Love him or hate him, Jim Cramer is an intriguing character.
When I first started trading in early 2006 I was eager to learn more about trading from any source. I used to read the Wall Street Journal and Investors Business Daily to bring myself up to speed on financial market lingo and trader speak. Armed with scissors and a pen I hacked away at any articles of interest and placed them in a folder for archival purposes. Since I was relatively new to the whole investing world I was quick to underline any new terms that warranted further investigation. Investopedia, Wikipedia, and Dictionary.com quickly became three of my favorite websites.
During this early phase of my market fascination, I came across Mad Money and I was hooked from the get-go. I’m not sure if I watched every episode, but I made it a point to DVR the shows I couldn’t watch live. And I’m sure Mad Money claimed the top spot on my DVR priority list. Although it’s been years since I last watched an episode and it’s likely not worth my time at this stage in the game, I initially found it extremely entertaining and informative. Because I had never dabbled in the financial markets virtually everything Cramer talked about was new to me. Initially all the ranting fostered my desire to trade and continually fed me with exciting new market concepts. As a result of my exposure to the show one of the first investing books I read was Jim Cramer’s Real Money. It still sits on my bookshelf and has plenty of highlighted lines throughout.
I’ve never read any of his other books up until last week when I came across a copy of Confessions of a Street Addict. One of the things which impressed me the most in the book was his daily schedule which he appropriately called “grueling”. Quite honestly “workaholic” doesn’t even begin to describe it.
“I would set the alarm for 3:45, jump out of bed, shave and shower and be online at 4:15, reading the news. I would then file a piece about what I would expect to happen in the morning’s markets. Then I was in the car, with the driver, Kyle, by five to beat the Holland Tunnel traffic, beating out another piece, an instructional one about stocks or options, while on the way to the city. I made sure I was at my trading turret at 100 Wall Street by 5:30, where I would trade American stocks overseas…Then, I would hop back in the car to take the trip uptown to Good Morning America, where they had begun using me as a special commentator on the stock markets. After a brief chat about the markets…I would take the trip downtown…furiously typing another diary entry for TheStreet.com. By 8:30 I would be back in the office… and by 9:15 I would have [my] strategy, complete with suggested stock sectors in my morning column.”
He goes on to describe the crazy, fast pace of the rest of his trading day. It made me ponder how effective I am at using my time. I always thought I did a pretty good job at being productive throughout the day, but Cramer’s schedule really got me thinking. What if I did get up earlier? What if I spent a little less time getting lost in the sea of voices on my TweetDeck? What if I spent more time analyzing or journaling my trades? What if I spent more time writing? I suspect many of us could accelerate the accumulation of knowledge and effectiveness of our trading if we took an honest look at our daily routines and cut out the clutter.
As for the rest of the book- I liked it.
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{ 4 comments… read them below or add one }
and i tought that maybe i am an addict if it comes to trading (:
lol… yeah I think Cramer takes the cake when it comes to trading addicts. Even though his schedule was crazy, I think we can all learn something about his drive to increase productivity by taking advantage of every minute of the day.
amen
yes! spend more time writing!
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