Jim Cramer's Real Money

When I first saw Jim Cramer's show Mad Money, I laughed my ass off. I thought his head was going to explode. Plus my wife hated it, so it couldn't be all bad.

I'm reading his newest book right now, and it has some excellent tips on investing. Here's one nugget that got me laughing again.

Oh, one other thing: please be wary of hot funds. One time, while I was working with my wife, a decade before I talked with Bogle, I opened my fund after a fantastic quarter. I took in almost the same amount of money that I was running? What happened? Well, when I was a kid, there was a game show called Supermarket Sweep. In the show contestants would have a couple of minutes to run through a supermarket with a cart, gathering as many expensive goods as they could. Whoever grabbed the highest-priced merchandise won the game -- "Look, he's going for the hams!"

The moral of the story is, don't spend all your money in one place, be patient and detached, and stay away from funds that are raking in the investors.

I used to live like his story. As soon as I got some extra cash, I would go out and spend $500 or $1000 at Future Shop. (aka Store of Evil Doom) Future Shop (& Best Buy now) always seem to work that way. You either spend $250, $500, or $1000.

BBY is up 27.57% over 52 wks.
CostCo, another $100-$500 store, is up 6.65%

Jim also recommends a few of his fund manager buddies.

Fidelity Contrafund (FCNTX) is up 14.68% /yr.
Smith Barney Aggressive Growth A (SHRAX) is up 10.59%
John Hancock Classic Value A (PZFVX) is up 7.3%
Oakmark Equity & Income I (OAKBX) is up 6.6%

Let's take a look at Contra later, since I liked the video game.