For Getting the Skinny on Apple Stock Hijinks Alone, BoomTown Hearts Jon Stewart
by Kara Swisher
Posted on March 13, 2009 at 7:05 PM PT
I know that “The Daily Show” host Jon Stewart does not need even more praise for his spot-on comic and very real jabs at the CNBC financial cable network and its milquetoast coverage of the financial crisis, pre and post.
The silliness that prevails too much over doing serious and rigorous reporting that Stewart takes perfect aim at is a major problem.
Taking CEO spinning at face value and letting them yammer on on air without being challenged much at all has always been excruciating to watch at best and woefully irresponsible at worst.
But, to my mind, the most important thing that he elicited out of CNBC’s most famous stock jester, Jim Cramer, was the part of the interview discussing using the malleable press to float fictional rumors about companies in order to make money on the negative news.
While Cramer at first tried to deny he did it, Stewart had the videotape of the “Mad Money” host talking about the practice, specifically in regard to Apple (AAPL).
His appalling idea to make a quick buck? Making it up that the mobile carriers did not like the iPhone right before Macworld, in this case in 2006.
“And this is very easy because the people who write about Apple want that story, and you can claim that it’s credible because you spoke to someone at Apple, because Apple doesn’t…comment,” said Cramer cavalierly, as if he was not talking about a way to essentially steal other people’s money and hurt Apple unfairly, to interviewer Aaron Task, then at Cramer’s own TheStreet.com.
“So it’s really an ideal short. And again if I were short Apple, I’d pick up the phone and I’d do that today.“
Bernie Madoff would be so proud, if he wasn’t otherwise imprisoned for life!
Kind of puts all those Steve-Jobs-Is-Dead-Right-Now rumors of a few months ago into a new light?
It’s been obvious that the legendary Apple CEO has been quite ill from his appearance alone.
But, as BoomTown has always maintained, the rumors written without any serious reporting about him were also a troublesome issue because it was that clear short-sellers played a large part in stoking the fear about his imminent demise, given how important Jobs has been to Apple.
(Although, this has not seemed to stop Apple from releasing a lot of really cool stuff of late, like the new Shuffle, which Walt Mossberg reviewed here.)
While Apple has not been adequately forthcoming, either, about the Jobs situation, that does not mean the press–as Stewart correctly points out–should not try to actually do its job and dig for what is really going on rather than just slap up unsubstantiated blather.
“It’s not a f@#*ing game,” said Stewart perfectly. Indeed not.
You can see Cramer cynically discussing the Apple stock manipulation tricks at the 6:45-minute mark of Part 2, but here is the entire Stewart well-deserved roasting of Cramer in three parts.
(And at the bottom is the Task interview with Cramer too.)
Part 1:
Part 2:
Part 3:
TheStreet.com Interview:
Comments
“While Apple has not been adequately forthcoming either about the Job’s situation”
Um, Kara, while discussing accuracy in financial news reporting, I think it would further your point if you were, at least, accurate.
Apple, or Steve Jobs through Apple, flat out LIED to investors and the media.
And for what reason?
For the same reason that shorts/longs might lie; To try and influence the company’s stock price. What other motive could Apple/Jobs have had?
In fact, when discussing Apple/Jobs and honesty, one would be remiss not to include Jobs’ stock-option backdating and his fabricated “board-meeting.”
“In response to a question about his health Tuesday, an Apple spokeswoman said Jobs was hit with a “common bug” in recent weeks but he still felt it was important to participate in the Apple conference. The spokeswoman said he’s now on the mend with the aid of antibiotics.”
http://blogs.wsj.com/biztech/2.....he-iphone/
Posted by Tom Marhoefer at March 14th, 2009 at 11:17 amKara, on your point about the “new light” on Apple rumorsthat has been generated by those Cramer tapes shown on the Daily show — I’ve wondered who has been profiting from the series of Bloomberg reports on Steve Jobs’s heath including claims that (1) he’s dead, (2) he’s seeking a liver transplant donor, and (3) the SEC is investigating Apple for lack of candor (clairvoyance?!) about Steve Jobs’s health. And there are lots more that raise the specter of deliberate manipulation.
Posted by Bill Youngs at March 15th, 2009 at 1:21 amJon Stewart was also talking about AllThingsDigital.
You and your staff regularly make comments about companies and their movements in the stock market. Your the Queen of posting for Yahoo insider confidential information.
And you link those comments to the Yahoo Finance web site as if your opinions are important.
Do you claim to be experts in something?
Jon made Jim represent not only himself but all of Wall Street.
Posted by Jeff Stevens at March 15th, 2009 at 6:23 amMad Money is about the extra money you have left after paying bills. We are supposed to have fun with it. But you don’t get it, and neither does Jon.
(insert 4 letter word)
The irony here is that the news organizations try so hard to be entertaining, while the entertainment industry tries so hard to be serious about world events. Here is the ideal “meeting of the minds” in the mushy middle where if any actual facts emerge it is purely by accident.
There is a long section at the bottom of every company’s quarterly reports that can be summarized as follows:
“Raw numbers in this report are as accurate as we’ve been able to make them. All other information contained herein may be the product of our imaginations and would best be ignored.”
As discouraging as that is for anyone trying to evaluate a company for investment purposes, everything else, from investment counselor recommendations to MSM investment programs is even farther removed from reality.
The stunning thing is that anyone over the age of consent should find the discrepancies between true reality and reality as presented by those who have placed big bets on the outcomes (of investments made, votes cast, channels changed, subscriptions canceled or renewed) at odds with one another.
If your parents didn’t whack you up-side the head with the two by four of common sense, then the world as it really is eventually will.
Get over it people.
A neighbor of mine insisted that I watch this interview. Thanks for making it convenient.
My neighbor took a family business he inherited and ran it into the ground (through no fault of his own of course). I guess I shouldn’t be surprised that he is incensed that someone on TV might have lied to him! I am increasingly convinced that when I die there will be no one left on earth with a working brain cell. Maybe the Amish will preserve our species.
Posted by Mac Beach at March 16th, 2009 at 9:44 am