Investment guru Jim Cramer brought his hit CNBC show "Mad Money" to the Freeman School in October as part of its "Back to School" tour.
“Mad Money” host Jim Cramer is famous for his unabashedly bullish take on the stock market, so it was only fitting that the investment guru should bring his CNBC television show to a city like New Orleans and a school like Freeman.
“The reason we’re down here at Tulane’s terrific Freeman School of Business is because this place is suffused with optimism!” Cramer announced to raucous cheers from the more than 700 fans packed into Dixon Hall. “On Bourbon Street, the glass or bottle—or go cup—always looks three quarters full, perhaps because the people here know what a lot of water looks like.”
Cramer hosted “Mad Money” in front of a live audience at Tulane in October as part of the show’s “Back to School” tour. Since 2006, “Mad Money” has visited more than a dozen universities, including Harvard, Columbia, University of Southern California, Georgetown and University of Texas at Austin, but this was the show’s first visit to the Big Easy, which Cramer said occupies a special place in “Mad Money” lore: His signature catchphrase— “Booyah!”—originated with a caller to Cramer’s show from New Orleans.
Beginning with his entrance—accompanied by the Green Wave mascot, pompom-waving cheerleaders and the Tulane marching band playing “When the Saints Go Marching In”— the broadcast had a decidedly local flavor. Early in the show, Cramer interviewed Jim Bernhard, chairman and CEO of the Baton Rouge-based Shaw Group, who made a point of thanking the Freeman School for choosing Shaw as the very first company to cover when the Burkenroad Reports program was founded. Later, Cramer highlighted CenturyLink, a Monroe, La., firm that has quietly become the nation’s largest rural telephone company.
More than 700 fans packed Dixon Hall auditorium on Tulane's campus to cheer on Cramer and be part of "Mad Money."
While the audience included a few faculty, alumni and guests, the vast majority of the loud, “booyah”-shouting crowd were students. Manish Mishra (BSM ’12) got the chance to ask Cramer about Ray Ozzie’s resignation from Microsoft (Cramer thought it was good news for Apple), while Mike Jones (MFIN ’11) asked which stock would benefit the most from the Haynesville and Marcellus shale developments (Cramer’s pick was Chesapeake Energy).
One of the biggest spotlights of the evening was reserved for Burkenroad Reports, which Cramer praised for regularly outperforming the big guys. Toward the end of the show, Cramer invited Burkenroad analysts to the stage to pitch their stocks to him. Liam Kelly (MBA ’11) touted McMoran Exploration, which he defended as a great long-term value despite Cramer’s worries over weak Q3 production numbers. Craig Kolwicz (BSM ’11) pitched Cyberonics, whose “depression box” device—which the company is currently seeking approval for—Cramer called a home run.
Between segments, Cramer joked with the crowd and offered some behind-the-scenes insights about his on-the-air analysis.
“You business school guys will recognize that I’m doing present value analysis and I’m also doing compound interest,” Cramer explained, “but you can’t say that because then people will just turn the channel to CNN or something.”
To see photos and videos from “Mad Money” at Tulane, visit http://www.freeman.tulane.edu/madmoney.
