Rule No. 17: Check Hope at the Door
Editor's note: Jim Cramer's new book,
Real Money: Sane Investing in an Insane World
, is available in selected bookstores now. As a special bonus to
RealMoney
readers, we will be running Cramer's "Twenty-Five Rules of Investing." For more about the new book and to order it, click here. Today, we present Cramer's seventeenth rule of investing. Read more about his rules:
-
Pigs Get Slaughtered
It's OK to Pay the Taxes
Don't Buy All at Once
Buy Damaged Stocks
Diversify to Control Risk
Do Your Homework
Don't Panic
Buy Best-of-Breed
Defend Some Stocks
Don't Bet on Bad Stocks
Don't Own Too Many Names
Cash Is for Winners
No Woulda, Shoulda, Couldas
Expect Corrections
Watch Bonds
Don't Subsidize Losers
When I hear the word "hope," as in, "I
hope
General Motors
(GM) - Get Report
will come back to $35 so I can sell it," I get furious. Always remember:
Hope is not part of the equation.
Don't "hope" for anything. Hope is emotion, pure and simple. And this is not a game of emotion, other than to take the other side of the desperate. Yet, I hear "hope" more than any other word, particularly with the contingent of
Sun Microsystems
(SUNW) - Get Report
,
Nortel
(NT)
,
Gateway
(GTW)
,
Cisco
(CSCO) - Get Report
and
EMC
(EMC)
. Those stocks are filled with hopeful people betting that something good eventually will happen that will drive the stocks higher.
Hoping and praying are excellent things in religion. They are integral to sports. You know that the coaches of some of these come-from-behind NCAA men's basketball teams keep players motivated through hope.
But hope is a mistaken emotion in our business. It supplants reason, it supplants rigor -- especially when it comes to low-dollar-amount stocks.
No company ever set out to have a low-dollar-amount stock. The companies fight like heck not to have them. When they have them, it is a judgment rendered by the market that is harsh, difficult to accept and ultimately, far more right than wrong. When you suffuse your thinking with hope, you end up holding on for something that most likely will never occur. Cut your losses and move on.
Remember, we don't care where a stock has been, we care where it is going, and it is most likely headed down if you are hoping.
James J. Cramer is a director and co-founder of TheStreet.com. He contributes daily market commentary for TheStreet.com's sites and serves as an adviser to the company's CEO. Outside contributing columnists for TheStreet.com and RealMoney.com, including Cramer, may, from time to time, write about stocks in which they have a position. In such cases, appropriate disclosure is made. To see his personal portfolio and find out what trades Cramer will make before he makes them, sign up for Action Alerts PLUS by
clicking here. While he cannot provide personalized investment advice or recommendations, he invites you to send comments on his column to
jjcletters@thestreet.com. Listen to Cramer's RealMoney Radio show on your computer; just click
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