CNBC’s Jim Cramer on Wednesday blasted “bearish billionaires,” saying everyday investors ought to stop listening to their stock market calls.
“It’s time the end this ridiculous charade of bearish billionaires who’ve been negative for ages being allowed to come on air and say everything they want about how bad things are, even as you’ve made so much more money being positive than they have in the last few years,” the “Mad Money” host said.
“You can’t take investment advice from oligarchs no matter how smart they sound, because they have a very different set of priorities and a very different agenda from you, and we need to stop pretending otherwise.”
Compared to everyday investors like the viewers of his show, Cramer said super wealthy people can afford to have “total contempt” for the stock market and take minimal risk.
“You only need to get rich once,” Cramer said, adding that once the “mega rich” reach that pinnacle, the one true threat to them is inflation because it erodes the value of their dollars. By contrast, many hourly workers in the U.S. are seeing their wages go up right now, he said.
“I think many of the wealthy, wittingly or unwittingly, are pulling up the ladder behind them by scaring you away from the stock market with horror stories about the dangers of inflation lurking everywhere,” Cramer said.
Cramer said it goes beyond dire inflation warnings of late.
“They’re also scaring you away from some of the best stocks in the market that really don’t have anything to do with inflation at all,” he said, highlighting Tesla, Amazon and Netflix as examples.
“Rich and powerful people spent years coming on air and talking trash about all three,” Cramer said, but he contended they’ve become some of the most successful companies of all time.
Aside from a few exceptions, Cramer urged retail investors to stop taking their cue from “super-rich money managers.”
“Do you think it’s a coincidence that so many hedge fund guys made giant bets against [Tesla, Amazon and Netflix] and lost? I don’t think so,” Cramer said.
“The people behind those companies wanted to create wealth for their shareholder; they were willing to take huge risks for you in order to help you get rich long with themselves. If you held their stocks for long , that’s exactly what you did,” he said. “That’s huge for the vast majority of people, but if you’ve already got a billion dollars, it’s meaningless, which is why they have no appreciation for these companies or their evangelical leaders.”
