Flashback to Jim Cramer, Monday, 10/06/2008 ("Take Your Money Out Right Now"):
“Whatever money you may need for the next five years, please take it out of the stock market right now, this week. I do not believe that you should risk those assets in the stock market right now.”
-- Jim Cramer, Monday morning, October 6, 2008 (before the market open)
The Friday before that outrageous, irresponsible advice was nationally televised on NBC's Today Show, the Vanguard Total Stock Market Index Fund (VTSMX) had slumped to 26.62 from 30.90 two weeks before, not quite 14%. After his Monday call, however, the fund, a proxy for the whole market, dropped nearly 18% in that one week alone, to 21.85, on its way to its 16.60 low in March 2009. TARP, by the way, was signed into law also on that Friday before Jim opened his BIG mouth the next Monday morning.
Four years and four months since that fateful day in October 2008, VTSMX has bounced back to reach a new all time high of 38.13 as of Friday, February 8, 2013.
Your $36,700 in early October 2008 would be worth $57,300 today, a gain of 56%, if you had ignored Jim's advice.
THANKS FOR NOTHING, JIM. Not only did I need the $36,700, I needed the $20,600 gain.
Of course, Jim technically has until October of this year to be vindicated, but that presupposes a market crash from here of at least 36% to start cutting into that original pile of money I needed. But hey, I needed it, so it's not there, so no worries, right?
And what's Jim saying last week?
Look out below.
