Jim Cramer的投资25条之一

牛市能赚，熊市能赚；猪，只能被宰。

如果我告诉你，从现在开始到11月，纳斯达克即将上涨1000点，你会怎么想？如果我告诉你，到了12月，纳斯达克将翻倍了，你会怎么办？翻倍之后，我再告诉你：来年三月，你还能抓住下一个1000点，你又会怎么做呢？

我想你会认为我是个疯子，疯言疯语不值得一听。但是假设你能被我说服，开始相信我的话，请问：难道你不想立刻拿到你在纳斯达克的每一分钱吗？？

也许你会说：这不适合我。我不想要1000点，不想翻倍，而且绝对不要最后的1000点。这样太危险了。

从大家这些天的言谈中可以看出，对于市场中存在的清醒论调，你会相信后者。你会认为这样能够避免象瘟疫一样蔓延的3000点。因为我们知道3000点一旦实现，大家能做的只有爬上铁塔，从上面跳下这么简单。

完全相同的情况，就发生在六年前。如今的市场赚钱很难，如果你躲过了股市难以置信的涨跌，你的眼睛是雪亮的。否则，在纳斯达克5000点的时候，你非跳楼不可。

这并非是不可避免的,除非我们是猪。奉上一句我非常喜欢的格言：

牛市能赚，熊市能赚；猪，只能被宰。

正是这句简单的，金融味不足的话在2000年救了我。

事实上，过去的一年，纳斯达克把钱分给了牛市；但是3000点之后，牛变成了猪，那些蜕变后的猪都被宰了。

常常，当我说出上面那句话时都会有人问我：“你怎么知道自己什么时候变猪呢？”我想这不是个愚蠢的问题。说的直白点，你不需要我告诉你。如果我们在2000年创了历史新高的时候你还没有当猪的感觉，我想你需要反省一下了。

我的目的是要继续留在这样的游戏中。而那些被纳斯达克的股灾消灭了的人们往往从不退出股市。他们从不觉得自己贪心。这些人将被自己猪一样的行为宰杀。

我也看电视，听新闻，也看文章。但与他人不同的是：我在那样的行情中没有留下遗憾。有人避开了3000点会感到罪过，这感觉甚至想令经理人自杀。

那一年的3月和4月，正是这种“不做股市猪”的信条让我一直留在了游戏中。这就是为什么我要天天提醒大家的：你已经达到你的预期利润了吗？你正在变成猪吗？因为你不会知道什么时候你所拥有的东西会烟消云散；你不会知道市场什么时候会面临灾难，在你无法肯定的时候，只有人性，才能引导你。

为了遵守这个信条，我付出了相应的代价。2000年3月，股票价格还是很高，一切都进展的很顺利。此时，我已经卖掉了很多股票。

直到我回头想的时候才意识到，是我那不过于贪婪的欲望救了我，所以我才能在股市存活下来。

Bulls, Bears Make Money, Pigs Get Slaughtered

*W*hat would you do if I told you the Nasdaq were to go up 1,000 points between now and November? What would you do if I told you the Nasdaq was going to double by December? How about if I told you that after it doubled, you would then catch another 1,000 points up by March?

First, I think you would tell me that I was nuts, and not worth listening to. But what if I were so persuasive that you believed me. Wouldn’t you want every penny you had in the Nasdaq right now?

Or would you say, “Nope, not for me, this one’s not worth catching. I don’t want the 1,000 points, I don’t want the double and I certainly don’t want that last 1,000 points. Way too dangerous for me.”

From the way people talk these days, with sober intonations about the market, total sobriety, you would believe the latter. You would think that people would avoid that 3,000-point move like the plague. Because we know how that 3,000-point up move turned out, we know that we simply climbed the stairs to jump off the tower.

Yet, that’s what happened six years ago, that exact same sequence. Knowing what we know now about how hard it is to make money in the market, I think we would regard ourselves as utter fools if we avoided that incredible move simply because we didn’t have to jump off the tower of Nasdaq 5000. It wasn’t inevitable.

It wasn’t inevitable unless we are pigs.

Which leads to one of my absolute favorite adages:

Bulls make money, bears make money, pigs get slaughtered.

Rules like that one saved me in 2000.

These days there’s plenty of revisionist history on the part of financial commentators, editors and occasionally even brokerage house personnel < if they let themselves wax philosophical > about what happened when the Nasdaq bubble burst. Those who tried to capitalize on it are now ridiculed. Those who avoided it are now held up as some sort of paragon worthy of Diogenes.

Hardly.

The truth is that for one year of our lives, the Nasdaq gave away money to those who were bulls, but after 3,000 points, the bulls morphed into pigs and everyone who was piggish got annihilated.

So often, when I bring this adage up, people ask me “How do you know when you are being a pig?” I know there’s not supposed to be any stupid questions out there, but the answer is, frankly, you don’t need me to tell you. If you weren’t feeling piggish after we hit an all-time high on the Nasdaq in 2000, you needed a shrink, pronto.

Remember, my goal is to stay in the game. The people who got wiped out by the Nasdaq crash tended to be people who never took anything off the table, who never felt greedy, who got slaughtered by their own piggishness.

Unlike so many others I see and hear on television or read in articles, I have no regrets about liking the market during that period. To have avoided those 3,000 points would have been sinful. It would have been suicidal for a professional manager.

But it was my desire not to be a pig that kept me in the game in March and April of that year. That’s why I remind people every day: Have you taken your profit? Have you booked anything? Or are you being a pig? Because you never know when things you own are going to crash. You never know when the market could be wiped out. You can’t have certainty. At those times, you have only human nature to guide you.

Whenever I struggle with a stock in my Action Alerts PLUS portfolio because I have booked so many profits that I feel I don’t have enough on my sheets, I console myself with the simple lesson of Nasdaq 5000. For example, I caught the oil move in a prudent way that made me a lot when it first started but couldn’t make me as much later, simply because I had taken stock off because I didn’t want to be a pig. That meant I would make less money than others who were in the patch. I accepted that, as I do every time I make the decision not to be a pig.

It’s the price I have to pay for following my adage. It always seems a high price when things are going well, as it did in March 2000 when I sold so much stock.

Until I look back and realize that my desire not to be too greedy saved me so I could live to play again.