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This may come as a surprise to some of you, but Jim Cramer, the host of CNBC’s ‘Mad Money’ is an absolute loose cannon … albeit a really rich, intelligent and trusted (by the citizens of Cramerica, at least) loose cannon.
Like any market guru, he’s been following the coronavirus fallout more closely than short-sellers peeping the meteoric rise of Virgin Galactic shares (sorry, Sir Richard). And he’s been doing it the only way he knows how … by screaming at his viewers and using his trademark sound effects.
So it’s no surprise that his coverage was bound to ruffle some feathers. He’s been catching some flak for his coverage, especially from medical experts. At the end of last month, Cramer reacted to the haters on his website The Street …
“I took off the chill hat for second and pointed out that we are a country of 325 million people and we only have six cases, versus 15 million cases of a flu that has caused 140,000 hospitalizations and 8,200 deaths. I was immediately mocked by a bunch of serious Yale-trained immunologists who solved SARS and MERS who told me that this could be the Spanish flu. Well, maybe they weren’t that credentialed.
To which I then said, do you want me to go all Billy from the Predator and say ‘we’re all going to die,’ while Arnold yells ‘Get to the Chopper?'”
You see, healthcare officials weren’t too happy that Jimmy was downplaying the severity of the outbreak. For the most part, from a stock market perspective, Jim’s been preaching patience, calling the outbreak a “wildcard event.”
That is until this morning.
Jimmy Chill (yes, Jim Cramer refers to himself in the third person) took a page out of POTUS’ book, sending a barrage of early-morning tweets indicating that (and I’m paraphrasing here) we’re all totally fucked …
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Jimmy No Chill may be back on his bullshit making wild claims that the CDC and WHO probably don’t appreciate, but he kept it real when discussing the stock market …
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And he’s got a point. It may be time to freak out after all. The Dow was down more than 1,000 points at one point today and closed 930 points in the red. This erases ALL of 2020’s stock gains and represents the biggest one-day percentage loss in two years. Let that sink in.
But the contagion, for lack of a better word, wasn’t isolated to the 30 companies that make up the Dow Jones Industrial average. Airline stocks got annihilated and casino operators got crushed. And shares of companies reliant on manufacturing in Asia were steamrolled. Apple better start looking for a new country with lax child labor laws.
What’s curious is that it took this long for market participants to lose their collective shit. Until today markets had swung on coronavirus fears but mostly overlooked the possibility of Black Death 2.0. With nearly 80k cases worldwide the WHO has doubts this thing is under control.
Things escalated quickly this weekend as cases outside of China multiplied at an alarming rate. We see you, Italy.
Looks like it’s time to go long surgical mask manufacturers …