Jim Cramer, the host of CNBC’s Mad Money and a former hedge fund manager, has built a reputation for getting market calls wrong. Over the years, his frequent misfires have inspired various ‘Inverse Cramer’ strategies and exchange-traded funds (ETFs), which helped investors buy the stocks he criticized and avoid the ones he praised.

One of them is the Inverse Cramer Strategy. It tracks Cramer’s ten most frequently mentioned stocks over the past 30 days, both bullish and bearish calls, and pairs the positions with a long holding in the broader market index as a hedge.

How much would an Inverse Cramer investment be worth now?

Last year, the results were rather surprising. Namely, instead of outsmarting Cramer, the Inverse Cramer Strategy posted a 22.69% loss between January 1, 2025, and January 1, 2026. 

Put simply, a $1,000 investment at the start of 2025 would now be worth roughly $773.10, implying a nearly $230 loss.

For comparison, Nvidia (NASDAQ: NVDA), one of Cramer’s favorite stocks, is up nearly 35% over the same period. More impressively, Palantir (NASDAQ: PLTR), another one of his most beloved picks, has gained 136% over the past year.

Cramer has also been vocal about some dividend stocks, for instance, Enbridge (NYSE: ENB), Realty Income (NYSE: O), and Pfizer (NYSE: PFE). The first two are up 11% and 7% on the year, respectively, while Pfizer is 6% in the red. 

Some of these results underscore the gap between humor and investable reality. For example, over the same period, the S&P 500 delivered positive returns of approximately 16.5%, meaning the Inverse Cramer strategy lagged behind the broader market, and quite significantly.

Still, it bears mentioning that some other ‘Inverse Cramer’ competitors have posted radically different results. Notably, Autopilot’s Inverse Cramer trading bot, which focuses on short and long calls alike, is up 58% over the last 12 months. Had you taken that approach, your $1,000 would have translated into $1,580.

Why Inverse Cramer investments are risky

In sum, while mocking Cramer remains popular online, translating the joke into a consistent market-beating strategy has proven far more difficult. 

Part of the problem could be the very design of some of the strategies, which often react to Cramer’s short-term recommendations, which can sometimes be controversial, contradictory, and as volatile as the stocks themselves. 

The stark contrast between the two strategies mentioned above, therefore, does not illustrate the superiority of one approach but rather the inherent riskiness of both.

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