an emotional apology to viewers for touting Meta stock, the value of which plummeted by some 25% during a single trading session.
Since the apology aired, however, Meta shares have rebounded.
Reporting from New York Post.
