Jim Cramer Says to Buy CDs

Amazingly, Jim Cramer, the biggest proponent of the stock market was interviewed on NBC’s Today show the other day and couldn't say anything other than to buy CDs.

It is a video so extraordinary that you need to watch it here.

To be clear, BestCashCow thinks that CDs should always be an important part of a well-diversified, safe portfolio. We provide the most comprehensive list of the best online CD rates here, and we also encourage folks to look at rates at banks near them and at credit unions near them.

But, we’ve been suggesting people take extreme caution around anything longer than a year, even though two-year CD rates are now above 3% and may attract attention. In fact, I wrote just yesterday that I do not find a one-year CD at 2.85% APY to be particularly attractive since online savings rates are strong and the Fed is still raising rates.

But, what is quite extraordinary here is that Cramer could be so easily perturbed (to put it mildly) by the recent market volatility. This is, in fact, the same man who was encouraging people to buy into Facebook at 200, Nvidia at 290, and Amazon at 2000 in November.

I speak at conferences and extol the virtues of CDs, but I certainly wouldn’t tell people to run out of the market here, and I have no intention of unloading my Nvidia or Amazon at this time.

So what is Cramer afraid of? I, for one, suspect he just trying to create a record of saying everything imaginable in the most vague way possible so that he can point to it and say he was right (especially if we have a 2009 scenario and he winds up on the Daily Show again).