Jim Cramer Hasn't Learned a Thing

At least he hasn't, judging from this spam email from Cramer that a loyal reader forwarded to me. The subject header was "$100 off my investing service - for 48 hours only"

Dear XXXX:
I know from my decades in the market that even in ugly times, like the ones we're experiencing now, there's still money to be made. Big money.

Since the beginning of 2009, my charitable trust portfolio's performance has been roaring back, and I'm ahead of my benchmark. I'm aiming for both immediate gains, taking profits as they present themselves, and building for the future. Here's just one example: On January 20th, I bought Goldman Sachs at $60. When it hit $85 on January 28th, I trimmed my shares, locking in a 41% gain. I still own a large position in Goldman, because the company remains the leader in investment banking with top-rate management and industry-leading ROE. The company should post a profitable 1Q and see significant improvement to its balance sheet.

Remember: Just one of my winning calls, like Goldman, will pay for your subscription over and over again.

Hey, I don't mean to pick on Jim Cramer. Personally I think the guy has gotten picked on too much lately. The same goes for every single person in the stock hyping business, including my old employers at Business Week, who still publish a stock market column (that I used to contribute to, back in the day).

The time has come for investors to be told the truth about stock-picking, which is that you can't beat the market.  That's been demonstrated time and time again. Nobody can do it consistently. I wrote about that at length in (self promotion self-deleted).

The problem is that you can't make a million bucks telling people they can't make a million bucks in the market by snazzy stock picking.

I'd have thought that Jim Cramer, at least, might have learned the lesson of his public thrashing by Jon Stewart. Stock touting and appeals to greed are yesterday's fashion. I hope.