Hi everyone,

For those of you who may not have access to the Stock Advisor discussion boards, I wanted to share this post on a comment Jim Cramer made recently (last night?) on his show, Mad Money.

A bit of context: These comments were about Netflix, a company I own and which hit 10-bagger status for me on Tuesday, when it topped $205 per share.



"I have talked endlessly about the need to ring the register when you have a double," Cramer said. "Focus on the fact the stock is up almost 100 percent in four months."

Cramer said he’s now taking the stock from a buy to a hold.

Investors who sell half "are playing with the house’s money," he said.

http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2010-12-02/netflix-investors-s...


Here's my beef with what Cramer is quoted as saying.

"Playing with the house's money" makes investing no different than gambling. It's not.

"Playing with the house's money" makes it perfectly fine to lose it all. After all, you're not out anything. It's not.

"Playing with the house's money" implies that investing is a competition against some big entity from whom you are trying to win something. It's not.

"Playing with the house's money" implies that you didn't earn the money. That's not true either.

IT'S NOT THE HOUSE'S MONEY! IT'S YOUR MONEY!

Sorry for shouting (in bold, even), but this is one phrase that really gets to me. You and I have earned that money by:

1) earning the capital to invest in the first place,
2) risking the loss of that capital in some company that has a bunch of risks associated with it,
3) spending a whole bunch of time reading about and learning about the company, and
4) having the intestinal fortitude to hold on for a double, a triple, a 5-bagger, a 10-bagger, a 12-bagger, whatever, when most investors get freaked out over a 50% rise and want to cash in and thus never having the chance at those really big returns.

Skull sweat, gut sweat (okay, that's gross, but I hope you get what I mean), and lots and lots of posts. That money is earned ... every penny of it. In whatever investment we make.

It is never "the house's money."

Grrr.

Jim