Jim Cramer American Lawyer Born 1955 in Wyndmoor

James Joseph "Jim" Cramer is an American television personality, author and former hedge fund manager. Born on 10 February 1955 in Wyndmoor, Pennsylvania, he trained as a lawyer, worked in finance and journalism, and is best known as the host of the CNBC program Mad Money. He is also a co-founder of the financial news site TheStreet.

Early life

Cramer was born in Wyndmoor, a suburb of Philadelphia. His mother, Louise, was an artist, and his father, N. Ken Cramer, owned International Packaging Products, a Philadelphia company that sold wrapping paper, boxes and bags to retailers and restaurants. The family moved to Springfield Township in Montgomery County, where Cramer attended Springfield Township High School and ran on the track team. He graduated in 1973.

From 1971 he held summer jobs selling Coca-Cola and then ice cream at Veterans Stadium during Philadelphia Phillies games. He has said that he started following stocks in fourth grade and kept at it through high school.

He studied government at Harvard College, graduating magna cum laude in 1977. There he was a National Merit Scholar and served as president and editor-in-chief of The Harvard Crimson. He then attended Harvard Law School and earned a Juris Doctor degree in 1984. He traded stocks while he was a law student and has said the profits covered his tuition.

Career

Cramer began as a newspaper reporter earning $15,000 a year. From March 1978 he worked at the Tallahassee Democrat in Florida, where he was among the first to report on the Ted Bundy case. He later wrote obituaries for the Los Angeles Herald-Examiner, worked for California Governor Jerry Brown and was an early reporter at American Lawyer. While at law school he worked as a research assistant for Alan Dershowitz.

In 1984 he joined Goldman Sachs in sales and trading. He was admitted to the New York State Bar in 1985 but never practiced, and his license was suspended in April 2009 after he did not renew his registration. In 1987 he left Goldman Sachs to found a hedge fund, Cramer & Co., later known as Cramer, Berkowitz & Co. It operated from the offices of Michael Steinhardt and raised $450 million from investors that included Martin Peretz, Steve Brill and his Harvard classmate Eliot Spitzer. Cramer retired from managing the fund in 2001, and Jeff Berkowitz took it over. His account of the fund's returns has been disputed.

He was also an editor at large for SmartMoney magazine. In 1996 he and Peretz launched TheStreet, where he wrote until 2021. TheMaven bought the company in August 2019 for $16.5 million. In 2000 Cramer and TheStreet settled a lawsuit with the Fox News Channel over a planned program.

Cramer was a frequent guest commentator on CNBC in the late 1990s. From 2002 to 2005 he co-hosted Kudlow & Cramer, first titled America Now, with Larry Kudlow. Mad Money with Jim Cramer first aired on CNBC in 2005, and he is also an anchor of Squawk on the Street. CNBC does not allow him to own stocks that might be discussed on the program. Beginning in 2001 he hosted a syndicated radio show called Real Money, which ran until December 2006 and led to Mad Money.

Outside business news, Cramer appeared as himself in two episodes of Arrested Development in 2005 and was interviewed by Dan Rather on 60 Minutes that November. He was a guest judge on The Apprentice in 2007 and appeared in the 2008 film Iron Man, spoofing his own show, as well as in Wall Street: Money Never Sleeps. In March 2009 he had a widely covered exchange with Jon Stewart on The Daily Show.

Cramer's stock recommendations have drawn criticism at several points, including his advice during the 2008 financial crisis and comments about Bear Stearns in March 2008. In 2022 a fund manager filed to launch exchange-traded funds named for betting for or against his picks, an idea that grew out of a social media joke known as "Inverse Cramer".

His books include Confessions of a Street Addict (2002), Jim Cramer's Real Money (2005), Jim Cramer's Mad Money (2006), Jim Cramer's Get Rich Carefully (2013) and How to Make Money in Any Market (2025).

Personal life

Cramer lives in Summit, New Jersey, and has a summer house in Quogue, New York. With four other investors he bought the DeBary Inn in Summit in 2009, and he and his wife own a Mexican restaurant and bar in Carroll Gardens, Brooklyn. He was one of about 200 candidates considered for the Time 100 in 2009. He is a Philadelphia Eagles fan who has held season tickets for 20 years.