The World Economic Forum will defer its Annual Meeting in Davos, Switzerland, in the light of continued uncertainty over the Omicron outbreak.

Really serious.

A divided panel of the Sixth U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals dissolved a stay issued by another court that had blocked the rules. The majority, in a 2-to-1 ruling, said legal challenges to the administration’s vaccination-and-testing requirements were likely to fail…. “OSHA has wide discretion to form and implement the best possible solution to ensure the health and safety of all workers, and has historically exercised that discretion,” Judge Jane Stranch wrote for the court.

Really, really fucking serious.

“I have Covid. I came down with Covid on Thursday night,” [Jim] Cramer said on “Squawk on the Street.” He added he’s been triple vaccinated: two shots of Moderna and a Moderna booster…. “I got it that night from someone who was tested that day,” he said. “The problem is it works so fast. You can’t stop it.”

Well, maybe not that serious….

Moderna, of Cambridge, Mass., said the authorized dosage of its booster shot increased levels of immune-system agents known as neutralizing antibodies against Omicron about 37 times pre-boost levels…. “What we showed is when you boost, you get a good brisk increase in antibody levels and they would be correlated with protection,” Moderna Chief Medical Officer Paul Burton said in an interview.

No wonder no one has any idea what the hell is going on.

“My clients are totally confused as, quite frankly, am I,” Erin McLaughlin, a labor and employment lawyer at Buchanan, Ingersoll & Rooney, said on Saturday. “My sense is that there are a lot of employers scrambling to try and put their mandate programs in place….” Adding a layer of confusion, many states and cities have created their own vaccine rules — some more stringent than the federal government’s, as in New York City, where an option to test out of vaccine requirements isn’t allowed, while some, like Florida, have sought to undermine OSHA’s rule.

The rapid spread of the virus’s Omicron variant continues to upend companies’ plans and force changes to policies…. Citigroup sent a memo to its staff in New York and New Jersey giving them the option to work from home through the holidays given the surge in cases in the New York metropolitan area. JPMorgan Chase and Morgan Stanley haven’t changed their policies, but staff are being given the flexibility to work from home, according to people familiar with the situation who declined to be identified discussing personnel matters…. Goldman Sachs reportedly told teams in New York to cancel holiday parties. The bank has already held several parties over the past few weeks. JPMorgan and Morgan Stanley are reportedly allowing individual teams and departments to go ahead with holiday parties (for now).

World Economic Forum’s Annual Meeting 2022 Deferred [press release]
Plans to return to the office grow murkier by the day. [NYT]
Whiplash on U.S. Vaccine Mandate Leaves Employers ‘Totally Confused’ [NYT]
Appeals Court Reinstates Biden Covid-19 Vaccine Rules for Large Employers [WSJ]
‘I have Covid,’ Jim Cramer says. He says he’s been triple vaccinated and has a mild case [CNBC]
Moderna Says Covid-19 Booster Dose Works Against Omicron Variant in Lab Tests [WSJ]

For more of the latest in litigation, regulation, deals and financial services trends, sign up for Finance Docket, a partnership between Breaking Media publications Above the Law and Dealbreaker.

Suffice it to say, Massachusetts Secretary of the Commonwealth William Galvin does not subscribe to Ben Mezrich’s rather facile view. To him, as ever when it comes to anyone doing anything financial, there are only villains.

[Keith] Gill, known as “Roaring Kitty” on YouTube and “DeepF—ingValue” on Reddit, became an Internet folk hero in January, thanks to his prescient bets on GameStop stock…. At the time, Mr. Gill was registered as a broker at MML Investors Services LLC, a broker-dealer and investment adviser whose parent company is MassMutual. His role was director of education and wellness, and he was responsible for creating educational materials used by the company and its client-facing registered agents….

[Galvin’s] office said that while MML prohibited broker-dealer employees from discussing securities on social media, the company didn’t have “reasonable policies and procedures in place to detect and monitor” such activity.

Clearly not. Nor, it seems were they particularly attentive to their rules for keeping tabs on big-ticket stock purchases by employees such as Gill, nor their restrictions on employees trading on others’ behalf.

Mr. Gill carried out nearly 1,700 trades in the accounts of three other people…. Such trading by a broker outside the brokerage firm for which the broker works must be approved in writing ahead of time, under Massachusetts regulations, the settlement said….

Mr. Gill had informed the company of his access to the accounts of one of those individuals, and requested permission to manage them, which the company denied, Mr. Galvin’s office said. Mr. Gill was also managing outside investment accounts for two other people, a fact MassMutual failed to identify, the settlement said.

A third-party electronic monitoring system used by MML should have flagged transactions of more than $250,000 in a single security. But Mr. Galvin’s office said the company had disabled tracking for that so-called “excessive-trading rule….” Mr. Gill “was licensed under [MML], and we look to them to police their own members or their agents,” Mr. Galvin said in an interview. “It’s almost stunning [that the company] could be so clueless when it comes to their employees.” He added that the incident spoke to the “lack of oversight on their part” and “created chaos in the marketplace….”

An inquiry into Mr. Gill’s registration in Massachusetts is pending, Mr. Galvin’s office said.

Also no fan of Gill and the Reddit hordes is Jim Cramer. Unfortunately for both he and Galvin, SEC chief Gary Gensler seems to be.

“If three hedge fund members work in concert to smash a short hedge fund, the 5 million Reddit people would say that’s legal, but perhaps it shouldn’t be,” Cramer said. “If 5 million people decide to smash a hedge fund that’s short, is that ok? What’s within the bounds of what you can do to smash a short seller?”…

“People come on your show and they advocate either to buy or sell a security,” Gensler said. “Before we had television, people did it on the radio, now we have various social media platforms.

“That’s not only free speech, but it’s part of what makes our capital markets robust, that people can disagree and disagree using the media of the day.”

MassMutual Fined for Failing to Oversee GameStop Trader Keith Gill, Others [WSJ]
Ex-Employer of GameStop Trader ‘Roaring Kitty’ Fined for Lack of Oversight [NYT]
SEC Chair Gensler defends Reddit, GameStop investors’ right to ‘smash’ short sellers [MarketWatch]

For more of the latest in litigation, regulation, deals and financial services trends, sign up for Finance Docket, a partnership between Breaking Media publications Above the Law and Dealbreaker.

Speaking at a legal conference Wednesday, Securities and Exchange Commission official John Coates said there are “some significant and yet undiscovered issues” with SPACs…. Those issues are “not something that’s going to stop them by any means, but they are relatively as yet incompletely worked through mechanisms, despite the fact they have been around for a while,” said Mr. Coates, who is acting director of the SEC’s Corporation Finance division…. “Their current surge is bringing the level of attention by many more participants in the market than previously had been involved, and that is turning up some questions that have to be thought through more carefully,” said Mr. Coates, who spoke at a legal conference sponsored by the Practising Law Institute.

Coates didn’t elaborate on those issues or questions or what prompted them, but we can’t help thinking that a trading card company mumbling something or other about NFTs taking advantage of the SPAC route at the moment at which both the SPAC craze and bored hunger for spending your money on crap abate as the pandemic subsides and people are mercifully able to do something else with their lives might have something to do with it.

Topps, which is best known for its baseball cards and Bazooka candy line, has agreed to go public through a merger with Mudrick Capital Acquisition Corporation II, a special purpose acquisition company, that values Topps at $1.3 billion…. While Topps is best known for its sports trading cards, it has branched out into interactive mobile apps to connect collectors and recently expanded into nonfungible tokens…./“This is the icing on the cake, going digital completely, with the analog still in place,” [Topps Chairman Michael] Eisner said.

A more perfect nutshelling of this deal than that perfectly meaningless and self-contradictory statement we certainly can’t imagine. It must be nearly impossible for the folks at Patreon to hold themselves from taking advantage of these rubes while they still can.

And speaking of getting in a little late, Jim Cramer thinks it’s a great idea for at least two companies.

“If you care about the future of either company or the long-term trajectory of their stocks, issuing shares up here is the right move,” Cramer said. “But the ‘hold the line’ crowd they hate these offerings … and they despise anyone who defends them….”

“AMC and GameStop need money,” Cramer said. “Raising capital is good for both companies and over the long haul, what’s good for the company should be good for the stock.”

For now, let’s give the last word to Carson Block, who ties these storylines together quite nicely.

"You've got the companies that are really deserving of being shorted, and then you've got the companies that you actually can short from a technical perspective. A lot of the intersection right now is SPACs."

Topps to go public through SPAC deal as baseball card company ventures into NFTs [CNBC]
SEC Official Warns on Growth of Blank-Check Firms [WSJ]
Patreon’s Valuation Triples to $4 Billion as Platform Draws Creators, Fans [WSJ]
Cramer says AMC, GameStop plans to sell more shares will be good in the long term [CNBC]
Short-seller Carson Block discussed GameStop, SPACs, and Archegos in a recent interview. Here are the 10 best quotes. [BI]

For more of the latest in litigation, regulation, deals and financial services trends, sign up for Finance Docket, a partnership between Breaking Media publications Above the Law and Dealbreaker.

Fourth quarter earnings season kicked off in earnest last week, and soon one of the most tumultuous years in financial markets history will be fully in the books.

Some of America’s largest banks set the tone on Friday with results befitting of 2020: equal parts optimism and existential worry.

The Early Reports
Buoyed by a reversal of loan loss reserves, Wells Fargo and Citigroup each bested earnings expectations.

Then there was JPMorgan. The bank revealed it turned a record $12.1 billion profit in Q4 and many analysts were swooning over the numbers. Colorful analyst Jim Cramer called it “one of the greatest quarters I have ever seen.”

• Prime Strength: The majority of JPMorgan’s customers are what they call “prime” borrowers who have, according to CEO Jamie Dimon, “a lot more income” than an average bank customer. Dimon noted these customers continued to pay down their credit card balances at an “extraordinary” pace.
• JPMorgan reported a 20% increase in trading revenues, meaning it successfully captured the volatility you may have seen in your brokerage account.

Still, investors were turned off by tepid loan growth and a still cautious outlook from Dimon, sending shares down nearly 2% on the day.

FinTech Drama
Responding to a question from an analyst, Jamie Dimon expressed concern about the growth of competition from emerging fintech players.

Making note of Visa, PayPal, Ant Financial, Tencent, Facebook, Google, Apple and Amazon, Dimon acknowledged there is a long list of talented companies he is “scared ****** of". Exact quote.

The Takeaway: There is good reason to be worried. Square, founded just over a decade ago, now has a market cap on par with that of Goldman Sachs. 

“His politics appall me, too, really appall me,” [Bob Mnuchin] replied, according to Mr. Saunders. “But he’s my son….”

Robert Mnuchin’s wife, Adriana, has reminded people that she is not Steven’s biological mother. (The couple married when he was a toddler.) She reluctantly attended Steven’s 2017 wedding to the Scottish-born actress Louise Linton. Ms. Mnuchin pretended her arm was injured in order to avoid having to shake hands with Mr. Trump, according to her grandson Zan Mnuchin Rozen.

Even Ms. Linton has said people shouldn’t assume she shares her husband’s politics.

Mr. Rozen, 22, wrote on Facebook in June that “my uncle has been complicit in, and in some cases directly culpable for, many years of the marginalization, persecution and stereotyping of black people in the United States.” His actions “cannot and will never be defensible…."

Mr. Mnuchin said in one of two recent interviews for this article that he tried to avoid discussing politics with his family.

That ability to ignore the things that are right in front of you have served Mnuchin well, insofar as he’s still Treasury secretary in spite of being terrible at it, and it’s also how he manages to be so in touch with the common man and his plight.

Mr. Mnuchin spoke regularly to the CNBC host Jim Cramer. Mr. Cramer seemed positioned to understand the plight of small companies because he owned a Mexican and an Italian restaurant in Brooklyn. When Mr. Mnuchin called in to his show, Mr. Cramer said small businesses needed money but couldn’t afford to go deeper into debt.

Indeed, it’s apparently the way Mnuchin got the job in the first place. A man with his record and any self-awareness wouldn’t be playing it up, but Steve-O lacks it, and with it the ability to understand why the second paragraph below is such a devastating indictment of him, the administration for which he works and America in general.

Mr. Mnuchin showed up for his job interview at Mr. Trump’s golf club in Bedminster, N.J., with three pages of notes detailing his credentials: He made partner at Goldman; he ran a hedge fund, Dune Capital; he earned a fortune buying and selling IndyMac Bank in California; he financed a slate of Hollywood movies.

Mr. Mnuchin’s career was a success — his net worth was more than $400 million — but he was hardly a top-tier financial player. He had never been a candidate to lead Goldman; Dune was small by hedge fund standards; IndyMac was tainted by allegations of abusive foreclosures; quite a few of his films were flops.

Steven Mnuchin Tried to Save the Economy. Not Even His Family Is Happy. [NYT]

And yet, in spite of Jim Cramer’s warnings, Icahn’s capitulation and the absolute lack of any reasonable grounds for hope for the company, over the past week Hertz shares inexplicably soared from around 40 cents to as much as $6.25, possibly due to day trader boredom. Since Hertz isn’t Tesla and there’s no good reason for said rally—the company is bankrupt and shareholders and probably gonna be wiped out—it could not last. And it did not, thanks to the folks at the New York Stock Exchange.

The NYSE had determined that Hertz’s shares are “no longer suitable” for listing on the exchange, after the company filed for bankruptcy after the May 22 closing bell….

The stock plummeted 39.7%, to pace all of the NYSE decliners, to close at $2.52. Trading volume reached 215.3 million shares, enough to make the stock the most actively traded on major U.S. exchanges, according to FactSet.

The stock’s selloff comes after it tumbled 24.4% on Tuesday, to snap a 3-day streak of gains in which the stock skyrocketed 574% to close at $5.53 on Monday. That closing price was 888% above the record low close of 56 cents on May 26 following the bankruptcy announcement.

Hertz’s stock gives back more than half of the postbankruptcy surge after NYSE delisting notice [MarketWatch]
Davey the Day Trader Deconstructed [WSJ]

Andrew Hauser, the BOE’s executive director of markets, said on Thursday that hedge-fund trading strategies in U.S. government debt morphed into “stress amplifiers” in March, when fund managers raced to meet rising margin calls….

“Initially these trades were conducted quietly. But as time went on, their speed and size –- running to hundreds of billions of dollars –- began to overwhelm dealers,” Hauser said at an event hosted by Bloomberg. Hauser called this development a “classic doom loop.”

Well, maybe that’s not exactly the worst part. The worst part may be having to publicly eat crow over the situation.

“When Covid hit, I was pretty much of the view that there was a good chance that the credit bubble had finally burst and the unwinding of that leverage would take years….”

“Well I’ve been humbled many times in my career, and I’m sure I’ll be many times in the future. And the last three weeks certainly fits that category,” he said.

No, wait: The worst part is definitely having to watch this guy rub your nose in your wrongness.

“The market got it right,” CNBC’s [Jim] Cramer said on “Squawk on the Street” on Friday. “The big hedge fund guys who told us that this was going to be the highest and worst and most dangerous since 1999, well they made an ill-advised prediction….” Cramer, instead, is listening to the CEOs of beaten down industries for guidance on where the market is headed. Cramer said they are seeing “pent up demand.”

They know nothing!

Hedge Fund Bets Made March Market Chaos Much Worse, BOE Says [Bloomberg]
Stanley Druckenmiller says he’s been ‘humbled’ by market comeback, underestimated the Fed [CNBC]
Blowout jobs report shows ‘big hedge fund guys’ got it wrong and the market was right, says Cramer [CNBC]

“I feel better today,” [Jim] Cramer said.

And there’s more! Now that the stock market has recovered a good bit from the crash whose worst fallout she already (totally innocently, she swears) avoided, Sen. Kelly Loeffler (R-New York Stock Exchange) is cashing out entirely. What a happy day!

She said that she and Sprecher, who is the chairman and CEO of Intercontinental Exchange, the company that owns the New York Stock Exchange, are selling off the individual shares not because she had to, but because she wanted to avoid further controversy.

Loeffler, who is the richest member of the Senate, said in a Wall Street Journal opinion page article announcing her decision that her stock holdings would be converted to mutual funds and exchange-traded funds by third-party advisors who handle her investments.

‘I feel better’ – Cramer praises Fed’s $2.3 trillion in loans to help businesses and governments [CNBC]
Sen. Kelly Loefller and her CEO husband will sell all individual stock shares after coronavirus trade furor [CNBC]
‘Sudden Black Hole’ for the Economy With Millions More Unemployed [NYT]
Fed’s Evan Sees Coronavirus Casting a Long Shadow on Economy [WSJ]
SBA Under Fire for Failing to Get Aid to Struggling Small Businesses [WSJ]
U.S. Stocks Log Best Week Since 1974 [WSJ]

Cure, Not yet.. Prevention...not yet... But death rate lower than the media wants to make out. However, the commercial effects--my job--could be more severe than thought...

— Jim Cramer (@jimcramer) February 24, 2020

Jimmy Chill knows if you call it an overreaction and it gets worse , you are a fool, if you say it's only going to get worse then you are a fear-monger.. So let's just deal with the facts. We have lost containment. Now we need to slow it.

— Jim Cramer (@jimcramer) February 24, 2020

Well, his old buddy has to say that Cramer isn’t living up to his self-anointed nickname, because as far as Larry Kudlow is concerned, noted epidemiologist Leon Cooperman is dead on with this coronavirus stuff.

“We have contained this. I won’t say [it’s] airtight, but it’s pretty close to airtight,” Kudlow told CNBC’s Kelly Evans on “The Exchange.” He added that, while the outbreak is a “human tragedy,” it will likely not be an “economic tragedy.”

“There will be some stumbles. We’re looking at numbers; it’s a little iffy,” Kudlow said. “But at the moment ... there’s no supply disruptions out there yet….”

Still, Kudlow said the U.S. is “holding up nicely,” adding, “All I can do is look at the numbers.”

Yes, let’s do that.

U.S. stocks turned lower Wednesday, giving up a strong early advance, as investors continued to assess the impact of the coronavirus epidemic and its economic fallout…. Investors were hoping for markets to stabilize after the Dow fell more than 1,900 points Monday and Tuesday in its largest two-day point decline on record.

The 10-year Treasury yield turned lower on Wednesday after an initial bump higher, falling to a new record low amid heightened fears about the fast-spreading coronavirus and its effect on the global economy.

Net leverage, a measure of industry risk appetite that takes into account long versus short positions, rose by about 5 percentage points, one of the fastest expansions in years, according to data compiled by Morgan Stanley’s prime brokerage unit.

While positioning like that could still pay off, it adds to a sense that traders got way too confident at a time when the coronavirus threat was showing no sign of subsiding.

Yup, just some totally normal, record-settingly bad number days, as fears about a pandemic (and number of coronavirus cases and countries recording them) continue to sweep the world beyond the White House gates. You’ve got to hand it to Kuddles, though: He is consistent.

Larry Kudlow says US has contained the coronavirus and the economy is holding up nicely [CNBC]
CNBC’s Jim Cramer on the coronavirus: We have lost containment and this could be worse than we thought [MarketWatch]
Stocks Give Up Gains; Treasury Yields Fall [WSJ]
10-year Treasury yield drops to new record low of 1.30% on coronavirus fears [CNBC]
Hedge Funds Ramped Up Leverage in Stocks Just Before Market Rout [Bloomberg]
Cases Rise in Italy and Iran, and Spread to Other Countries [NYT]

Well, we were fucking joking. We are clowns. What the fuck?

I agree with @jimcramer, the Fed should lower rates. They were WAY too early to raise, and Way too late to cut - and big dose quantitative tightening didn’t exactly help either. Where did I find this guy Jerome? Oh well, you can’t win them all!

— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) September 6, 2019

We already went down this road with Larry Kudlow taking over for Gary Cohn, and a few other things, so let's not make this joke come true, please. Even Jim himself must be a little concerned by the possibility that the actual president is considering him to be the actual Fed Chair.

We are so tired...

Back in December, with the S&P 500 down 10% from the highest level ever, Omega Advisors founder Leon Cooperman appeared on CNBC to plead the SEC to investigate computer trading for causing "Wild West" with markets. He said, “I think your next guest ought to be somebody from the SEC to explain why they have sat back calmly, quietly, without saying anything and allowing these algorithmic, trend-following models to wreak havoc with what has, up to now, been the best capital market in the world."

Markets found a bottom a couple of weeks later following Steve Mnuchin's infamous call to the PPT. As algos bid up stocks for the next few months, the hatred for computer trading dissipated. All was well again on Wall Street.

Then on March 4, after the S&P 500 had gained nearly 20% from the December low, stocks had a hiccup and indices reversed early gains to finish marginally lower. Jim Cramer had seen enough, blasting "mindless sell programs" as the culprit.

As always, the five-day dip was quickly bought and the S&P 500 ran up another 11% into the end of July to fresh all-time highs. Once again, the calls for the SEC to investigate computer trading disappeared, as did any blame on "mindless buy programs" that bid up stocks on every Fed and trade deal headline. 

So today, with markets sitting about 5% below the all-time highs set in late July, an “aghast” Cramer had once again seen enough, this time asking, “Why do they have to wreck our markets?”  While blasting "pajama traders," wondering "if it was a huge, huge seller who was so wrong," he asked, “why don’t they just go work for NASA?"

So while computer trading isn't likely to disappear anytime soon, it's equally likely this dip will once again be bought. In doing so, the hatred and calls for computer trading to be investigated will disappear until the next 1% dip. Despite it being harder than ever to get a job on Wall Street right now, it's unlikely the algo programmers will go work for NASA anytime soon, as the most in-demand jobs are in technology and operations.

The Fed is independent because politicization of monetary policy is dumb and a little dangerous. For instance, you wouldn't want the Fed dropping rates to zero in a strong economy just to keep the markets surging during an election cycle, therefore improving the reelection chances of an incumbent president but simultaneously surrendering all leverage in the case of a real recession.

Like we said, no normal person sees this as a good idea...

The stock market “would probably go up” if President Donald Trump were to remove Jerome Powell as chairman of the Federal Reserve, CNBC’s Jim Cramer speculated on Wednesday.

See?

But we think there might be a method to the madness our favorite unmedicated financial pundit is spewing this morning. What with all these other TV types getting a chance to play "Government" in the Trump administration, why not bring a little "Mad Money" to The Beltway?

On “Squawk on the Street,” Cramer connected the dots by reasoning that if the president were to act he would pick a replacement for Powell who would do his bidding.

The new person “takes rates down, does what the president wants,” said the “Mad Money” host, spinning a hypothetical. Lower interest rates are generally better for stocks.

Okay, we give Cramer credit for not looking directly into the camera, provocatively rubbing his hands across his ample chest and stage whispering "I'll give POTUS what he really wants," but we'd also caution him to check his thirst for Jay Powell's gig. 

Sure, you want to be Fed Chair, Jim Cramer, but you've got to start demonstrating that you can do Fed Speak. For instance, don't say anything too batshit for like the next 2 days, assume Powell holds rates, and then pounce. Just don't let your mouth get too nutty...

“Powell is living in a conventional world,” Cramer said, and then used a baseball analogy to explain. “The president is the Yankees and Powell is the Toledo Mud Hens.

We can't help you unless you want to help yourself, man.

Cramer: The stock market ‘would probably go up’ if Trump were to remove Powell as Fed chief [CNBC]

“I don’t trust this market at all,” warned Cramer on “Squawk on the Street” as stock futures indicated a higher Wall Street open, which came to pass. ”[Trump] has made it so we got to wait to be able to buy.”

Cramer said he was troubled by Trump’s barrage of tweets, calling them “a little erratic this morning” and a bit confusing.

“He’s really disturbing the zeitgeist of the stock market,” Cramer said. “He should knock the tweets off if he wants the Dow to start going up, at least today.”

So, just to recap: if you're someone who sold yesterday because you saw no other option and you're buying today because Trump is tweeting about how he needs The Fed to bail him out on this China tariffs gambit [or whatever he meant, the tweets are batshit], Jim Cramer thinks you're acting a little insane...Jim Cramer...thinks...YOU...are acting nutty.

This is what we in the business call an intervention. Only you can be the change you need.

Cramer: ‘I don’t trust this market at all’ because it’s so dependent on Trump tweets [CNBC]

Luckily, in this moment of fear and confusion, we have a clarion voice of truth to lead us through the miasma of global trade uncertainty:

People are saying that American companies that didn’t reduce their China exposure after months and months of watching Washington and Beijing clash on trade have only themselves to blame, CNBC’s Jim Cramer reported on Tuesday.

Oh? What does the King of Cramerica know that we don't?

“I’m also told that they are like, ‘Are you kidding me, you had a full year to move out of China. If you didn’t move out of China now, it’s your own fault,’” Cramer said on “Squawk on the Street. ”

Hahaha, Jim's source sounds fun! We can almost hear a White House insider talking like that, in like a smug and nasal voice that comes through clearly on Jim's cellphone because this source has Jim's personal phone number...

“My people I talk to said two numbers determine everything, 3.2% GDP and 3.6% unemployment. That’s when things changed. In other words, the Chinese played a little tougher but they overplayed their hand is what my people say. They overplayed their hand given the numbers of what we have” on the economy in the United States, Cramer said.

Jim's people seem to really like the simplicity of two macroeconomic data points that reveal strength without context, and also have a real interest in making the White House look tough on this China deal as the market shits its pants. Jim's people also seem to like shiny ties, name-dropping and talking to Jim because this is so obviously Larry Kudlow that we are fucking embarrassed to have even spent time on this...

Cramer: These are the two numbers that gave Trump confidence to hit China with new tariff threat [CNBC]

"With these low inflation numbers, I think the Fed is actually looking at rate cuts."

Considering Jay Powell spoke less than 24 hours ago, and said nothing even close to this, that looks very much like a lie. 

We understand that Larry's job right now is to be a fluffer for the stock market so that the president can maintain a mood, and that Kuddles has been brushing up against the edges of truth for months, but this is just lazy. Kuddles is a sublime practitioner of bullshit, and a master of making nonsense seem borderline logical when speaking into a TV camera. It's embarrassing to see Larry reduced to a dumb and obvious lie. We expect this from Mnuchin or Wilbur, but Larry can do better. If he can't, then maybe it's time to send him home to where he belongs: a prime table at Lutece in 1997.

Either that or put Kuddles on The Fed alongside Jim Cramer, because some love affairs should never die.

....and deregulation which have produced non-inflationary prosperity for all Americans. I’ve asked Steve to work with me toward future economic growth in our Country.

— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) May 2, 2019

Welp, at least Steve isn't the only unqualified dipshit to be told by Trump via tweet that even the most partisan GOP Senate membership since Reconstruction couldn't stomach letting him make monetary policy in real life.

We won't lie; we're gonna miss this clown. Few people are so born to provide content for a snarky finance blog that enjoys making fun of idiots with zero self-awareness. But on the other hand, we can now get ready for our wall-to-wall coverage of Jim Cramer's confirmation to the Federal Reserve Board of Governors. Mad Money, INDEED!

UPDATE: Stephen Moore has released a totally pre-written and not-at-all-hastily prepared letter to the president that is full of syntax problems and punctuation nightmares because of the emotional context and not because Moore got dumped on Twitter and had to make this look legit:

Mr. President, I was honored and grateful that you asked me to serve on the Federal Reserve Board. Your economic policies have been a spectacular success for American workers. Record low unemployment, 3.2% growth, seven million job openings, and a near 40% rise in the stock market with five quarters now of 3% economic growth, something your critics said could never happen. Trumponomics has been VINDICATED. 

Your confidence in me makes what I am about to say much harder. I am respectfully asking that you withdraw my name from consideration. The unrelenting attacks on my character have become untenable for me and my family and 3 more months of this would be too hard on us. 

As you know, for the last four years nearly since the start of your campaign for President, I have been an advocate of your economic agenda and am proud to have played a small role in helping make that happen. I will continue to be a loud economic voice advocating for your policies, which will keep us on a prosperous path of 3 to 4% growth with rising wages and low inflation for as far as the eye can see,. I am always at your disposal.  

With the greatest regards and respect.

Stephen Moore

BigPow has blamed for everything short of bad weather since he took over at The Fed, and it seems unlikely that Trump, half of Wall Street and your very libertarian Uncle Dale will ever let Jay Powell feel joy again.

And then there's this...

#Fed chair Jay Powell meets with a group of students at Mississippi Valley State University pic.twitter.com/iNxovFCTnE

— Paul Kiernan (@pkwsj) February 12, 2019

For a guy who takes a lot of shit for being the wealthiest Fed Chair since World War II, Powell sure isn't acting very rich. If we had Jay Powell's money, we'd look out at that room and think to ourselves "Fuck this job. Jim Cramer can have it."

We wonder if anyone will say something crazy...

Suntrust and BBT! WOW,, I thought consolidation was over. $GS and $C should merge b/c of tangible book value discount. https://t.co/fn9MyEmr98 club names.

— Jim Cramer (@jimcramer) February 7, 2019

That sound you hear is every single investment banker at Citi grabbing some kind of blunt weapon off their desk and ordering an Uber to Englewood Cliffs.

CNBC’s Jim Cramer went off on Federal Reserve Chairman Jerome Powell, saying President Donald Trump is right to worry about a possible recession in 2019 as a result of the central bank chief’s interest rate hikes.
“The president is spot on,” Cramer said on CNBC’s “Mad Money” on Wednesday evening, after the Powell Fed raised rates for the fourth time in 2018 and projected two more increases next year. “The Fed is perfectly happy to gradually strangle the economy, the U.S. economy, in order to stamp out inflation, or the potential of inflation. And that’s bad news for corporate earnings” and the stock market.

Everyone's favorite bug-eyed equities gamer went on to say totally reasonable things like the Dow could have been down 1,000 points, the market is being attacked and that the economy is actually not strong (which is actually logical for Jim Cramer since he thinks the stock market is the economy). But the most interesting thing Cramer screeched on the TV yesterday was this:

“If I were running Trump’s re-election campaign, Jay [Jerome] Powell would be my worst nightmare,” said Cramer, who, like the president, has been calling on Powell to stop. Powell apologists, “they must have no sense or empathy for what’s about to happen to the working person in this country,” Cramer said.

Oh? That's a strong move Jimbo. Is someone conflating his jealousy of Larry Kudlow's DC power move with his own hatred of a measured economist leading the Federal Reserve? Because, when it comes to President Chauncey Gardner, this is less an afternoon rant than it is a job application.

Anyone who's been vaguely following this whole thing knows that the best way to get Trump's attention is to make him politically afraid of failure...on television. Saying into a camera that Jay Powell is an existential threat to Donald's perma-campaign and an underminer who could cost Trump his base is tantamount to a thought bubble materializing over Jim's head with the phrase "Federal Reserve Chairman James Cramer." The leader of the free world only wants TV personalities in his administration, and who fits that bill more than a guy who hits buttons, throws stuffed animals and yells about how he likes trucking company FUNDAMENTALS?

We're not saying that Trump shouldn't fire Powell and appoint Jim Cramer as America's central banker (hey, that would be great for business), but we are saying that whether or not you agree with Jay Powell, we might want to be wary of a future in which the Fed funds rate is tied to how well the performance of Philadelphia sports teams and how it affects the mood of America's central banker.

Cramer: Fed chief Jerome Powell is Trump’s worst re-election nightmare [CNBC]

"I have tremendous contempt for this market, because every time you try to make money with it, it cuts your heart out. That's a bear market. People don't want to call it a bear market. But what do they need?" Cramer asked, rhetorically.
"It's a bear market rally," he said. "You go down really hard last week. And then you come in on Monday and it's up a lot. People come in. They buy it and lose money."

Don't get Philly Jimmy started on bears who let you go down hard on them only to take your money and run away with it a few days later. He has feelings, you guys, REAL FEELINGS!!!

"People come in at 250 [points higher] and get their heads cut off. I just feel ashamed," said Cramer. "It's very hard to be very positive about the market unless you're an idiot. Let it go up for three or four days and then sell some."

In fairness to Jim, it seems natural to feel shame after getting your head cut off by a bear you just went down on. So, thanks A LOT, Jay Powell!

Cramer: 'I have tremendous contempt for this market' — it's a bear market not a correction [CNBC]

And Larry supercharges his superpower by doing the one thing that Gary Cohn never figured out how to do: Fully ignoring the words of Donald Trump.

Kudlow has been brilliant going on TV after some batshit Trumpian outburst and charmingly smirking that everyone is getting carried away by what the president said when they should be focused on what he means. Trade wars, direct attacks on publicly-listed American companies, more trade wars, outright falsehoods about simple economic realities...there is nothing that Trump can say that Larry can hear and worry about because Larry hit the mute button on his office TV months ago and then shattered the remote with his foot. It's easy to defend to the president when FoxNews is just a silent film of Brian Killmeade drooling at blond people.

Watch how well it's working for Kuddles: Late last night, after watching his beloved Dow Industrial Average shit itself hard, Trump went on FoxNews and called the Federal Reserve "loco." A strange choice of words for a guy who has been consistently trying to say he respects the Fed's independence while simultaneously conveying that he does not at all. "Loco" is a blunt and un-spinnable attack on Jay Powell, an objective bitch slap at the guy Trump hired to ignore him on monetary policy.

Who can possibly act like that wasn't a major faux pas by our emotionally adolescent Commander-in-Chief? Send in the Kuddles!:

"The president has his own views. He's stated them many times. There's nothing new here as far as I can tell," Kudlow told CNBC's "Squawk on the Street. "We all know the Fed is independent. The president is not dictating policy to the Fed. He didn't say anything remotely like that."

Goddamn but Larry Kudlow is one slick sonuvabitch! And he's not wrong, the president did share his own view; that Jay Powell and his team are insane.

Now we didn't watch the segment, but we fancy ourselves an expert on Kudlow CNBC appearances so we'll assume that the next bit went like this:

CARL QUINTANILLA: But Larry, what about the "Loco" thing? That's a pretty - let's say "interesting" choice of words there...Should that not concern Jay Powell?

JIM CRAMER [shrieking for some reason]: YEAH, LAR, WHAT ABOUT "LOCO"?

KUDLOW: Listen, Carl, have you ever had the Doritos Taco Loco Supreme at Taco Bell? Jimmy, I know you have, my friend...

CRAMER: IT'S DELISH!!!

KUDLOW: Jim's right there, Carl, it's a delicious tasty taco meal. And it's"Loco." That tasty taco is also "Loco," and in that prism it's a compliment. Maybe the president is using "Loco" in that context; to call Jay and the other Fed Governors "Delicious." I'm choosing to see it that way as I'm certain it's what he means, and I'd like him to call me that too, honestly [chuckles]...

CRAMER: YOU WOULD, YOU WOULD, HAHAHAHA [spins in chair]

KUDLOW: You know I would, my friend, and I'd like to call the president "Loco" too! "Loco" for this equally "Loco" economy that he's created through tax cuts and other stuff, but mostly tax cuts which are great and stimulative and we need more of...forever. Does that answer your question, Carl?

QUINTANILLA: Always great to see you, Larry.

CRAMER: I LOVE YOU FOREVER!!!

[Commercial break]

Larry Kudlow says the Fed is independent and the president is not dictating policy to central bank [CNBC]

Not Jim Cramer, who saw this:

And then felt this...out loud...on TV:

"I really miss Janet Yellen. I miss her because what she would do is say, 'you know I need more inputs. I'll look at the market, it's down 500 points. Maybe we should make some calls,'" he said.
"She was a student. She wasn't a teacher. She was a student and she learned from people," he said.

We miss her too, Jimmy...we miss her too.

After all, one of the alternatives is Peter Navarro, a possibly unhinged China hawk who enjoys producing economic agitprop in his spare time and whose recent ascendancy in the Trump White House seems to have translated directly into the imposition of steel and aluminum tariffs that left the world aghast and underscored the notion that this administration doesn't differentiate between allies and foes when it comes to implementing the President's nebulous "America first" agenda.

So you know, "anyone but Peter."

When it comes to trade, Kudlow has been a sharp critic of the tariffs, which seems to suggest it wouldn't be a terrible idea to install him in the square-shouldered void left by Gary Cohn (who this morning learned that the top job at Goldman he coveted will in all likelihood be bequeathed to "DJ D. Sol").

And although the "correct" answer to a Sophie's choice is always just "no", we don't get a say in this, so I suppose it's "good" (?) news that according to Jim Cramer, Larry is well on his way to leading Trump’s National Economic Council.

Of course the downside to this is that it represents a further descent into the absurd. We're talking about subbing in an 80s relic, complete with suspenders, french cuffs and a contrasting white collar - Trump might as well just go to eBay, look up "Gordon Gekko doll, original, in box" and plop it down in a chair with a pack of Merit Ultra Lights in front of it.

Larry would tell Trump what he wants to hear on taxes which would be good for the President's ego, but let's be honest, aren't we just setting Larry up to fail here? You can't expect someone who has openly criticized Trump (let alone someone who has criticized him lately) to succeed in an environment where being a shameless sycophant is a job requirement. Plus, Peter Navarro will be out for his head immediately.

Larry did advise Trump during the campaign and he's got a Reagan connection, which Trump could point to as "evidence" of his imagined spiritual connection to The Gipper.

Ultimately, this might go ok for a while. Right up until Larry says the wrong thing about protectionism when Trump's already irritated at something completely unrelated, at which point Larry would become just the latest casualty of the Trumpian black hole from which no one has yet emerged unscathed once they've been sucked in.

Anyway, the punchline in all of this is the bolded passage in the headline below:

Larry Kudlow is the front-runner to lead President Trump’s National Economic Council, CNBC’s Jim Cramer reports, without saying where he obtained the information.

Hmmm. Now how do you imagine Jim might have come across that "information"?

And that unbridled relief of realizing a dream deferred was perhaps best personified by the reaction of one man/one fan/one stock picker extroidinaire; Jim Cramer. The Mad One, a lifelong Eagles fan, was at the game last night and the magic of his attendance will be preserved for all time thanks to the Twitter account of his wife, Lisa Detwiler. As the confetti dropped from the rafters and Tom Brady dropped to his plant-based ass, Detwiler turned he camera phone on her husband and caprtured a moment of...magic?

Sure, we can all mock what Jim Cramer looks like while weeping about sports, but if we're honest with ourselves don't we all wish that we felt about something like Jim Cramer feels about the Philadelphia Eagles?

So, congrats to Cramer and his team. Now please never make us watch you do this ever again...

Oh, speaking of Tesla, didn't his namesake car company report earnings yesterday? How did that go?

ELON MUSK: Cool. All right, so yeah, we'll just go right into Q&A. Overall, I'm very proud of Tesla for our accomplishments in the first quarter, and I think second quarter is going to be great too. And, yeah, so overall I think we're executing well. And I'm feeling quite optimistic about the future.

Tesla beat revenue by a comfy little margin ($2.7B vs $2.62B) but also reported a considerably deeper loss per share of $1.33 than the expected 81 cents. So like any CEO of a company looking to push the narrative of a mixed quarter, Elon obviously took a careful tone in predicting what Tesla would do going forward. He was optimistic, sure, but he wasn't going to get carried away when pressed on the macro limits of electric power in the future of transportation:

ELON MUSK: Yeah, I'm not sure what you're saying. I'm absolutely confident that electric powered trains will – electric vehicles will occupy every segment without exception. And I don't want to jump the gun on the Tesla Semi truck unveiling later this year, but I think, it's going to be a good (3:54) product, and will defy people's expectations on what an electric truck can do. So I really do not see any segment of transport that will not be electric, in fact I'm highly confident that all transport will go fully electric with the ironic exception of rockets. Yeah, just kidding.

Oh good, he wedged a space reference in there. Well, then he must of at least selected his word delicately when talking about the infamously confusing pricing and comps on Tesla's upcoming Model 3 release...

ELON MUSK: There have been roughly four versions of Model S, and we're on the fourth version of Model 3, will be also version 4. It's a little confusing, because one's a letter and the other's a number. But Model 3 was supposed to be called the Model E. But then Ford intended to sue us, and then I thought we were being all clever by calling it the Model 3, but actually the joke's on me, because it caused confusion in the marketplace, so we're doing our best to clear up that confusion so people do not think that Model 3 is somehow superior to Model S. Actually Model S will be better than Model 3, as it should be, because it's a more expensive car.

Jesus H. Kanye, he just won't stop talking...As long as no one asks him about making one million cars a year this shouldn't get too out of hand...

TYLER CHARLES FRANK, BAIRD & CO.: Right, okay. And just, Elon you had previously pulled out a target of a million cars per year by 2020. Do you still think that's achievable? And what needs to take place in order to get there?
ELON MUSK: Yeah, I do. I think we need to come out with the Model Y sometime in 2020 or aspirationally late 2019. And then I think that a million units is quite likely, combined, yeah. Maybe more.

This fucking guy, unbridled and unafraid without going the full Lennon. Being confident and pushing the envelope is badass but even Elon won't compare Tesla t the Jesus that is Apple...

BRIAN JOHNSON, BARCLAYS: Okay. Second, a couple years ago when the stock was at $200, in answer to one of my questions, Elon, you outlined a scenario where you could get to $700 billion in market cap. That's about where Apple was at the time. We're two years later, you're obviously close to the Model 3 launch, how are you looking at that?
ELON MUSK: Well, now I may want to preface this by of course I could be completely delusional, but I think I see a clear path to that outcome...The set of steps necessary to achieve that outcome seems pretty obvious. I am heavily involved in Tesla going – incredibly good at the machine that builds the machine. Which involves, by the way, a tremendous amount of software. This is not just a bunch of robots that are sitting there. It's the programming of robots and how they interact. And it's far more complex than the software in the car. I mean, I think, this is just going to be a very difficult thing for other manufacturers to copy. I would not know what to do if I were in their position.

Word of advice here: It you have to preface a statement with the potential of your own delusion on an earnings call, stop FUCKING TALKING. And definitely don't keep talking about building robots to build robots so robots can learn to love robots lest you come off sounding like the ayahuasca you drank during introductions is finally kicking in. We're not saying that Elon reached peak crazy on this call, but look what he did to poor Jimmy Cramer:

That's not right, Elon, you don't just break The Cramer.

With the singularity looming ever closer, Wall Street seems to be taking pilate classes in order to bend fully over backwards for our future robot overlords. But one man is not ready to surrender. One man will fight for mankind. One man (one cartoon of a man) will resist the cold brutality of robo-traders and die alongside his fellow, failing man.

The process of an investor deciding whether a particular stock will make a good investment is not a thing of the past, CNBC's Jim Cramer said Wednesday.
"People have more horse sense than we think," Cramer said on "Squawk on the Street."

Horse sense being the key skill for active management of course.

And financial television's most popular carnival barker/pea activist is even prepared to offer advice to the resistance:

"I say, 'Look around, do a little homework,'" he said. "If you like it, if you have the temperament, then you should own some individual stocks."

So, yeah, we're doomed.

Jim Cramer on why human stock picking is not dead [CNBC]

Once upon a time, Stephen K. Bannon was just a happy-go-lucky capitalist, bouncing between jobs as a Goldman Sachs banker, a penny-stock kingpin, and eventually a Hollywood producer. But there's something lurking in his origin story that set him on a starkly different course, an event jarring enough to steer the jet-setting investor into the hard-right nativism of Breitbart News and the Trump White House. That something was our dear friend Jim Cramer.

In a profile published Tuesday in the Wall Street Journal, we meet Marty Bannon, the 95-year-old father of Steve Bannon and his four siblings. Bannon the elder, we learn, was a humble middle-class striver, an AT&T company man who socked away his life savings in shares of his lifetime employer.

With his children’s security a priority, Marty Bannon began accumulating phone-company stock, which AT&T occasionally made available to employees. He bought all he could, even taking out loans against insurance policies for some purchases. In his mind, the stock was a safety net for his family if something happened to him.

“You had to watch every penny,” he says. “I was always worried that I would leave them without. I told myself I would never sell those stocks.”

Then came 2008. One day the eighty-something Marty Bannon flipped through cable business news channels in horror as he watched his precious life savings tumble with the rest of the market. Eventually he saw a familiar goatee:

That Oct. 6, financial analyst Jim Cramer told “Today” show viewers to pull money from the stock market if they needed any cash for the next five years. Steve Bannon says the warning spooked this father.

“I could see his confidence in the system was shattered,” Steve Bannon recalls. “He was older, in his 80s. But all these guys from the Depression, it’s a risk-averse generation because of the horrible things they saw in their youth. He was rattled.”

Of course, this wasn't Cramer's only bad call during the crisis (recall Bear Stearns). But it was a doozy. Investors who disregarded it would have seen a rise of 16 percent in the S&P 500 over the next year. It was especially bad advice if your portfolio consisted entirely of AT&T, which had its lowest day Oct. 10. (It has nearly doubled since then.)

A panicked Marty Bannon sold his AT&T shares at a loss of $100,000 from when he bought them, while his investment-banker son – who was for some reason left out of the loop during the whole ordeal – lost all faith in Wall Street, globalized capitalism and the entire economic order that had made him a millionaire:

The way Steve Bannon sees it, the institutions his father put his faith in failed him. He says Wall Street greed created the bubble that put his father’s investments at risk, and he blames the inertia of the Washington establishment for failing to prevent it.

“The problem we’ve had is that in the ascendant economy—Silicon Valley, Wall Street, Hollywood—the Marty Bannons of the world were getting washed out to sea, and nobody was paying attention to them,” he says.

It was that moment when Bannon began his steady transition to alt-right agit-prop king and eventual Svengali of the Trump Oval Office, where he cites Darth Vader as an inspiration and says things like “darkness is good.” And it's all because of Jim Cramer.

Steve Bannon and the Making of an Economic Nationalist [WSJ]

There! pic.twitter.com/FK02AdzZCT

— Jim Cramer (@jimcramer) January 25, 2017

Later today, Neil Cavuto will do deep meditation, pushing the S&P over 2,500.

It will not work.

Wait, what? Seriously, Stumpf, are you even trying anymore?

But the embattled executive's choice of venue wasn't even the most confusing part of this whole deal. Cramer came out blazing with his trademark "subtlety" and "coherent eloquence," basically asking Stumpf off the bat "WTF, dude?"

The man with the last un-ironic goatee on television even pushed Stumpf hard on his recent claims that Wells Fargo's fraud nightmare was caused by a handful of bad actors inside the bank.

CRAMER: And then today I see Wells Fargo CEO defends bank culture, lays blame with bad employees. That's not you. You don't leave blame with bad. You're the head coach. You told 'em you're the Vince Lombardi. Vince Lombardi never blamed the linemen.

Stumpf's response was...not perfect.

STUMPF: Abs-- you know, let me tell you-- say one more time, we take accountability for not getting it right 100% of the time. Let me tell you a little bit about our business. We have at any one time 100,000 team members in our branch and retail bank network. And we hire people and people turn over, of those 100,000 the vast majority do the right thing, they come to work. Their life's work and mission is to help people. And I love these people. Every year-- on average for the last five years 1,000 did not do the right thing. And they--

Because averaging out your employees' fraudulent behavior like an actuary of dipshittery is not something people tend to ignore, Cramer jumped all over Stumpf's numbers...

CRAMER: Now, look at the numbers. 1,000 out of how many?

STUMPF: Out of 100,000. Now-- but that's still 1,000 too many. And it's-- and it's over a five-year period, so that's how you get to the 5,300. And we've actually increased our investment in compliance and different tools to help make sure that this becomes a smaller and smaller number. But we all-- all levels of management feel responsible to make sure that we do it right every time.

Yeah, 1,000 is too many, especially when it's really 5,3000. Trying to bury what went so wrong by recasting the numbers on an annual average is not the type of move that screams "Accountability." In fact, it screams "Accounting."

Right off the bat with Cramer, Stumpf agains failed to make it crystal clear that he is taking real responsibility, and exchanges like this didn't help...

CRAMER: But at the same time, John, you're a buck-stops-here guy. Didn't the buck stop with you in this?

STUMPF: Well, of course it stops with all of us, and especially me. I-- I'm-- no-- I'm the leader, I-- I get it.

Oh, Stumpfy.

Later in the interview, Stumpf got bogged down in whether or not the 2 million unauthorized accounts were "fraudulent" or not, totally talked around the deeply nettlesome Carrie Tolstedt situation and said that he still "Loves" the practice of cross-selling products. The last item is more an issue of verb choice, but the choice was terrible.

In light of all that, the most ironic part of the chat was probably when Stumpf told Cramer in no uncertain terms that he not only deserves to remain CEO, he needs to.

STUMPF: Well, Jim, I think the best thing I could do right now is lead this company and lead this company forward. In fact, today we made actually an announcement about product sales goals. You know, we never intended for product sales and any dynamic or any part of a performance management system to be misinterpreted.

And how is that going, Stumpfy?

Wells Fargo CEO John Stumpf talks with CNBC's Cramer: 'I'm accountable' [CNBC]

But staring into his garden on Tuesday afternoon, America's favorite finance carny saw something that he hadn't seen much of recently; peas hope.

.@JimCramer's peas are unbelievably bullish, despite the #BrexitVote pic.twitter.com/y13ZTKki2y

— Mad Money On CNBC (@MadMoneyOnCNBC) June 28, 2016

All he is saying is give... No, we can't do it. However we can wish that Jim Cramer's peas have better market intuition than the man who planted them or else we're looking at a bunch of peas who are still holding sh!t-tons of Wachovia stock.

In 2008, Jim Cramer made two of the boldest calls of his career: that "Bear Stearns is fine!!!" and Lenny Dykstra "...is one of the great ones in this business," that business being the investing biz. Since those prescient calls, Bear Stearns collapsed into Jamie Dimon's arms for $10 a share and Lenny Dykstra:

• Saw his beloved Thousand Oaks mansion forced into foreclosure
• Moved into his car
• Was arrested and indicted on charges of bankruptcy fraud for ripping the toilets out of his foreclosed upon house
• Filed for Chapter 11
• Predicted he would emerge from bankruptcy with $150 million to his name
• Blamed his foreclosure on the "criminals" at JP Morgan
• Auctioned off phone calls with himself on Craiglist
• Allegedly bounced a check to a hooker, which he denies
• Described himself as "a lightning rod for money"
• Went to prison

What's the investing guru been up to lately? In addition to adding auteur to his C.V., he's developed a new money making strategy.

The former Mets center fielder — who this week published a tell-all memoir about the shady side of pro baseball — moonlights as a gigolo for elderly women, he revealed on the “The Howard Stern Show.” Dykstra, 53, confessed on the show that geezers pay him for “companionship” and romantic dinner dates. But he refused to say whether they gave him cash for sex.

And apparently he works quite hard for the money, though osteoporosis has become a risk factor.

One of the women, who is in her 80s, gets on his nerves because she “always wants to stick her f—ing tongue down my throat,” he told the shock jock. “We’re talking about grandma. You’re talking about a f–king gray bush, bro,” Dykstra said. The bigmouth baseball great doesn’t prefer to go all the way with grannies because, “their bones are brittle,” he added.

At press time, Cramer has yet to interview Dykstra about May-December LLC.

You don’t want to know about Lenny Dykstra’s twisted sex life [NYP]