Confessions of a Street Addict [Hardcover]

James J. Cramer (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: May 7, 2002

In the most candid look at Wall Street since Liar's Poker, James J. Cramer, cofounder of TheStreet.com, radio and television commentator, and for years one of Wall Street's premier money managers, takes readers on a no-holds-barred tour of life on Wall Street­revealing how the game is played, who breaks the rules, and who gets hurt.

Everyone on Wall Street knows Jim Cramer, and Cramer knows Wall Street better than anyone. For fifteen years he ran Cramer, Berkowitz, one of the Street's most successful hedge funds with a compounded annual return of 24% after all fees. In Confessions of a Street Addict he takes us from his fascination with the stock market as a middle-class kid in the Philadelphia suburbs to Harvard, where he began managing money. After an apprenticeship at Goldman, Sachs, Cramer set out on his own with his wife, Karen, the "Trading Goddess," as his partner. Cramer brilliantly describes the life of a money manager -- the frenetic pace, the constant pressure to outperform the market and other fund managers, and the shark-like attacks fund managers make as they circle a fund perceived to be in trouble.

At the same time that he was managing money, Cramer was one of the best-known commentators on the financial markets. A former president of the Harvard Crimson, Cramer had been a newspaper reporter before he began managing money. While he was a fund manager, he wrote for SmartMoney and other publications, making him one of the first money managers to offer insight and analysis from inside the world of finance. With the rise of the Internet and online publishing, he co-founded TheStreet.com, the online financial Web site. In one of the most fascinating chapters in this book, Cramer takes us inside the IPO of TheStreet.com, where he found himself a knowledgeable but helpless onlooker as his own Web site came on the market at an unrealistically high price that it never reached again, a harbinger of the dot-com disasters that would soon haunt the stock market.

Throughout the book Cramer is characteristically outspoken, outrageous, and candid about everyone, himself included. There has never been a high-wired, high-octane book about Wall Street like this one.

Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com Review

It's hard to think of anyone more intense or opinionated, or who wears as many hats as James Cramer. In Confessions of a Street Addict, the man who first made a name for himself on Wall Street successfully managing his hedge fund--and then became famous on Main Street with his manic appearances on CNBC--tells the improbable story of his career as journalist, Wall Street pundit, Internet entrepreneur, and television commentator. For the most part, Cramer manages to avoid the self-congratulatory hype that mars so many books of this ilk; in fact, what makes Confessions so compelling are the shots that Cramer takes at himself, be it his now infamous capitulation during the stock market panic of October 1998, when he wrote a piece for TheStreet.com advising readers of an impending crash just as the market began to rebound, or the callous way he treated so many around him in pursuit of the next trade. Here's an informative, honest, and rollicking read for fans of CNBC, TheStreet.com, or anyone who has ever lost sleep thinking about their portfolios. Highly recommended. --Harry C. Edwards

From Publishers Weekly

Cramer, famous for appearing on CNBC as the "wild excitable guy [with]... a big mouth and lots of passion talking authoritatively about how you could make money by getting on the Net," recounts his turbulent dual career as hedge fund manager and media pundit. Cramer tells of his lifelong obsession with the market, beginning with childhood scenes of poring over daily stock listings. The story kicks into high gear once he starts juggling his law school course load so he can spend as much time as possible trading (over the phone, in the pre-Internet '80s). After that, the narrative's pace never relents from depictions of Cramer's early days at Goldman Sachs through the launch of his own fund, which led to magazine columns, a near-constant presence on TV, and TheStreet.com. Cramer's description of the financial news Web site's launch is ruthless, not just toward the executives whose scheming and mismanagement, he says, undermined TheStreet.com's success, but toward himself for hiring them and temporarily destroying his long-standing friendship with publishing fixture Marty Peretz. Cramer is equally self-recriminating about the effect his fanatical trading had on his personal life, but clearly still loves to linger over every major deal of his career (and a lot of the minor ones), even perhaps especially if they blew up in his face. This is a lively, informative portrait of the highest levels of finance and media in the last decade.
Copyright 2002 Cahners Business Information, Inc.

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Product Details

• Hardcover: 320 pages
• Publisher: Simon & Schuster (May 7, 2002)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0743224876
• ISBN-13: 978-0743224871
• Product Dimensions: 9.5 x 6.4 x 1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.1 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.4 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (183 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #231,502 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

James J. Cramer is co-founder of TheStreet.com, Markets Commentator for CNBC, and "Bottom Line" columnist for New York magazine. He is also the host of the nationally syndicated program Real Money with Jim Cramer.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

131 of 140 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Cramer vs. Maier, Trading with an Ego, September 26, 2002

By 

R. Spell "raspell" (Memphis, TN USA) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: Confessions of a Street Addict (Hardcover)

I read this book after reading Maier's account of working at Cramer's hedge fund, "Trading with the Enemy". While Maier's book is not an in-depth detailed book, it projects Cramer as an egotistical tyrannical trader. Reading this book for a comparison, you can believe both sides of the story. Cramer recounts many of the same stories and they are remarkably similar but from different perspectives. For example, they both wrote about the birthday party where Cramer became extremely intoxicated and puked on the guests. Maier describes this as another example of Cramer's poor manners and ego. Cramer describes the bad day he had had and where he was mentally that had him over drink and embarrass his family. If anything, I was surprised that an egomaniac like Cramer could admit to any shortcomings. Many "Masters of the Universe" can't.

Cramer doesn't strike me as a charismatic guy. But you have to be impressed with where he started and where he ended up. Maybe his tactics were questionable. But to compete in the money arena with the fortunes at stake, it is impressive that he was able to even be on the field and favorably compete at least for a few years.

There are two significant relationships in the book I feel compelled to mention. First the investor who Cramer met who not only invested but recommended investors. This also turned out to be the relationship that Maier knew to get his job. A partnership was formed to set up TheStreet.com and somehow in the personnel problems of the venture, Cramer had a falling out with his favored investor that appeared to eventually leading to the shutdown of the hedge fund. You can sense from hearing Cramer's side that there is another side to the story. Cramer doesn't place blame but you can sense that he probably upset many people in his new business venture. It is an interesting case study listening to the different CEOs that are hired and how in Cramer's opinion they ruined the business.

Also, Cramer talks extensively about the relationship with his wife. She was also a stock trader and at different points in his career, she comes back to assist with trading. This part of the book shows just how emotional and psychological trading can be. Cramer would be a tough guy to live with and being married to another trader who understood the environment and the egos involved would make for a volatile relationship. I'd like to know more of the dynamics of that relationship but I suspect she is a real saint, as it appears to work well.

In summary, this book gives some background on what it is like in the rough and tumble world of Wall Street during a very unique trading period. Cramer is a self-promoter who successfully promoted himself into a high profile media job and therefore has some celebrity status. But the real story is the egos of people in this business and what they have to do to be successful and how they can live with some of their egotistical tendencies

67 of 73 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Brutally honest self-portrait, January 6, 2003

By 

Joseph Boone (Irvine, CA United States) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: Confessions of a Street Addict (Hardcover)

Jim Cramer is not a saint. He is impatient, domineering, egotistical, and almost certainly there are other unflattering things you could say about him. Yet he is a true rarity in my mind because he tells you he is all of those things repeatedly in his own autobiography. He does a fantastic job of honestly outlining the major events of his life. He acknowledges the things he has done well but spends far more time detailing his excesses and failings as well as being generous in giving credit for his success to others.

What makes this book so interesting is that it is neither a tearful apology nor a chest-thumping self congratulation. Cramer matter of factly details his journey to success as well as the toll it took on his personal life including his utter insensitivity in dealing with his family.

The passages dealing with His wife alone are worth the price of the book. The woman is nothing short of amazing both as the "Trading Goddess" that truly lives up to her name as well as the woman who puts up with a workaholic husband that is virtually never around when she needs him.

All in all, this is a fascinating book that anyone would do well to read.

20 of 22 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars There's always an intelligent woman behind a man's success!, April 12, 2005

By 

G. Shkodra (Montreal, Canada) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: Confessions of a Street Addict (Hardcover)

I'm not mad about Jim Cramer and I guess I'll never be. His brash, arrogant, loudmouth way of commenting on different business or even political issues on tv, whether it's on "Mad money", "Kudlow and Cramer", "Squawk box", "Good morning, America" or any other television show he's ever been on can get on my nerves sometimes. As a matter of fact, it's not so much his comments rather than his behaviour, his body language and his way of making a point that grate on me.

But he is one of the very few investors/traders that I have ever heard say "I was wrong about this stock or this company, and I don't have any problems admitting it", and I give him credit for that. The guy seems, if not honest, at least sincere to me. And I guess brashness, arrogance, sincerity, his loud mouth and the fact that he craves public attention make of Jim Cramer a highly colourful, flamboyant character. I'm always interested in what he has to say, even if I don't agree with him: sometimes, when he's on tv, the guy can be downright funny in his own way!

And so, not very enthusiastically I picked up this book and began reading it on a rainy weekend. Contrary to some of the readers who have posted reviews here at Amazon.com, I didn't really expect to learn any valuable trading methods or technical stuff, since the book's title is "Confessions" and not "Methods". No, as a matter of fact, when I think about it, I did learn something original. Cramer's idea of visiting department stores to find the next big thing and asking the right questions to the store clerks was very amusing to me.

This turned out to be a very honest, sincere and interesting book indeed. I was amazed by a few things in particular though:

1-Dedication, hard work and brains do pay in life. But that's not always enough. Sometimes you have to be lucky too. And Cramer was lucky, and he still is. His luck is called Karen Backfisch, and he is honest and humble enough to admit it. I mean, how many times did she bail the guy out? Reading the "Crisis in 1998" chapter, I almost felt I personally lived every infinitesimal instant of that crazy October 8, 1998 with Mr Cramer. Where would he be now, had the trading goddess not returned to the desk just for that day? "Hey, chum, looking glum!"... Sometimes all you need is a divine intervention.

2-I would have never thought a guy so successful in making money for himself and others could be so naive and blind as a bat in his relationships with business partners or close friends. That Ravi Desai story is quite revealing in this regard. It lead to Cramer's falling out with the guy who started it all for him, Marty Perez, and that too is unbelievable. Once again, his wife seemed to understand relationships and sense betrayal and disloyalty much better than he did.

3-I simply couldn't believe how unhappy and miserable this man was! I mean the guy almost had no life, he was constantly yelling and screaming, smashing cell phones and keyboards, calling people names; he misses his sister's wedding and talks about call positions on the phone with his mother lying dead in front of him... Just how miserable can you be? I think Howard Kurtz resumes it very well in his book: "It's amazing that a man so wealthy and successful can still be so manic and miserable!"

4-Again, I wasn't disappointed by the lack of trading methods or technical issues in this book. One little remark though: I thought cutting your losses short and being ok with some losses from time to time were "generally accepted trading principles" in the trading/speculating/investing world. Well, oddly enough, these two don't seem to be Cramer's principles. The guy takes losses personally, small and big ones, and he seems driven by emotions almost all the time. I thought that was something every trader tries to avoid. But then again, I guess that's ok. Mr Cramer has made millions over the years, so he must have had a bunch of other golden rules.

Many people couldn't wait (and I guess they still can't) to see Jim Cramer go to jail. Good Lord, people, you only have to blame yourself if you did poorly in the market during the last years. Cramer was pumping stocks he owned on various shows? He wrote "it's time to dump everything" in his recent column? He said he loved this company and hated that other stock during his last appearance on tv? So what, quit listening to him and start thinking independently! What do you think the analysts at Goldman, Merrill, Fidelity or Schwab have been doing over the years? Their buy/hold/sell recommandations can move the market, but sometimes the stocks don't go in the direction they expected or predicted them to go. Should they go to jail too?