Jim Cramer continues to lead investors astray with very little accountability, writes Landon Whaley.

On the last page of my small-town weekly paper is a section called “The Rant.” It’s a place for people to unload about everything that annoys them. People rant about everything from a lack of parking downtown to the person in front of them at Starbucks with their face buried in their phone when it’s time to order: “You, mid-20s guy in a blue check shirt at the Starbucks on Route 29 Wednesday morning, stop playing Candy Crush on your iPhone while listening to Nickelback, and order your Double Ristretto Venti, some of us actually have to work for a living.”

My rant this week comes courtesy of Jim Cramer and other “gurus” who repeatedly lead investors to the slaughter with zero accountability in the aftermath. John Stewart did a nice job with Cramer, but he is no longer on TV and Cramer still is!

At 11:49 am on the morning of Lyft Inc.’s (LYFT) IPO on Friday, March 29, Cramer tweeted “Good Price Lyft -- $87.24.”

Lyft went on to enter crash mode, declining 20.9% over the balance of Friday and Monday’s trading sessions. But Cramer wasn’t done. He took to the airwaves Monday evening saying: “on Mad Money at $75 we said this is really where it fits in …” and “It’s got to hold $72, it has to, it should be bought there.” LYFT traded down to as low as $66, before climbing back and closing the week at $74.45, or 14.7% below the “good price.”

This isn’t the first time (nor will it be the last) that Cramer has helped retail investors get their portfolios body bagged. He was all over Linn Energy (LINE), pumping that stock right into its bankruptcy and delisting in 2016.

What drives me absolutely nuts is that he’s tossing out random prices and opinions based on anecdotes about “high growth” companies on Nasdaq. And when questioned about the fact that Lyft doesn’t make any money, he references Salesforce.com (CRM) as a company that at one time didn’t make any money but is now crushing it. Well, Pets.com didn’t make any money at their IPO, and where are they now? Worse yet, if the company they recommend ever recovers, they get to claim success—the old “buy and hold” rout — completely ignoring that no retail investor could maintain the huge initial losses in their investment to see the recovery.

This isn’t a commentary on Lyft or the ride share duopoly. This is a rant about reckless TV personalities (who people take seriously for some reason) tossing out their opinion as if it’s rooted in deep analysis and then flying on to the next stock idea without any accountability.

Most of these calls are not based on data, analysis or a true understanding of the topic in question. Their “expertise” is driven by wearing a suit (or not wearing a suit) talking fast and tossing around $3 industry words that make them sound like Wall Street vets with the inside scoop.

And if these clowns are ever held to account, which is typically done via Twitter, they tend to get defensive, block people or take the Cramer way out. By 3:45 am on April 2, Cramer was on sabbatical from Twitter because he didn’t like having to wear the big boy pants of accountability.

Folks, I’ve been in this game for 20 years and there are two things I know.

First, IPOs are an exit strategy for company insiders; nothing more, nothing less. Stock offerings are how early-stage investors and corporate insiders monetize their illiquid interest in a company; it’s how they cash in. Your chances of buying the next Apple (AAPL) on the day it IPOs are slim to none.

Second, gurus are typically folks with mediocre careers to begin with, which is why they take to TV in the first place! There is a very simple way to separate the wheat from the chaff when it comes to market prognosticators, on or off television. Simply ask, “What’s your process?” You’ll either hear crickets or get an answer, and either will tell you everything you need to know.

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